CBD in your morning coffee?

Think drip coffee, espresso, lattés and cold brew. Among the café classics offered at Royal Oak Coffee on Seymour Street, owners Matt and Aless Delia-Lôbo stock something that might be unfamiliar to customers: CBD oil. 

Since its founding last May, Royal Oak Coffee has offered hemp-extracted cannabidiol (CBD) as an addition to any of their coffee brewed in-house. According to the Food and Drug Administration and the Harvard Medical School Blog, CBD is a non-psychoactive phytocannabinoid found in cannabis that has been gaining popularity within the food industry in the last few years for its physical calming effects.

The Delia-Lôbos offer Elmore Mountain Therapeutics (EMT) CBD oil, which is dosed using a graduated syringe and mixed directly into drip-coffees or espresso drink after brewing.

“Right now, we are focusing on seeing if the community is into CBD,” Matt Delia-Lôbo said. “It seems like it hasn’t caught on yet, but CBD is also not going away soon.”

CBD has less than .3% THC — the psychoactive chemical in weed — by volume, which means the product does not get you “high.” Although it has no intoxicative effects, many coffee shop owners and CBD vendors in the area attest to the relaxing effects that occur after ingesting CBD.

Ashley Reynolds of Elmore Mountain Therapeutics (EMT), a vendor of medical grade cannabidiol products, said that CBD can help regulate the body’s endocannabinoid system, which is important in times of stress, for example.

“Most peoples’ endo-cannabinoid system needs a reset of some kind,” Reynolds said. “In a normal situation we have naturally occurring cannabinoids going around our system, but if we aren’t taking care of [ourselves], our body is put into an unregulated system.” 

Reynolds said that adding CBD to your diet can better regulate your own naturally occurring cannabinoids. “Supplementing [your diet] with phyto-cannabinoids found in hemp plants, like CBD, unlocks your body’s ability to get a boost to natural endogenous cannabinoid structure,” she said.

Since most people consume coffee in the morning, Reynolds said taking a dose of CBD at this time is a great way to get more cannabinoids in your system as an organic part of your daily routine.

 “Some folks don’t like that herbal floral cannabis-taste,” she said, “so coffee is a nice way to get [CBD] into the body in a really enjoyable way.” EMT partners with cafes across Vermont and the north-east, including Royal Oak Coffee, to offer a single dose and low entry cost CBD oil.

As a new company, Royal Oak is still exploring how well CBD-infused coffee is being perceived by its Addison County customer base. East of the Green Mountains in Woodstock, Vt., Abracadabra Coffee Co. has successfully produced and sold a cold brew coffee with full-spectrum CBD oil. Dubbed the “Chill Brew,” Abracadabra has offered the product since its opening in 2015.

“[Chill Brew] sales have been great,” said Abracadabra business partner Sarah Yetter. “The product was really well-received and we’ve gotten international attention because of it.” 

Yetter said that although some people think the calming effect of CBD and the alertness of caffeine oppose each other, the combination works well. “We like to say that it makes you calm and alert,” she said. “It doesn’t cancel each other out and gives you the best of both worlds.’ 

Abracadabra receives all its full-spectrum CBD from Luce Farms up the road in Stockbridge, Vt. “[Luce] does everything right, top to bottom,” Yetter said. “We would much rather use a Vermont product with people that we know and like than importing from a farm somewhere else.”

For the Delia-Lôbos, the flavor of their coffee is important to their company’s mission. They said the citric components of the CBD oil can work well with the fruity notes of drip coffee. Royal Oak houses a special syringe that measures CBD oil by volume, so that each coffee has the same amount added. 

Lost Monarch, the sister company of Royal Oak Coffee, set to open later this month, will stock Abracadabra Coffee Co. products, including the Chill Brew. Royal Oak Coffee is open weekdays from 7 a.m. – 4 p.m. (excluding Tuesdays), Saturdays from 8 a.m. – 4 p.m., and Sundays from 9 a.m. – 4 p.m. Abracadabra Coffee Co. is open weekend days from 9 a.m. – 2 p.m., with rotating food trucks every week.

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