Amy Tang left her 12-year corporate job in tech to pursue coffee roasting.
“When I started this coffee company, I wanted to tell a story of family because every family has a story,” Tang told the Business Journal.
Tang comes from three generations of coffee roasters rooted in Vietnam. Her grandfather began roasting in 1969, and her father continued the tradition after immigrating to the U.S., opening a roasting facility in Anaheim in the 1990s. Today, Tang has been running the roasting operation with her husband, Lillard Anthony Wong, since 2016 under the name Owlverick’s Coffee.
It’s considered the oldest roastery in Anaheim and specializes in dark roast using a process refined over generations.
“Amy’s grandfather was a roaster, and her dad was a roaster, so they’ve perfected this dark roast style that’s different than just burning it as dark as it’ll go,” Wong told the Business Journal.
The business mainly does wholesale to retailers such as Whole Foods Market, Mother’s Market and Pavilions.
Owlverick’s also offers a subscription for customers to receive unique blends every month, with last month’s blend being the “Los Angeles Owlvericks of Anaheim,” a medium roast blend made in reference to hometown baseball team the Los Angeles Angels.
Owlverick’s has made blends in partnership with local organizations including the Anaheim Ducks, Visit Anaheim and the Anaheim Police Association.
“We really dug into coffee as a source of community relationships and how powerful it can be to produce these cool collaborations,” Wong said.
From Refugees to Roasters
Tang and her family were sponsored by her aunt and uncle to come to the U.S. in the late 80s.
She said that her father didn’t want to leave their comfortable life in Vietnam but gave up everything so she could have a better life and education in the U.S.
“The Communists came in, took his house and everything, so he had to start over again,” Tang said. “He just persevered, kept on going and never stopped. I think that’s something that I really look up to.”
Throughout it all, coffee kept him going, Tang said.
Her father, now 85, still comes into the shop once or twice a month to roast.
Tang said they kept a vintage roaster for him to use, and that customers still come in requesting his coffee.
Blended Heritage
Tang and Wong, who have been together for 25 years, met through mutual friends.
Owlverick’s three main blends represent their heritage.
The dark-roast blend “Saigon Nights” recalls Tang’s roots in Vietnam, while “Tokyo Lights,” a light-roast blend, pays tribute to Wong’s mother, who grew up in Japan. The medium roast, “Coastal Blend,” represents where they met and got married.
Prior to Owlverick’s, Tang was director of product management and strategy at Irvine-based Hawking Technologies while Wong was in operations for medical kit manufacturing.
The catalyst for Tang to leave her career was when her father got cancer. Today, he is cancer-free.
“It just hit me that my dad will not be around forever, and it’s something that I want to carry on and have a part of him with me,” she said.
So, she traded in a full-time job with benefits for waking up at 5 a.m. to go to farmers markets in Los Angeles.
“A lot of them came back to our stall every week,” Tang said. “That was the things that was like, ‘Okay, this is going to work in the market.’”
Wong officially joined Tang in running Owlverick’s after graduating from USC’s Executive MBA program.
“Between the two of us, I thought we had quite a skill set that we could do it all if we had to,” Wong said. “Now, we have a strong team, and we definitely can’t do without them.”
The couple said that they’d be interested in opening a cafe to give customers the “full Owlverick’s experience” under the right situation and that “it’s probably coming soon.”
