Get to Know…Sven Willenberger

DME ROASTERS

by David Crowder

So how did this guy from Hamburg, Germany who’s working full time remotely for a Florida tech company find himself under a vendor’s tent at Ardovino’s Farmers Market on a hot Saturday?

In a word, coffee.

But it took a long string of decisions to put Sven Willenberger there on weekends, selling hot cups or cold brew and bags of what just may just be the best coffee in El Paso.

He, his El Paso wife, Sylvia and her sister, Marie -- this writer’s wife, for disclosure’s sake -- have opened a coffee shop, the Desert Moon Emporium, at 4400 N. Mesa

It started as a casual pastime because his appreciation ‑ call it love ‑ for coffee led him to start roasting his own green beans at home 16 years ago in North Carolina where he was working as a data scientist.

“I was always serious about roasting it for myself,” Sven said. “I never enjoyed store-bought coffee. Then, we came out here, and Marie was already making candles. Sylvia started making candles, too.

“I had always wanted to sell coffee, but the regulations for selling retail in North Carolina were a little onerous. It turned out the cottage food laws are pretty nice out here in Texas. That’s when I decided to try the farmers’ market.”

After about 12 months of selling coffee and candles at Ardovino’s, they decided to look for a place to open a coffee shop and found a recently vacated store front in a strip center at 4400 N. Mesa near Executive Center.

That shop is up and running, offering coffees from Central America, South America, Asia and Africa that come in big bags full of raw green coffee beans that Sven roasts at the shop.

He has kept his day job, working in a small office at the shop until 3 and then roasting new batches of coffee on two roasters for the next day, while Sylvia, Marie and a nephew tend to customers.

“I can roast about 10 pounds of green coffee beans over the course of an hour and a half to two hours per machine,” he said.

So what sets his coffee apart from other shops and grocery stores?

“Fresh, high-quality beans roasted to specific levels for each bean, not just a one-size-fits-all, roasted as dark as possible to basically roast all the actual flavor out of it,” he said. “What sets mine apart are the flavor profiles of each and every bean I get.”