Founded in 2019 in Palmdale, California by disabled Army veteran and flight test engineer Joshua Cook, Legendary Aviation Coffee brings a new meaning to bougie coffee. Cook meticulously sources beans and air-roasts them, setting their taste apart from traditional drum roasting. Cook and his team take the unique taste of Legendary Aviation Coffee to farmers markets, community events, air shows, and has an online storefront as well.
“It’s really fun to watch people’s eyes when they have our coffee black and they’re like, ‘Oh my God, I can have this black!’ I’m like, ‘Welcome to bougie coffee,’” Cook said.
Experts grade coffee beans on a 100-point specialty scale, where anything scoring below 80 is considered commodity grade. Cook took this scale into consideration while beginning to build the Legendary Aviation Coffee name.
“I sat there and said, if I’m going to do this and separate myself from all these other veteran-owned companies, or even just a company in general, I’m only going to start with the top 1% of coffee,” Cook said. “That is 85 and higher on specialty grade.”
For example, Legendary Aviation Coffee’s Dominican Republic beans rate at 92, making it what he calls estate coffee.
“The estate coffee is like the Navy SEALs, the Blue Angels or the Top Gun of pilots,” Cook said. “It’s the top 1% of the 1%, this stuff is the elite of the elite.”
As a former Army aviation 15P and current civilian flight test engineer at L3Harris Technologies, an American defense contractor based in Rockwall, Cook makes it his mission to support other disabled veterans through Legendary Aviation Coffee. Ten percent of every coffee sale supports a chosen nonprofit, like Texas Valor Project, that rotates every month.
Texas Valor Project provides transformative treatments for military veterans and first responders suffering from Traumatic Brain Injury (TBI) and post-traumatic stress disorder in the Dallas-Fort Worth metroplex.
Legendary Aviation Coffee regularly operates at spots like the Rockwall Farmers Market and maintains a presence at Rockwall Cars and Coffee, an automotive meet up that benefits a rotating nonprofit of choice. Attendees can see a wide variety of luxury and retro cars on the third Saturday of every month in the Cavender Nissan of Rockwall dealership lot. August’s upcoming event happens to benefit the Texas Valor Project.
Cook has seen firsthand through close friends how the Texas Valor Project can change a veteran’s life.
“Kyle—a friend and disabled veteran—was the first person where I really saw a night-and-day transformation,” Cook said. “He’s been doing well for about three years now, completely free of PTSD episodes and nightmares. Seeing him completely centered and back to being fully present, it’s a beautiful thing. That’s why I teamed up with them.”
Cook similarly teamed each bean’s unique flavor profiles with imagery of classic military aircrafts on the packaging. For example, he features a F-117 Nighthawk, a stealth aircraft, on the package of his Dominican Republic beans. He uses subdued Nighthawk graphics across the packaging to highlight the caramel, almond stone fruit and pomegranate undertones.
“I thought, ‘oh, nobody’s doing this,’” Cook said. “I’m going to take the legendary aircrafts; the SR‑71, the F‑117, P‑51 Mustang, the things that had this legendary background, and I’m going to mix them in with coffee. So the coffee isn’t the story, it’s actually the aircraft. The coffee just helps to showcase that story, and I match everything to the best to my ability so we have this perfect blend.”
He has also created simple syrups that combine perfectly with certain flavor notes in his coffee to allow consumers to personalize their coffee experience.
“Let me add that simple syrup,” Cook said. “Let me add the cherry on top. Let me see if I can blow your mind. And typically we can.”
For Cook, everything comes back to the people he can impact and the community he serves.
“Whether or not we become a very big company, that’s not what I’m about. I want to make that positive impact. That’s why we have our different nonprofits. That’s why we go to these different events. That’s why we want to see and meet new people. We want to be a part of the community.”
