On any given Sunday morning at the Mueller farmers market, the longest line isn't for the breakfast tacos or the local honey. It's for a card table with a hand-painted sign, six flavors of soda in recycled glass bottles, and a 34-year-old former software engineer named James Okafor who will talk for exactly as long as you want about the chemistry of carbonation.

"Most people don't know this, but the bubbles are the hardest part," Okafor says, holding up a bottle of his signature hibiscus-lime. "Anyone can make flavored syrup. Getting the carbonation right — the pressure, the temperature, the saturation point — that's the craft."

Okafor launched Batch Craft Soda in 2023 from the kitchen of his Mueller apartment, using a $200 countertop carbonation rig and ingredients sourced almost entirely from other Mueller farmers market vendors. Three years later, he produces 400 bottles a week from a shared commercial kitchen on Airport Boulevard, sells at four Austin farmers markets, and recently landed his first wholesale account — a neighborhood restaurant on Aldrich Street.

From Code to Carbonation

Okafor grew up in Houston, the son of Nigerian immigrants who ran a small grocery store. He studied computer science at UT Austin, graduated in 2014, and spent seven years as a backend developer at a series of Austin startups. He was good at it. He didn't love it.

"I'd come home from work and just... make things," he says. "Hot sauce at first. Then pickles. Then kombucha, which I was terrible at. Then soda, which I was also terrible at. But soda was the one I couldn't stop thinking about."

The Mueller farmers market gave him his first real-world test. He applied for a vendor spot in spring 2023, showed up with 48 bottles of three flavors, and sold out in 90 minutes. "That was the day I started doing the math on quitting my job," he says.

The Flavors

Batch currently produces six flavors, all made with cane sugar, filtered water, and natural ingredients. The lineup: Classic Ginger (his bestseller), Hibiscus Lime, Pecan Cream (a nod to Mueller's pecan trees), Jalapeño Pineapple, Lavender Lemon, and a rotating seasonal. This month's seasonal is Grapefruit Rosemary.

Each bottle is $5 at the market, $6 wholesale. The margins are thin — glass bottles, cane sugar, and farmers market booth fees eat into the revenue — but Okafor says he broke even in 2025 and projects his first profitable year in 2026.

What's Next

Okafor is negotiating with two more Aldrich Street restaurants and has applied to H-E-B's local vendor program, which could put Batch on grocery shelves by fall. He's also exploring aluminum cans — better margins, wider distribution, less breakage — though he worries about losing the glass-bottle aesthetic that's become part of the brand.

"The farmers market will always be home base," he says, rearranging bottles on the table as the Sunday morning crowd thickens. "This is where people know my name and I know theirs. Everything else is scaling. This is community."