H and H Coffee

Dedicated to the history of the Hoffmann-Hayman Coffee Co. founded 1899 in San Antonio, Texas.

Book 1952 San Antonio Nexapa by Helen Seargeant

By Helen H. Seargeant · 1952 · LCCN 52-6957 · Signed and dedicated by the author 1954

Bibliographic detail

  • Title: San Antonio Nexapa
  • Author: Helen H. Seargeant
  • Edition held: First edition, 1952
  • Publisher: TBD (likely Naylor Company, San Antonio — common mid-century SA publisher for regional first-person history; to be confirmed on title page)
  • LCCN: 52-6957 (Library of Congress Catalog Card Number)
  • ISBN: N/A (predates ISBN system)
  • Pagination: TBD — to be confirmed in-hand
  • Format: Hardcover, 8¾″ × 5¾″ × 1¾″ (W × H × spine)
  • Inscription: Signed and dedicated by the author in 1954 (two years after publication)

Physical description

Hardcover, 8¾″ × 5¾″ × 1¾″. Cover style and color to be confirmed in-hand. The held copy carries an author’s dedication and signature dated 1954 — a post-publication inscription, suggesting Seargeant signed it for a recipient (or at a SA-area book event) in the two years following the 1952 release. LCCN 52-6957 confirms the 1952 deposit copy at the Library of Congress.

Provenance

Acquired 23 April 2015 via eBay (auction reference 231538049999); accessioned as HH-BOOK-2015-0001. The listing offered the signed first edition specifically; the 1954 inscription was the listing’s headline feature.

Why it matters

San Antonio Nexapa is a first-person account of a pioneer family on a coffee plantation at the foot of Mt. Tacana in Mexico — a research bridge between H and H’s San Antonio operation and the Mexican green-bean origins it sourced from.

The book’s importance for H and H research is supply-chain context: the green coffee beans used by H and H were sourced from Mexico, and San Antonio Nexapa documents the family-and-plantation-level reality of the Mexican coffee origin during the same broad mid-twentieth-century era when H and H was buying from that supply. It is not a direct H and H source (Seargeant does not document Hoffmann-Hayman), but it provides the upstream half of the supply chain that the rest of the H and H corpus documents downstream.

Seargeant’s voice — mid-century local-history, names-and-institutions narrative rather than fully footnoted academic study — surfaces leads on people, firms, and geography that can then be verified in newspapers, deeds, and city directories. The Tacana / Chiapas / Soconusco origin region is the implicit source area for much of the era’s Texas-bound green-bean trade.

Notable contents

  • First-person plantation life at Mt. Tacana, Chiapas / Soconusco region.
  • Mid-century San Antonio - Mexico interpersonal and commercial connections (the “San Antonio” in the title).
  • Naming of people and firms in the Texas-Mexico coffee trade circle that may surface H and H supplier or buyer names on a close re-read.

Open questions

  • Does Seargeant name any Texas coffee buyers / roasters by name? A close re-read for Hoffmann, Hayman, Stevens, San Antonio coffee, or H&H-adjacent surnames would directly connect this book to the H and H supply story.
  • What years does the plantation narrative cover? If it predates or overlaps the 1932 H and H Crystalvac launch era, it’s foundational; if mid-century, it’s contemporaneous with H and H’s mature operation.
  • Publisher confirmation — Naylor Company is the educated guess based on era + SA + first-person regional history; verify on title page.

Related: Hoffmann-Hayman Coffee Company · Library · Library — Purchase List