Koko Lists
Start a new list
Log in
Sign up
← New random battle
Koko Battle
Tap your pick.
Flux Coffee
Flux Coffee didn't start as a café at all — it started in 2010 in Berkeley, California, as a cold brew company built around an innovative cold brew method that founder Arsalan Pourmand distributed via bottles and kegs across the Bay Area rather than through a storefront. That's a genuinely unusual origin for a business that's since become a fixture of the Long Island coffee scene: most local roasters start with a café and add packaged product later, while Flux started as a packaged cold brew brand and only later became a place you could sit down. Pourmand eventually moved back east, and in 2017 he opened Flux's first brick-and-mortar café and roastery on Main Street in Farmingdale — a deliberate shift from a West Coast cold brew operation into a full Long Island café and roasting business. That East Coast pivot gives Flux a distinct identity among Farmingdale-area roasters: the cold brew technique that built the company in California remains a core part of the menu, alongside a full hot espresso and drip program developed after the move. The café itself functions as both a working roastery and a retail bar, letting customers watch and buy beans roasted on-site rather than sourcing green coffee elsewhere and shipping it out. Flux sells pre-bagged grounds and whole beans to go alongside its brewed drinks, giving regulars a way to take the same coffee home that they're drinking in the café — a straightforward but not universal offering among smaller Long Island roasters, several of which sell only prepared drinks on-site. The company's full name, Flux Coffee, still nods to its cold-brew-first identity even as the Farmingdale café has broadened into a complete specialty coffee operation — Daily Coffee News covered the brand's evolution specifically under the headline description of Flux flowing "from West to East, Cold to Hot," a framing that captures the company's actual business history more precisely than most café origin stories manage. That West Coast-to-Long Island arc, combined with Pourmand's specific technical background in cold brew extraction, gives Flux a genuinely different foundation than the classic "barista opens a neighborhood café" story most other Long Island coffee shops tell. For a Long Island coffee list, Flux Coffee is the essential "cold brew company that became a full café" entry — a Berkeley-born cold brew business that Arsalan Pourmand relocated and rebuilt into a working Farmingdale roastery and bar, carrying its bottled-and-kegged origins into a genuine hot-and-cold specialty coffee program.
VS
Georgio's Coffee Roasters
Georgio's Coffee Roasters opened its first café in Huntington in 2006, founded by Georgio and his wife, before consolidating its roastery and retail bar under a single Farmingdale roof in 2011 — a move that let the company control roasting and retail from one location rather than splitting operations across towns. Nearly two decades later, that Farmingdale bar remains the company's home base and its only standalone location outside a newer Stony Brook café that opened in 2025, marking just the second retail cafe in the company's twenty-year history. The roasting itself runs on a 30-year-old Probat L12, the same style of workhorse roasting machine used by serious specialty roasters nationally, and Georgio's team has traveled to farms in at least seven coffee-producing countries to source beans directly rather than buying exclusively through importers. The company's bean lineup has included coffees from more than 20 Cup of Excellence competition winners — a meaningful marker of quality, since Cup of Excellence is one of the more rigorous, internationally judged coffee competitions producing countries participate in, and sourcing from that many winning lots reflects a genuinely serious buying program rather than a marketing claim. Daily Coffee News, a trade publication covering the specialty coffee industry nationally, featured Georgio's specifically as a "longtime Long Island roaster" upon the 2025 Stony Brook opening — language that reflects how the company is regarded within the industry itself, not just by local customers. That two-decade span between the first Huntington café and the second standalone location outside Farmingdale is a notably slow, deliberate growth pace compared to newer Long Island roasters that have opened multiple locations within just a few years of founding. As Georgio and his wife work toward retirement, more of the day-to-day operation has shifted to longtime team members, including a manager named Cummins — a transition the company has approached gradually rather than as an abrupt ownership handoff, aiming to keep the same quality commitment in place through the changeover. That slow, careful approach to both growth and succession mirrors the deliberateness of the roasting program itself. Traveling directly to farms in seven producing countries, rather than relying solely on importers and brokers, is a meaningfully larger commitment of time and money than most small regional roasters make, and it's the kind of investment that only pays off if the buying relationships built on those trips actually translate into the kind of Cup of Excellence-caliber lots Georgio's has consistently featured on its menu over the past two decades. For a Long Island coffee list, Georgio's Coffee Roasters is the essential "twenty years, one serious roasting program" entry — a Farmingdale roastery running a 30-year-old Probat L12 and sourcing from more than 20 Cup of Excellence winners, expanding at a pace measured in decades rather than years since its 2006 Huntington founding.
Next battle
Full comparison
About Flux Coffee
About Georgio's Coffee Roasters
Popular Battles
1984 vs. Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone
1 votes
Friends vs. Curb Your Enthusiasm
1 votes
Ideogram vs. Sora
1 votes
Navy Pier vs. Bishop Museum
1 votes
Rockin' Around the Christmas Tree vs. Skittles
1 votes
George Carlin vs. Oprah Winfrey
1 votes
