Urth Caffé is a Southern California coffeehouse chain founded by Jilla and Shallom Berkman, known for roasting exclusively organic, heirloom coffee and serving it alongside imported teas and a light European-style café menu.
The Berkmans began roasting in 1989, after meeting a Peruvian grower producing organic heirloom beans, and opened the first café in Manhattan Beach in 1991. The name pairs Urth — which the company describes as an old Welsh spelling of Earth — with caffé, Italian for coffee, a compact statement of the sourcing premise the business was built on. Urth describes itself as America's first exclusively organic, heirloom coffee roasting company.
Locations followed on Melrose Avenue in West Hollywood in 1994, Beverly Hills in 2002, Santa Monica in 2004, and Downtown Los Angeles in 2008, the last opening as both a café and the company's headquarters. An executive chef was brought on in 1997 to extend the menu past drinks into light meals and desserts, and the company operates its own roasting, tea-blending, commissary, and bakery facilities rather than outsourcing production.
The tea program sources black, green, white, and oolong leaf from established gardens in Africa, Japan, and South America, most of it certified organic or grown by traditional methods in gardens that predate organic certification. Coffee is sourced through direct relationships with growers, which is the mechanism behind the heirloom claim — specific varietals from specific farms, rather than blended commodity lots.