Two coffee roasters in the Bay Area are headed to national competition this month in Nashville.
Cattle Dog Coffee Roasters has been around for nine years.
"We get beans from all over the world. Right now we have about 30 different countries," said owner James Cook.
The shop goes through 700 pounds of beans a month. Cook is a career chef and now a master in coffee. He roasts the beans in the 1,200-square-foot shop.
A specialty item for the business is its cold brew. "It's cold water, slowly dripping over the beans. It produces less acid, more flavor, more caffeine," Cook said.
It takes over 24 hours to make it, and it's qualified for America's Best Cold Brew at a national competition called CoffeeFest.
"Competing against 32 other awesome companies -- most of them are from up north so we’re stoked about that," Cook said.
It takes more than 24 hours for Cattle Dog Coffee Roasters to make its cold brew.
Customers say they love it, but it's not just the coffee that brings them to the business.
"It's like Cheers, you know, you walk in and you hear it's Nicole, Nick, everybody knows your name," said Nicole House Lembo. "And you get educated about coffee, you learn about different coffees, how they’re brewed, how they’re roasted," she said.
It's that enthusiasm that has the coffee roaster opening another store front in downtown Inverness in the coming months that's almost four times the size of the Hernando location.
The competition is being held in Nashville March 17-19. Concord Coffee out of Lakeland will also be competing.