Bluebonnet Coffee is a registered trademark of United Intertrade, Inc. (UNICO). It is one of many registered private labels owned by UNICO such as Mitalena Coffee, Café Don Pedro, Café Mondial, Café Unico, Mediterranean Coffee, Diwan Coffee and Imperial Choice Coffee. UNICO is a Houston based operation owned by Bob and Misako Ajouz, who has been in the coffee trading business since 1980. Coffee roasting was a hobby for them, and in 1987 the husband and wife team decided to specialize in roasting and packaging gourmet coffee for wholesalers, retailers, boutique shops and the foodservice industry.
Bob and Misako have three children, all of whom attended The University of Texas in Austin. During the many car trips to and from UT they would enjoy the endless patches of bluebonnets strewn along the way. This gave them the inspiration to create a new coffee product focused on Texas. Bluebonnet coffee was born, and the journey had begun. Packaged with flavor names like Texas Tornado, Texas Delight, Texas Doodle and Nutty Texan, Bluebonnet Coffee became a novelty of Texas. The coffee label was represented at many coffee and food shows, and even invited by the Texas Department of Agriculture to be a member product of its GO TEXAN program, formerly known as The Taste of Texas. Bluebonnet Coffee was exhibited at the WorldTradeCenter in Dallas, and was sold wholesale to many boutique shops and novelty shops throughout the country.
UNICO had become one of the largest independently owned coffee roasting and packaging facility in Texas, offering the largest selection of coffee varietals from around the world. Representing practically 50 coffee growing regions around the world including rare and high rated beans, as well as nearly 100 items of gourmet flavored coffee, UNICO needed a new product label. To support such an extensive array of characteristics and flavors UNICO created Mitalena Coffee, which is derived using the names of the owners’ three children.
The concept of Mitalena Coffee is fresh, roasted-to-order gourmet coffee with a catalog of products accessible 24 hours a day from almost anywhere in the world via the World Wide Web. Since Mitalena Coffee established a web presence, customers and connoisseurs from all over the world inquire about and purchase gourmet coffee bearing the Mitalena name. Mitalena Coffee also has a following of home roasters who order unroasted, green coffee from around the world.
This article was published on Friday 07 November, 2008.
