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Color Wheel Coffee operates as a cafe and roastery out of a refurbished RV in Glen Allen.
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Color Wheel Coffee owners and spouses Will and Brianna Libby
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Brewing coffee from a brightly painted vintage RV in Glen Allen, Color Wheel Coffee is anything but traditional. Owners and spouses Will and Brianna Libby, both 25, debuted their outdoor cafe and roastery in July, focusing on ethical sourcing.
The vision for the wholesale and retail coffee roasting company, which can be found parked at 2301 Old Brick Road, came after Brianna spent a summer teaching English in Guatemala six years ago.
“It was really hard to witness the level of difficulty it takes to harvest such an amazing crop,” explains Brianna, the head roaster. “Coffee is just an amazing thing, and [the farmers] don’t really get a ton of money for it.”
During her time abroad, Brianna would visit nearby villages and coffee farms.
“I went on this coffee tour — I wasn’t a coffee drinker [at the time] — and learned about the history of coffee, specifically in Guatemala, and all of a sudden became very passionate about experiencing firsthand the way these specific farmers lived,” she says.
Upon returning to the U.S., Brianna immersed herself in the industry and became as hands-on as she could — landing jobs in coffee shops, reading books and doing cuppings. The following year she would meet her non-coffee-drinking husband-to-be while both were attending Christopher Newport University.
“When we met, I did not like coffee at all,” Will says, “but I was a horrible student, so I was having to stay up until 3 a.m. the day before all my papers were due and just drinking as much coffee as I could to get the caffeine. I was just drowning it in cream and sugar.”
Brianna, on the other hand, was drinking her coffee black.
"We weren’t even dating yet, and I was trying to impress her," Will recalls. "Like, ‘Man, she’s gonna think I’m such a chump if I can’t drink black coffee.’ ”
The couple would go on to spend the next few years working at cafes and roasteries around Hampton Roads, learning the ins and outs of the coffee business working as baristas, managers and roasters. They founded Color Wheel Coffee in June of 2020, selling at farmers markets and pop-ups at places such as Red Rooster Country Store in Mechanicsville. They credit their career — and the name of their business — to their passion for coffee, those who are involved in its production and those who drink it.
“We wouldn’t have the coffee if it weren’t for these farmers working day in and day out, all day every day, on such an incredible craft,” Brianna says. “What struck me while in Guatemala was the disconnect between the amount of work being put in to produce coffee and the price of the coffee being sold. With Color Wheel, I wanted to be intentional about sourcing coffee that might be a little more expensive on our end to buy but felt more consistent with how much all that labor was actually worth.”
The cafe buys directly from farmers, sourcing carefully selected single-origin coffee from each of the three primary coffee-growing continents — South America, Africa and Asia — as well as Central America. Their Colombian coffee is ordered through direct messaging on Instagram with a member of Colombian coffee farmers collective, 575 Cafe, and their Guatemalan blends are sourced from a collective of farmers that sets its own prices called Onyx.
“We feel confident that every coffee we serve is respecting the people who are producing it,” Will says.
Before their move to Richmond, the Libbys lived in Norfolk and Portsmouth and were heavily involved in the coffee scene there. They say that a similar sense of community, and having family here, was what drew them to Richmond.
“The Norfolk area does a great job, in the coffee industry, of cheering each other on. We came [to Richmond] knowing there was a strong coffee community here, and [we had] the desire to be part of this community while also collectively being part of an industry that is passionate about the product they’re selling," Brianna says.
Aboard the RV they currently offer a Namugo coffee from Papua New Guinea, Harimau from Sumatra and decaf from Colombia, in addition to their "Roast of the Month," a small food menu and specialty beverages.
Big proponents of local products as well, they source their syrups, including the one used in their Fall Apple Spice Coffee, from Crescent Simples; honey from Salt and Pepper Farm; and their bread from Sub Rosa Bakery.
“Pretty much everything on our menu, we can tell you exactly what’s in it, where it came from and how it got made because we either make it ourselves or know the people who made it firsthand,” Will says.
Color Wheel Coffee is open from 7 a.m. to 3 p.m. Tuesday to Sunday.
