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Monthly Archives: February 2025

Return to Boiling Springs (and Warrior’s Son Coffee)

Today, I put my hat and gloves in the closet for the first time in months. It felt good. The temperature felt better, reaching almost 60 degrees today and dropping hints of the impending Spring. I know it’s not going to last. March almost always features as many snowstorms as bright blue days. I will have to go back into that closet soon and pull the hat and gloves back out for another round of winter. Even so, a symbolic or temporary victory is still a victory.

Such was the case regarding my latest coffee adventure. On Saturday, February 22, the two weeks of insane cold that had gripped Pennsylvania was just loosening, and a festival was in the works at Allenberry Resort in Boiling Springs.

Sound familiar? We’ve been there before on this Journey. A few months ago, I visited the small cafe gracing the foyer and lounge of the main building in the resort complex. This past weekend, that same building (along with the entirety of the resort) played host to what appeared to be the first festival of the season. I’m sure there had been others elsewhere; snow festivals, ice fests, and what have you. This just felt different. It felt like Spring. It felt like everyone waking up.

As it turns out, some of that buzz might have resulted from Warrior’s Son Coffee, based in nearby Mechanicsburg. In operation for only about a year and owned by Angel DeJesus and his wife, the name of this ambitious startup is an ode to his father, who came from Puerto Rico in 1950 and served in the Army. This hit home for me since my own father is a Vietnam veteran. When I saw the name of the coffee company, I had a bit of an inkling that this would mean an homage to someone proud of someone’s service. So it was (and is).

There is no coffeehouse yet. Angel’s setup was a temporary one for the festival. It looked professional, though. As usual, my instincts didn’t steer me wrong. Within minutes, the aforementioned owner and I were deep in conversation regarding the benefits and misconceptions surrounding various roasts. We also pined for the festival season to begin in earnest and hoped that maybe this festival marked the beginning of that trend. Everyone who shares a passion for coffee shares more than that: there’s a temperament; a delight in art, of which coffee is only one powerful expression.

Angel gave me two free samples. The first was called Ranger’s Roast. It’s a medium, but he billed it as a morning blend. I like that. It’s good to give morning people options besides lighter fare. I got a definite fruit flavor in that first sip, though it was blended with a rather earthy presentation. It was molasses! That’s what I was tasting. I have no idea what origin resulted in that flavor, but that was exciting. Even better was the citrusy ending. I don’t really care for citrus flavor in coffee, but this hit right on the back end of the palette, so it was more a statement than a manifesto. Very artfully accomplished.

My second sample was of the Angel’s Blend. Now, this was more my usual style. The blend was deep and robust from the get-go. There wasn’t as much citrus in this as there was in the last, but it was still there, only muted. The full force of this blend was displayed in the grounded richness, including more chocolate along with unmistakable (in retrospect!) caramel and umami notes.

Unfortunately, the bean sources and roasters are proprietary, so I couldn’t get too many details about the ‘secret recipe’ behind these blends. I’m truly looking forward to seeing what this little family outfit has in store for the burgeoning Appalachian coffee world. I’m also interested if they’ll be attending any more festivals. When I arrived at around 1:40, attendance at this event was already well over 700. That’s massive for a festival so early (and far from any urban centers). I hope that’s a sample of what’s to come as warmth and sun increase.

Our next stop is probably Williamsport, but it’s so hard to keep up with the proliferation of coffeehouses in the urban countryside(s) and the valleys of Amish country. Until next time: Stay caffeinated!

the festival…

the main building…

the beans…

the additional beans…

the first sample…

the second sample…

the coffeemaker and the coffeehouse guy…

Pine Ridge Cafe

12 Feb

Big Valley, Kish Valley, the last valley before Happy Valley. It’s almost the Pennsylvania Wilds, but not quite. Kishacoquillas Valley has many monikers, but the feeling you get when you hear the words is the same. At least that’s true if you live in central Pennsylvania. It’s a main center of Amish culture, in some ways just as much as Lancaster, if not moreso.

I say ‘if not moreso’ because Kishacoquillas Valley is home to no less than three of the more conservative Amish groups in the state. These are the Byler Amish, Renno Amish, and Nebraska Amish. The latter is the most conservative of the three, embodying many of the commonly imagined archetypes of Amish life. Many don’t even paint their barns, and electricity use is kept to a minimum. Not even lawnmowers are allowed, though some shockingly have cellphones. It makes sense: Use technology, but don’t base your survival on it. That’s a good habit.

Pine Ridge Cafe is another institution that really exemplifies a balanced approach to the complications of modern society. So does the town it’s situated in, called Belleville. Belleville is hard to find. What I meant to say was it’s hard to situate. The town of Belleville is laid out like a large village, with only a minimal ‘downtown.’ There’s a historical society in the town center. Otherwise, there’s no sign of gentrification. The town is all business, and that business is agriculture.

Look below in the photos section, and you’ll see how, although the region is bucolic, it’s also a food machine, plain and simple. Even in the ‘wilderness’ of Pennsylvania, if an industry does exist, it will be farming. It won’t be like the ‘hobby farms’ you’ll find in other states. This ain’t a hobby, here. It’s life.

In that context, Pine Ridge is a bit of an apparent outlier. It looks like the trendy coffee shop of a town in the Philadelphia countryside. The establishment is both new and old. It used to be called Taste of the Valley. The latter was a fixture of the region for years, and it was only within the past year and a half that it changed to its new name and mission. Although I have no idea what it looked like in its original iteration, the newer business is clearly coffee-focused. It’s also obviously a product of Mennonite roots, with a straightforward interior absent of kitsch. There were a few nods to outdoor culture, notably the names of some of the coffee blends offered. Bigfoot Blend, Ridge Runner…someone likes the great outdoors.

The coffee really threw me for a loop. I took the Ridge Runner as an homage to my love of the Appalachian Trail. A Ridgerunner is either a person who lives in the high mountain regions of the Appalachian ridgelines or works directly for the Trail in some capacity. That’s often describing the same background. Ridge Runner the coffee was a dark roast; a mix of Ethiopian and Sumatran. True to form, it was intensely earthy. I picked up hints of pipe tobacco and deep smoke. This probably got roasted for a long time, and no, that’s not a ‘defect’ unless you consider deviation from the light roast trend to be heresy. Nutmeg might have been there, too, but I can’t be sure. It was quite smooth on the front, even as the back end revealed those complexities.

Point of fact: The coffee is also their own. That’s right; it’s Pine Ridge Coffee, roasted by the Yoders, Trent, and Leah (who I must speak to sometime!). The website says it was started back in 2022. That would jive with what we’ve seen during this Journey lately; rural coffee roasters cropping up and turning hard times into great opportunities.

That’s the American spirit, though. Or maybe it’s just the best of human nature. I hold that the ideals of the American Revolution tend to bring out the best in people, so I suppose I take both sides. Kind of like this region does. On the way through town, I saw an unexpected rainbow flag on a house. That just goes to show that nobody and nothing is simple. I wonder what we’ll find as we plumb the depths of the Pennsylvania Wilds. Until next time, stay caffeinated.