Transcend Coffee to Open New Café on Jasper Avenue and Expand Food and Beverage Options.

Edmonton, AB – Thursday, February 3, 2011 – Transcend Coffee Corp.-an Edmonton based specialty coffee beans retailer, roaster, and educator-today announced plans to open its third Edmonton café, located at Jasper Avenue and 104 street, in the space currently occupied by Axis Café. Transcend plans to have the new café open for business in March, 2011.

"We had planned to open a downtown café sometime this year," says Poul Mark, owner and founder of Transcend Coffee, "but the opportunity to take over the Axis Café space was unexpected and has come together quickly." Transcend Coffee will take over the assets and lease of Axis Café February 1st, make adjustments to the coffee equipment and decor and open in a relatively short period of time. "We're very happy with the location and confident we can bring the Transcend experience to the downtown crowd." The new café will be staffed by existing, seasoned Transcend baristas-who have received more than 100 hours espresso and latte art training-as well as some new hires.

The new Transcend Jasper café, as well as the existing Transcend Garneau café (8708 – 109 St), will also be introducing an expanded hot food menu as well as a small selection of remarkable beer and wine in the spring of 2011.

New food items will all be made in-house by Chad Moss, Transcend's head coffee roaster, new culinary lead and Red Seal chef, while artisan breads will be baked by Transcend's bread enthusiast, Jeff Johnson. The concept is to create a Central and South American 'coffee-origin street food' menu that reflects some of the delicious foods that Transcend green coffee buyers experience during sourcing trips. Dishes like empenadas, pupusas, aprepas, pao de queijo, and the like will make up a flavourful and unique dining experience for Edmontonians. "Of course we will be focusing heavily on local ingredients in all of our food preparations, and we will approach food with the same dedication as our coffee," says Chad Moss.

Beer and wine will also be approached in the same manner as coffee, focusing on unique, exceptional, flavourful hard-to-find beverages that accentuate the new food items and have a story of their own.

About Transcend Coffee:

Transcend Coffee is a specialty coffee roaster, retailer, and education facility based in Edmonton Alberta. Our goal is to roast and serve the very best specialty coffee in Canada, and to educate coffee drinkers about the art and craft of specialty coffee. To realize this goal we travel the world to find the very best green coffee, grown by dedicated farmers. We roast in small batches in Edmonton. We taste and evaluate every roast. We experiment with brewing methods and espresso extraction. We hold regular coffee tastings, teach courses and produce educational coffee podcasts. We constantly strive to raise coffee to a new level.