ALEXANDRIA, VA-It’s been decades since coffee underwent a dramatic transformation from a plain hot beverage served in restaurants and diners to today’s multi-flavored gourmet blends poured in upscale, loungy storefronts.
This revolution introduced coffee drinkers to a wider, more flavorful world, resulting in more discerning and demanding tastes.
Like coffee drinkers everywhere, Alexandrians enjoy quality and variety. Rodrigo and Deborah Joos, co-owners of Hypergoat Coffee Roasters, located at 215 North Payne Street, believe they have a unique recipe for success.
The husband and wife team hail from Brazil, where Rodrigo was a computer scientist and Deborah worked as a business administrator. Long passionate about coffee, they settled in Alexandria and opened their cafe in 2023 to share their specialty coffees and Brazilian foods with locals.
“When we moved here, we saw that there was an opportunity from a specialty perspective,” said Rodrigo. “Our coffee is higher quality.”
“When we roast, you can really taste the flavours,” Deborah told The Zebra. “You can tell, for example, that one coffee may be a little more fruity, while another is more chocolatey. It’s the selection of the beans and how we prepare them.”
When they lived in Brazil, the Joos used to drink coffee in the traditional way – half a cup of sugar and the other half, a very roasted, dark blend.
“Just growing up in Brazil, coffee was always present in our lives,” Deborah said. “But it wasn’t until we moved from Brazil that we started to explore different coffee shops and roasters.”
Adds Rodrigo: “We started to experiment with roasting at home in our garage for our friends.”
Hypergoat currently serves a variety of coffees and tasty delicacies in an eclectic co-working space decorated with Brazilian art and soft music filling the air. The Joos are committed to ethical sourcing and carefully balance quality with sustainability, and fair trade practices. Both love living in Alexandria and delighted that their cafe helps to create a sense of community. The cafe also offers coffee tasting workshops.
“There is more of a small city feeling in Alexandria,” Deborah said. “It’s a great area and historic. We spend more time here than we do in DC.”
What is the origin of the cafe’s name? According to Rodrigo, legend has it that one day, long ago in Ethiopia, a goatherd named Kaldi noticed that his goats, who had snacked on cherries from a nearby tree, became energized or “hyper”.
Whether the legend is true or not, it makes for a nice story over a cup of coffee.
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