Wood Coffee Co. is a plant-based, queer-owned coffee bar in the Rose Park district of Long Beach. Its aim is to bring “all things in their most natural form”, farm to table or farm to cup, into one place, and to support and uplift marginalised communities “through networking and collaboration (and coffee, duh)”. It sets out to be a haven for the LGBTQ+ community and hopes to grow into more than a coffee shop.
The founder and owner is Nolan Wood. As a child he drank his grandmother’s coffee with so much milk and sugar that it no longer tasted of coffee; at seventeen, in 2008, he took his first job in a coffee shop and came to love coffee for its flavour, its journey and the connections it builds. In 2021 he came back to coffee to share it “in my own unique way”. The logo features Rupert, his cat.
The drinks list runs espresso, latte, cappuccino, mocha and cortado, with brewed hot coffee, cold brew and nitro cold brew, and the milks are oat, almond, pistachio and soy. A Chemex is on the bar for pour-over. The specials lean on those milks: the Coozelnut is an oat milk latte with coconut, hazelnut and cinnamon, the Kermie a pistachio milk matcha latte with vanilla, and Florals 4 Spring an oat milk latte with lavender and cardamom. There is matcha, chai, tea and hot chocolate, and doughnuts, toast and bagels to eat.
Photograph: Wood Coffee Co.