In a City Obsessed With Coffee, One Pop-Up Is Doing Things Differently
In a city overflowing with cortados, ceremonial-grade matcha, and ambitious coffee startups, standing out isn’t easy. It’s even harder when your business doesn’t have a fixed address. That’s the challenge (and increasingly, the appeal) of One of One.
The Filipino-American coffee and matcha pop-up concept is the work of Kristin Cleavinger, a San Diego native who spent nearly a decade helping grow Alfred Coffee in Los Angeles before returning home to build a concept of her own. The business takes its name from Cleavinger’s grandfather Gregorio, who immigrated from the Philippines to the United States in the 1970s with almost nothing, but managed to build a life for him as well as his descendants.
It’s that sense of grit, perseverance, and identity that Cleavinger says fueled her to build One of One. “Throughout my time in specialty coffee, I was really curious about Filipino representation, because that wasn’t something that I saw,” she explains. She began to research coffee from the Philippines, but considering the island nation only produces about 0.25 percent of the world’s largest producer, Brazil, there wasn’t much to find.
Instead, she turned inward, drawing from her family’s history and her own Filipina-American identity to build something personal.
For her drinks, Cleavinger never uses refined sugars, and syrups are made in-house from organic and regenerative ingredients. The Summer Peach latte, the current seasonal special, layers Ceylon cinnamon, unrefined cane sugar, Maldon sea salt, and ripe yellow peaches for a riff on one of summer’s most glorious treats: peach cobbler. Another new drink is Mint Chip, inspired by Thrifty ice cream with a fresh mint syrup, dark cocoa powder, and chocolate chunks with a base of either espresso or hojicha (roasted Japanese green tea with a mild, sweet, earthy flavor and lower caffeine content than other green teas).
Other crowd pleasers include the signature Neapolitan latte, which is inspired by childhood memories of her family using Neapolitan ice cream to create pan de sal ice cream sandwiches. She layers housemade organic strawberry syrup, Madagascar vanilla bean-infused oat milk, and dark cocoa-swirled espresso for a tricolored beverage experience that she recommends sipping before stirring to taste each layer on its own merit.
Past specials have ventured deeper into Filipino flavors, like a turon-inspired latte using jackfruit and banana; another was a coconut pandan matcha made with organic coconut water and topped with a pandan matcha cream.
The sourcing decisions behind these drinks are equally deliberate. Coffee comes from Boondocks, a Filipino-owned LA roaster whose founder is originally from National City. Its current offering, the Galleon blend, combines beans from southern Luzon in the Philippines with Chiapas, Mexico—a nod to the communities woven into San Diego’s own cross-border identity. Matcha is sourced through Este, a local San Diego company that works directly with producers in Mie Prefecture, Japan.
Every supplier is chosen for value alignment as much as quality—Boondocks’ current blend, for example, directly supports women-owned farms. “Each person has the power to choose where they want to put their dollar,” Cleavinger says.
You can catch her at regularly scheduled pop-ups at places like Olivewood Gardens in National City (every third Saturday), Ayi in South Park’s Summer Series (every Saturday morning in June), and on regular rotation at Home Ec and Best Bud Floral in Kensington. (More dates are listed on Instagram as well.) Cleavinger says she does have plans to launch a brick-and-mortar shop in the future, ideally with an expanded beverage menu, space for art shows, and a community gathering place for local and Filipino-owned makers.
In a crowded field of coffee concepts, One of One shows that a memorable drink can do more than wake you up. It can tell you something about the person behind the idea—who they are, where they’re from, and where they’re going next.
San Diego Restaurant News & Food Events
Beth’s Bites
- After appearances on Top Chef and Iron Chef Mexico and stints at big-name kitchens like Vaga and Leu Leu, chef Claudette Zepeda just released her debut cookbook Cooking the Borderlands: Spice and Smoke Between Mexico and the States. By deep diving into the cross-border culinary traditions between Mexico and the United States, Zepeda doesn’t just tell the story of food—it’s a story of her upbringing as a self-proclaimed “border kid,” a moniker all-too-familiar to thousands of people who straddle the two countries. It’s a fascinating (and beautiful) book from one of San Diego’s native daughters and well worth picking up.
- Despite throwing the North County restaurant world into despair at the news that Matsu was permanently closing, we are blessed with the ability to continue enjoying Chef William Eick’s culinary prowess. Eick is now the chef de cuisine at Pacific Point at the Park Hyatt Aviara Resort in Carlsbad, working alongside sushi chef Meljohn Sebastian to design a new Asian-inspired menu focused on seasonality. Matsu may be over (for now), but Eick’s talent is still on full display.
- Urban Property Group just announced a deal for a new cafe opening in the freshly renovated Five50 West in Little Italy. Café Noelia will open this summer, bringing a slew of coffee, matcha, toasts, and sandos to the ground floor of the building, where (rumor has it) a Japanese speakeasy is also on the way.
- In the latest twist of the weirdly ongoing story that is Modern Times Beer, its Encinitas location, the Far West Lounge, is no more. The once-renowned local craft beer brand flew too close to the sun during the beverage boom and now, after closures, sales, and corporate splits, only exists with a small handful of the original tasting rooms and as a craft coffee brand (that’s not actually related to the beer side of things anymore).
Listen Now: The Latest in San Diego’s Food and Drink Scene
Have breaking news, exciting scoops, or great stories about new San Diego restaurants or the city’s food scene? Send your pitches to food@sdmag.com.
The post In a City Obsessed With Coffee, One Pop-Up Is Doing Things Differently appeared first on San Diego Magazine.
Categories
Recent Posts
GET MORE INFORMATION
Agent | License ID: 02118739