Chromatic Coffee Co.
They have roasted to order in one Lincoln Avenue room since 2012, and every bag leaves hand-stamped front and back.
Why go
Camino Brewing's Cafe con Leche is made with a rotating cast of single-origin beans from San Jose's Chromatic Coffee Roasters,
which is the Chronicle's line and the most useful thing anybody outside this shop has said about it.2 A brewery choosing your lots one at a time is a harder endorsement than a cupping score.
The whole operation runs in one facility, roasting and cafe together.3 On 28 August 2026 the Kenyans were doing the work: a Kamwangi peaberry from the New Ngariama Cooperative on the slopes of Mount Kenya, double washed and roasted medium light, and Gondo AB off the Aberdare slopes in West Murang'a.3 The house blend is called Heart's Delight, after what the valley was called when it grew orchards.
Order this / avoid
- Order: whichever Kenyan is on. The double-washed lots are what the roast is built around.3
- Order: Heart's Delight if you want the house blend.3
- Avoid: a late-afternoon visit Monday to Thursday. The doors shut at 3pm.1
Good to know
- Hours: Monday to Thursday 8am to 3pm. Friday, Saturday and Sunday 8am to 5pm.1
- Where: the Arts Mercantile Building on Lincoln Avenue, close to downtown, the train station and the airport. Hapa's Brewing is in the same building.1
- The trophy: Metro's 2025 Best of Silicon Valley named it Best Coffee Roaster. That is a reader poll.3
Verdict
could-visit — The outside evidence is thin and it is the right kind. A buyer choosing your lots repeatedly, with money, is worth more than any cupping note a shop writes about itself, and the Chronicle recorded that buyer by name. Set against it: a reader-poll trophy, which counts votes and not cups, and no coffee writer anywhere I could reach. Fourteen years of trading fills some of the gap, and it does not fill enough of it to justify crossing the valley.