The Odd Bird Art & Craft Fair is always busy. Spread across two halls of the Old Strathcona Performing Arts Centre, vendors and customers spill through the building in a vortex of sound, colour, products and people. At the spring 2026 fair, tucked between two other vendors in the larger hall, was a table piled high with turtle-themed merch — stickers, tote bags, shirts — and tins of freshly roasted coffee beans.
“It’s a good thing we brought more coffee than we thought we’d need,” says Julian Robinson, co-founder and roaster for Tortuga. “We ended up having to roast more. It was a great turnout.” Tortuga officially opened for business in December 2025, and up until its appearance at the Odd Bird Art & Craft Fair, it was relying on Instagram and word of mouth to spread.
Robinson says that people had seen their tins online and were looking for a place to find them. Since then, many have been asking if they’ll be at the next market too. “Applications have just opened up, so we’ll see if we can replicate it,” he says.
The tins look like small gas canisters, with the turtle logo peeking around the edge. The logo changes colour to reflect the contents inside. The beans are sourced from Colombia, with the majority from the Cauca region. They lean more towards experimental tasting notes, like Tabi Sunshine, [dragonfruit, cherry and honey] 92 Pink Bourbon [strawberry, passionfruit and lychee] and Gesha [green mango, floral and grapefruit]. Tortuga introduced two new roasts at Odd Bird, a version of Pink Bourbon renamed Odd Bourb, and Honey Pacamera, which was a small batch made specifically for the fair using the same beans Robinson learned how to roast in Colombia, where he has family members that own a farm and grow coffee plants.
On a visit, Robinson’s cousin told him that he was picking coffee from their farm and was going to try roasting it himself on the stove. The experiment was a success, and the cousin suggested they might work together in the future.
“That’s when I approached my friend Nathan Desjardins, who entertains my crazy ideas, and we got a little roaster and started,” Robinson says. The two friends were new coffee enthusiasts but quickly learned the ropes. The Tortuga [Spanish for turtle] logo came from Robinson’s brother, who designed it in a University of Alberta class on branding. They put it in a sombrero vueltiao, a traditional Colombian hat, to reflect its origin story.
The tins that everyone was looking for at the market were the last step. Robinson wanted the brand to be sustainable, both in its sourcing of coffee beans and the packaging it comes in. Once the idea for the brand was really taking off he realized how many empty coffee bags he was throwing out, and started looking for amber-coloured glass bottles to package Tortuga’s beans.
“I found a supplier out of Montreal but it would almost be cheaper to drive and pick them up myself instead of getting them shipped,” Robinson laughs. That led him to consider other less-expensive options closer to home, which led to the rectangular tins.
Robinson is thinking about next steps.
“I have a couple irons in the fire,” he says. “The interactions that I’ve had with other people in the coffee industry, it recharges me.” He’s looking at selling the beans out of a couple cafes around town, but his sights for now are on the next Odd Bird fair.
Just like the turtle in the logo, he’s not in a rush.
Tortuga Coffee Roasters
Online store at tortugacoffee.ca
Odd Bird Art & Craft Fair
Strathcona | Old Strathcona Performing Arts Centre, 8426 Gateway Blvd NW, Edmonton | Nov. 27-29, Dec. 4-6 | oddbirdfair.ca
