Cold Brew Station Offers Iced Coffee on Wheels

Since the inception of Relentless Roasters in 2013, a Miami-based wholesale coffee roaster, cofounder Daniel Paguaga has dreamed about making his brews accessible.

His seed-to-cup blends have sprouted up across South Florida, making waves in eateries such as Sweetness Bake Shop, Miami Smokers, and Barley.

At C.B. Station, short for Cold Brew Station, Paguaga's latest venture, brews are iced and put on wheels, giving Miami its first-ever iced-coffee food truck. 

Paguaga, along with Relentless Roasters partners Andre Villarreal and Kevin Gonzalez, want to use C.B. Station to test out Miami's love, or lack thereof, for cold-brew blends.

"Finding the right place in Miami is hard," he says. "With a trailer, we can gauge where we'd want to be retail-wise and will allow us to touch many more people."

Though the truck will use Relentless Roasters' coffee, Paguaga wants C.B. Station to have its own identity.

"Relentless Roasters does hot and cold coffee," he says, "but C.B. Station is just cold. This allows us to focus on coffee in another light, without restricting our initial brand.

"When you do wholesale, you're also constrained as to how much you can experiment," he adds. "With this, we finally can. I really want to give people different flavors and drinks other than traditional iced coffee."

The truck, which hit the road in August, features six varieties with two bases. Awaken and its sister brew Awaken Nitro are blended with a sundry of ingredients, creating flavors such as raspberry-lemonade, an Arnold Palmer variety, and a classic milk-and-cream version. The truck offers two sizes — 12 and 16 ounces — priced between $4 and $5. 

"Awaken Nitro is infused with nitrogen gas, which gives it a creamier consistency similar to a Guinness beer," he says. "But all the roasts are very light, so none of them will be as strong or as bitter as typical cold brews."

Though Paguaga and his partners are concentrating on coffee, the truck offers bites from a few of Relentless Roasters' partners. Expect cookies from Sweetness Bake Shop and savory sandwiches from Miami Smokers, he says. 

"The same combination of food and coffee you can find at C.B. Station," he says, "is also the same if you were to go to one of our partnered restaurants, which is the goal. We wanted to keep it in the family."
For now, Paguaga plans to broaden C.B. Station's reach as much as possible, though no permanent locations have been announced.

"Relentless Roasters was the first one to introduce cold-brew kegging in Miami," he says. "We've been really innovative when it comes to cold brew, and C.B. Station enhances that.

"It’s also something that’s very unique to Miami," he adds. "The fact that it’s summer year-round, we're fortunate we can do something with cold-brew coffee only instead of having hot varieties too."

For more information about Cold Brew Station, visit its Instagram page. 

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