Coffee and faith are an unstoppable blend for Brandon Berryhill.
Although it might seem like a tall order as the cost of a cup of coffee continues to soar, globetrotter and founder of the Traveling Shepherd Coffee Company, Berryhill, wants his customers to encounter Christ and share in the ubiquitous beverage at a low cost.
“Unfortunately, we’ve lost the authenticity in our society,” Berryhill said. “The goal is to make those connections with people to get them to see the universality of the faith in the church.”
One morning at the McCutcheon/Mount Vernon Farmers Market in Alexandria, the Traveling Shepherd pop-up café emanates the invigorating smell of coffee from around the world. Warm conversations flow from the self-made business owner to his patrons with connections to faith sprinkled throughout. For Berryhill, every sip is an opportunity to learn the unique story of each person he encounters.
“I try to make some kind of real, authentic connection to the same way God pays attention to us all individually,” Berryhill said. “Whether they realize it or not, I try to extend that same type of appreciation toward everybody.”
The daily grind for Berryhill includes brewing beverages for 70-100 people four times a week at farmers markets and sites in Alexandria, Annandale, Reston and Warrenton. He also has participated in events at diocesan parishes including his family’s home parish, St. Veronica Church in Chantilly.
“This is what I love about farmers markets: I’ve learned that you have dead soil sometimes and you gotta really cultivate it to bring it back to life before you can actually plant the seed and get it to grow,” Berryhill said. “You saw this in St. Paul, who just roamed all over and just kept scattering the seeds and planting them and he became the great evangelizer.”
Four years into planting those seeds, or coffee beans, Berryhill is seeing the fruits of his prayer of creating an experience that centered around fellowship, rather than consumerism.
“That’s always been the foundation to do things for the right reasons and trust that God will provide,” Berryhill said.
The Traveling Shepherd’s menu — which includes a traditional Vietnamese coffee, an Ethiopian Yirgacheffe coffee brewed in a Jebena clay pot and an American nitro cold brew — is as intentional as the founder. Each roast and item on the drink list connects to Berryhill’s life and faith.
“It just was cool to see how miracles can happen if we’re open to things. I was like, ‘I have to create something that allows me to do this every day,’ ” Berryhill said. “I started to see all these different coffee cultures and traditions, I was like, ‘This is what the liturgy and the church is all about.’ ”
The tables at the stand are garnished with prayer cards and an arrangement of statues of saints that he hopes can spark conversation with his customers.
“In a world that loves horoscopes, looking at things through the Catholic perspective is where God shows His presence,” Berryhill said. “In the saints and all the liturgies, how the Gospels, the writings, (that’s where) they all align.”
Berryhill sells 25 different varieties of coffee beans from countries including Brazil, India and Italy. He includes a prayer that he wrote on the side of each of the coffee bags that he sells. Even the name of the shop is inspired by the book “The Alchemist” and is a reminder for Berryhill of God’s presence.
“In the book, the main character, Santiago, meets the high priest Melchizedek and he says, ‘Why didn’t you become a priest?’ and he’s like, ‘I like to travel and shepherd my sheep,’ ” Berryhill said.
Berryhill’s journey with faith began long before the Traveling Shepherd. Amid obstacles, he found his way back to his faith through prayer and asking for the intercession of the saints.
“I was raised Catholic and I grew up in Glendale, Queens, N.Y., in a pretty good parish. Not having a dad present in the house and being left to the streets of New York to teach you morals, things didn’t work out too well,” Berryhill said. “(That) led to a very dark 15 years.”
Berryhill began reordering his life toward God in 2010 when he started praying for the intercession of St. Thérèse of Lisieux. Living in Newport News, he had a moment of realization that he needed God in his life.
From then on, he sought friendships with other parishioners and learned more about the rich history of the church. Eventually, he found himself living with a group of priests from the Congregation of the Most Holy Redeemer, also known as the Redemptorists, to assist a family member with medical treatment.
“I saw Catholicism at its fullest. I was like, ‘One day, I want to do something like this, where I share the full charism of the church,’ ” Berryhill said. “That became a catalyst to start really visiting churches and seeing the depth of the church.”
As he continued his faith journey, Berryhill continued to move around the East Coast and grow in his faith. He developed an interest in coffee after meeting friends from across the globe who had shared their different coffee customs.
“The Redemptorists have influenced me,” Berryhill said. “All the dots connected (when) I went to Vietnam with one of them where they gave me coffee from one of the priests from a family on the farm.”
As he continued to learn how to brew coffee from a variety of mentors, he met his future wife and decided to return to Virginia after living in Pennsylvania. After several years of creating prayer cards in his spare time, Berryhill set off to mold his career around his faith as he and his wife welcomed their daughter in 2020.
“As an overworking American myself, we could all use a little more of a break to spend time with each other. Then the question was, how do you make this into a business while respecting the culture and tradition,” Berryhill said. “I’m giving (coffee) to them in the purest form, just as we would say, through the Catholic Mass, that’s the purest form of Christianity of Jesus Christ. I tried to do the same thing with coffee.”
Especially when he partakes in events for the church, Berryhill wants to foster relationships that are grounded in the faith.
“The goal is to get people in the parish engaged with each other,” he said. “ … to connect and have those conversations, because when we know each other, we become a stronger community.”
