09/05/2026
As part of our 10 year anniversary, we dug into the archives to share a series on Cat & Cloud history.
Today we’re covering TruBaca, the “ship name” of two of our founders, Jared Truby & Chris Baca. Both of them started working in coffee in the early 2000’s, when third wave coffee was just starting to become mainstream.
Chris & Jared met on a practice machine in 2005 after independently entering the Western Regional Barista Competition. Although they didn’t place in this comp, the two became fast friends and kept in touch via email after returning home from the competition.
Chris moved to Santa Cruz in 2009, joining Jared at Verve Coffee as some of the foundational team members. It was around this time that they started their blog: TruBaca. The TruBaca blog was an outlet for their passion and perspectives on the industry. Often this involved playfully challenging industry trends and norms.
Over the next eight years, they moved through various roles in specialty coffee — barista, educator, retail ops director, business development, marketing — picking up broadened perspectives along the way.
Throughout all of this, Chris and Jared engaged heavily in the specialty coffee community outside of their day jobs: competing in (and winning) barista competitions, serving on the Barista Guild Executive Council, running the blog, and making educational videos.
