In a town with a rich history of beer brewing, a different kind of brew deserves recognition for its fascinating local story. Nearly 100 years after Johann Mang opened what is considered the city’s first commercial brewery in 1804, Ella Barber deLima opened a coffee roastery and store in her Syracuse home using beans brought back from her husband’s family plantation in Brazil. This outfit, which would eventually become Paul deLima Coffee Company, jump started the coffee culture in Central New York and is still operating today, along with nearly a dozen other coffee roasters in the area.

Ella Barber was born in Marcellus, moving to Syracuse with her family in 1861, where she would attend local schools before enrolling at Syracuse University. It was there that she met her husband, Jose Custodio deLima, a Cornell student, at a dance hosted by Syracuse University. The two married on Oct. 5, 1878, then headed on a tour of Europe before settling on land owned by deLima’s family in Brazil. Ella would have four sons and a daughter there, and would eventually bring them back to Syracuse so they could receive an American education. Jose deLima himself was not involved in the family coffee business as he served as a Brazilian diplomat abroad, but he was well liked in Syracuse, and his return to the area was often announced by local newspapers. The family’s plantations were home to large coffee-growing operations, and Ella made sure to return to New York with a bag of raw green coffee beans.

Coffee was first introduced to Brazil in the 1700s and was primarily grown for domestic consumption. Plantations expanded in the 19th century as global demand increased, and by 1830, coffee was Brazil’s largest export. Shortly into the 20th century, Brazil was responsible for growing and selling nearly 80 percent of the beans on the market. At first, all the raw green coffee beans used by Ella and her family came from Brazil, but the modern-day Paul deLima Coffee Company imports from two dozen countries.

Shortly following the turn of the century, Ella moved back to Syracuse with her children, where they began roasting and grinding beans in their Park Street home. In the more than 100 years since Ella and her children began roasting and grinding beans, the story has grown and, perhaps, stretched. Most stories assert that Ella, or one of her sons, would pedal a bicycle connected to a large vat that would tumble the beans as they were heated, allowing for the green beans to evenly roast to dark brown. At first, the family would sell cups of coffee and ground beans to neighbors and friends, until Ella’s son, Paul, incorporated the business under the name Paul deLima Coffee Company in 1916. Operations were moved to Water Street, and the family started selling beans to local restaurants and cafeterias. Although Paul lent his name to the company, it was his sister Maria who was responsible for the early growth and success of the family business. Maria would help market and sell the coffee around Syracuse, while also making sure those who bought their beans used them correctly. If Maria was unhappy with the way a restaurant or other business brewed her beans, she would make it herself, or even withhold beans in fear that the improper use would sully the deLima name. 

Paul deLima Coffee Company continued to expand and grow, becoming a major player in the global coffee industry by the end of World War I. At that point, the focus shifted to selling primarily to food-service businesses, like restaurants, large companies, and hospitals. By the 1990s, the company was serving more than 6,000 food-service clients, necessitating a move to a larger facility in Cicero. An additional site was purchased in Clay to house the company’s sales and distribution center. The company was sold to the Drescher family in 2006, who took over management from Paul deLima, the last executive from the deLima family and great grandson of Ella Barber deLima.

Understanding that precise, delicate conditions are needed to grow coffee, the Drescher family has invested in infrastructure aimed at reducing emissions and allowing for sustainability within the industry. Windmills and solar panels were installed by the roaster’s sister company, Warner Energy, with the goal of providing most of the energy required by the company. The company also has an intensive recycling regimen, including a program that allows other business to take burlap sacks for free. Many of the bags used by Paul deLima Coffee Company to import coffee beans are reused by farmers, shredded, and used as mulch. The firm also allows other local coffee companies to use its roasters when needed, with about 65 percent of the coffee roasted on site packaged as Paul deLima Coffee and 35 percent being sold under private labels. 

Being home to a roaster and seller that has survived more than 100 years spurred innovation and set the scene for modern-day coffee culture in Syracuse. Patents were filed in the early 20th century by local inventors for a coffee-bean sheller and a coffee pot. Today, downtown Syracuse alone is home to four coffee shops that roast their own beans. This includes Recess Coffee, with an original location on Harvard Place, which was the only coffee shop in New York state to be named to People magazine’s list of “24 coffee shops in America you have to visit” in 2015. Salt City Coffee, which opened on Syracuse’s near west side in an 1860s mansion in 2017, has already opened its third location. 

While smaller, local roasters and large-chain coffee shops might outsell Paul deLima in the local market, the company is still a major regional seller to businesses and understands its place in local history. In 2019, the company released three different roasts under the name Ella Coffee Co., paying homage to the original founder, who is one of the first female industrialists in Central New York. Kate Drescher stated that the Ella brand is meant to acknowledge not only Ella and Maria deLima, but all women in the coffee industry, often responsible for farming, picking, and testing the coffee. The bag used for these special blends features a bicycle and wheel, recalling the unique way in which Ella and her family began the business a century ago. Paul deLima Coffee plans to release more blends under their Ella brand, and even hopes to recreate the original roaster and grinder setup used by the deLimas in their Park Street home.                

Chris Melfi is support services administrator at the Onondaga Historical Association (OHA) (www.cnyhistory.org), located at 321 Montgomery St. in Syracuse.