Bear State Coffee Merchants

Est. 2013 — and we are so back.

Hand-inked glass of Bear State cold brew over ice with a striped straw

Cold Brew Experience

We’re launching soon:

forearly access

Halftone-printed palm trees against a turquoise California sky

We’re launching soon:

Laguna Beach, Calif.

Coffee these days… (it's getting pretty fancy)

Hand-inked Bear State cold brew bottle with the bear roundel label

Cup of Joe, crossed out — is no longer an acceptable moniker

Single origin. Direct trade. Small batch. Steeped for 24 hours — never touched by hot water.

The California cold brew that put New York on notice. Best enjoyed over ice, straight from the bottle, or however you please.

So, what is Bear State? Simple —

Welcome to summer in a bottle.

A hand-inked Palm Springs motel pool with a diving board, palms, and mountains beyond

“The pool is heated. The coffee never is.”

Somewhere near Palm Springs, Calif.

The Bear State Story

( a shortish history of a longish journey )

2013

Coffee. Gear. Community.

We started in Southern California with a hunch: great coffee doesn’t just happen in trendy cafes. So we curated the state’s best small roasters — Highwire, Melody, Augie’s, Coffee & Tea Collective — and shipped them to your door, with the gear and the guides to bring out the coffee nerd in all of us.

Hand-inked Bear State subscription kit — shipping box, mug, and two coffee bags with the bear roundel

A hand-inked Pacific Coast Highway winding along the California coastline

“Every good idea in California starts with a long drive.”

Pacific Coast Highway, Calif.

2015

Then We Fell for Cold Brew.

In April 2015 we bottled our first single-origin cold brew: direct-trade beans from Brazil’s Cerrado region, and exactly two ingredients — fresh filtered water and coffee. Never introduced to heat. Steeped for 24 slow hours in a chilled chamber nobody else was using, in batches small enough to have names.

We were pretty good at coffee. It turned out we were experts at cold brew.

Hand-inked glass of cold brew over ice with a striped straw

Direct Trade | Small Batch | Single Origin — Best Enjoyed Over Ice

2015–16

We Got Kinda Famous.

Imbibe set our bottle next to Blue Bottle’s and Stumptown’s. Gear Patrol called us one of five cold brews fueling New York City. At FarmBox we outsold Stumptown six to one. Not bad for a bear born and bred in Southern California.

A hand-inked pair of Bear State cold brew bottles, one tilted mid-toast

“A slow 24-hour steeping process yields a pleasantly low acidity with notes of salted caramel and chocolate.”

— Imbibe Magazine, Summer’s Best Cold Brews

Gear Patrol
Imbibe
Food Network
The New York Times

A cream lifeguard tower on a wide, bright California beach

“Lifeguard on duty. Caffeine unsupervised.”

Huntington Beach, Calif.

Then We Did What Bears Do.

We hibernated. (It’s in the name.) The last bottles sold out, the roasters kept roasting, and we went quiet — the way a California summer ends without telling you.

A bear sleeping soundly, curled up in a cream towel with a red stripe

An empty boardwalk bench by the ocean, palms in the distance

“Even the sun takes a season off.”

The Off-Season, Calif.

2026

We Woke Up Hungry.

Cold brew is everywhere now. Nitro this, oat that, cans with fourteen ingredients. Ours still has two. Same Cerrado beans, same 24 slow hours, same bear. We’re not here to reinvent coffee — we’re here to remind California what summer tastes like.

We are so back.

The same boardwalk bench — now with a bottle of Bear State cold brew and a full glass on it

“Same bench. Same ocean. Colder brew.”

Summer’s Back, Calif.