Wicked Good CoffeeCounter Culture Coffee: a national roaster with a Boston-area training center
A national roaster with a Boston-area training center and a lot of published detail about how it buys coffee.
Counter Culture Coffee is a national roaster based in Durham, North Carolina. It's included here because it has a training center in Somerville, Massachusetts, and because it publishes more about how it buys coffee than most.
The short version
- Headquarters
- Durham, North Carolina
- Founded
- 1995, by Brett Smith and Fred Houk, per the company and the Daily Tar Heel
- New England
- A training center at 374 Somerville Avenue, Somerville, MA 02143. It's a training center, not a cafe, and its site posts no hours.
- Leadership
- Joe Prewett became CEO on August 1, 2025, with Brett Smith moving to Executive Chairman, per GCR Magazine
What it publishes
Per the company's history page, Counter Culture:
- Earned organic certification in 2002, which it says was the first for a North Carolina roaster
- Set a Direct Trade policy in 2008
- Started a Seeds program in 2010 that gives money to coffee-producing communities
- Became B Corp certified in 2020
- Publishes a Transparency Report
Where to start
Its homepage lists Big Trouble, Hologram, and Forty-Six among its coffees.
This profile is researched from published sources, not from a visit. Locations and offerings change, so check before you go. Sources: Counter Culture, its history page, its training centers page, and GCR Magazine.
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