‘Coffee for everyone.’ Boalsburg company expands with mobile coffee trailer

If you frequent the Downtown State College Farmers Market, you’ve likely already come across Boalsburg-based Idou Coffee Co. and the brand’s fresh-roasted coffee. However, the company’s latest venture — a mobile coffee trailer — is taking its wares and new ready-to-drink coffee beverages farther afield.

Friends and co-founders Mike Swanson, Mikala Swanson, Christine Schafer and Tim Schafer sit at the helm of Idou Coffee Co., which they launched in December 2020.

“I think the goal the whole time had been to do something in the realm of mobile coffee,” Mike Swanson said. “Most of us come from some type of barista background. We all love serving people coffee, but it’s really expensive to start that. You just need a lot of capital to be able to afford setting up a mobile trailer.”

The group made a strategic decision to focus on roasting coffee and developing their brand at first, while raising the funds necessary to launch the coffee trailer aspect of the business in April of this year. Now, Idou Coffee Co. customers can find the trailer not only at the Downtown State College Farmers Market on Locust Lane every Friday, but also on Tuesdays starting in mid-August and at Boal Mansion in Boalsburg starting Aug. 1. The trailer is also available for catering and special events, including corporate events.

From the beginning, Idou Coffee Co. has leaned into the mantra, “coffee for everyone,” and the coffee trailer fits this company core value perfectly, according to the team.

“What we mean by (‘coffee for everyone’) is that we want to help people find a cup of coffee that they love. Coffee is a really strange thing in that, when you’re roasting coffee, you can roast the best coffee in the world, but as soon as you hand it over to someone, making a good cup of coffee is entirely in their hands. It’s the same way that any beef farmer could take all the care in the world to make premium-grade beef, but if someone goes home and ruins a steak, that’s on them, right?” Mike Swanson said.

With the new coffee trailer and menu of ready-to-drink coffee beverages, however, he noted that the team “can introduce people to coffee the way that we’ve envisioned it from the beginning.”

The coffee trailer also helps the team continue its mission of coffee education, while also lowering the barrier of entry to experiencing locally-roasted, high-quality coffees.

“If you’re used to paying seven or eight bucks for a bag of coffee at the grocery store, and then you come stumble along a local roaster that’s charging $14 for a bag, you’re like, ‘Well, I’m perfectly happy with what I’m buying now. Why would I pay double the cost for a bag of coffee?’” Mike Swanson said. “There’s that barrier of entry of ‘I’m not going to spend that much money to take a chance on something if I don’t know what it’s going to taste like.’ But they might be willing to spend $3 on a drip coffee or they might be willing to spend four bucks on a pour over (at the coffee trailer) and try something that is a little less intimidating.”

The coffee trailer’s menu focuses on Idou Coffee Co.’s coffee and tea from locally-owned Spectral Tea, with potential to add local pastries and other treats in the future as well.

“Right now, the big sellers are cold brew and iced lattes,” Christine Schafer said. “We’ve been making a homemade lavender syrup for the summer and that’s been really popular for doing iced lavender lattes.”

However, if you’re looking to try something new and expand your coffee knowledge, she recommended the menu’s cortado. “A lot of people don’t know what cortados are ... but it’s basically just a double shot of espresso and then equal parts steamed milk, so it only ends up being a four-ounce drink. It’s equal milk to espresso. I’m a big fan of cortados because you can still taste the espresso and taste the flavor of the coffee, but you have the nice, creamy milk aspect.”

Keeping with the brand’s educational mission, in addition to the new coffee trailer, Idou Coffee Co. also recently launched a podcast, Coffee Talk by Idou Coffee Co., available on Spotify, Apple Podcast and Google Podcasts. The brand also offers a wealth of coffee education resources on its website, www.idoucoffee.co.

“We are really passionate about helping people grow in their capacity to make better coffee. We’re always and forever putting out more and more resources to help people,” Mike Swanson said.

Follow Idou Coffee Co. on social media to stay up to date on where the coffee trailer is slated to appear each week, at www.facebook.com/IdouCoffeeCo and www.instagram.com/idoucoffeeco.