Pitch Lab

Bartholomew Jones – Cxffeeblack

• Thomas Frank, Classic, Bartholomew Jones • Season 1 • Episode 1

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Bartholomew Jones, the co-founder of Cxffeeblack, discusses how his brand seeks to reclaim coffee's African roots while empowering Black farmers and promoting social justice. Through storytelling, music, and ethically sourced ingredients, Cxffeeblack offers an authentic coffee experience that emphasizes cultural connection and community.

Key Takeaways

• Bartholomew's journey from hip-hop artist to coffee entrepreneur
• The mission of Cxffeeblack to create an equitable Black future
• The importance of storytelling in brand building
• Diversity and inclusion within the coffee industry 
• Upcoming initiatives like the Pan-African Barista Exchange Program
• The impact of coffee's colonial history on today's market 
• Building community around curiosity and quality coffee 
• Differentiating Cxffeeblack through authenticity and flavor 
• Unique supply chain connecting Ethiopia to Memphis 

And don’t miss how we bring all this brilliant insight into our lab and transform it into an impactful 30-second piece that truly brews the perfect cup of Cxffeeblack.

Pitch Lab is produced and distributed by Merrick Studios and hosted by Merrick Chief Creative Officer, Tom Frank and content marketer, storyteller, and brand strategist, William "Classic" Thomas. Tune in to hear this thought-provoking brand discussion on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, YouTube, or wherever you catch your podcasts. 

Speaker 1:

You ready? Classic yes, all right. Welcome to Pitch Lab, the place where big ideas, bold branding and a little comic flair collide. I'm Tom Frank, chief Creative Officer at Merit.

Speaker 2:

Creative and I am Classic, the inquisitive one brand builder, head of content all across the board. We take founders with serious ambition and turn their stories into memorable content.

Speaker 1:

You've got a game-changing idea, you're raising capital, or maybe you're just trying to get people to care about what you're building.

Speaker 2:

That's where we come in. We dig into what makes your brand tick. Pull out the gold.

Speaker 1:

And then we flip it into a 30-second content piece that's got personality punch and maybe even a little pizzazz. Pizzazz. You say, I do Branding needs a little flair.

Speaker 2:

That's fair. So if you're a founder of a great pitch or one that needs a little work, stick around.

Speaker 1:

Because this is Pitch Lab Classic. We got a very interesting guest today in the lab. Oh, tell me more. We are talking to the one and only Bartholomew Jones, the co-founder of Coffee Black, a community oriented, multidisciplinary, education based coffee company founded in 2019 by Bartholomew and his wife, renata Henderson. Coffee Black is a social enterprise on a mission to return coffee to its African roots and, in the process, create an equitable black future. The company is a trailblazer in the coffee industry by creating an entirely all-black coffee supply chain from Ethiopia to Memphis, tennessee. Welcome to Pitch Lab, bartholomew Jones.

Speaker 3:

How are you Good to be here, man. I'm doing great. I got my coffee. It's vibing.

Speaker 1:

I kind of wish I had some right now.

Speaker 3:

Why don't you do something after the show I got you?

Speaker 1:

Yeah, I'm already thirsty from just saying the words coffee a couple different times. Yes sir, yes sir.

Speaker 2:

I was your neighbor for a bit. I was in Nashville for like a year and a half, maybe two years, when I was doing my WeFunder work.

Speaker 3:

Hey, nashville, yeah, that's dope. I feel like I've been in Nashville more in the last two years of my life than I've been in my life. You know what I'm saying. Like the work with Vanderbilt, the work with WeFunder, I'm growing to love it. There's like a little sibling rivalry between Memphis and Nashville. I'm sure so, yes, but it's been good to connect.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, Now are you a Memphis born and raised guy.

Speaker 3:

Yes, sir. Yeah, grew up in Black Haven. It's called White Haven, but we call it Black Haven. You know, duke Deuce or any of those rappers like that, famous from that part of the community. But yeah, born and bred in Memphis, I left the city for undergrad I went to Wheaton College, came back and got my master's. But love Memphis, we got roots here and I really believe Memphis is a part of the future. So we're building.

Speaker 1:

Yeah. So let's kind of figure out what we're talking about here today, like what? What inspired you, like where, where did this whole idea of Coffee Black come from?

Speaker 3:

Yeah, honestly, it came from some bars. So I'm an independent rapper, an educator, a community educator, and spend a lot of time just like taking inspiration. At heart, I'm a nerd, to be honest. Like growing up I was into anime, comic books, like anything detail-oriented I love, and that eventually led me back into hip hop, especially like the more like creative, like nerdy, backpacker side of things. And I got into school in Chicago, but I always loved the music and when I was in Chicago I accidentally also got into specialty coffee.

Speaker 3:

So my dad, like as a kid, would always present coffee to me. He went to Kenya when we were, before we were born, and was like you got to try this African coffee. And I was like, dad, this is gross, you know what I'm saying. I want to drink this the only way. You know. This is the only way you would catch me.

Speaker 3:

Drinking coffee is like with a bunch of the powdery creamer and powdery sugar. I used to like put a few drops of coffee mixed, as you know, called a trappuccino, but like that was the only way I was really sipping on coffee. But when I went to school in chicago, they started talking about like I would see these bags and they were like notes of strawberry rhubarb for stemming. I'm like that's. So I just wanted to try it and you know, of course you see people doing pour overs and you see the craft and it was super inspiring to me. So I just used to post up at coffee shops, like right outside of the, the college campus, and would just, you know, write music, work on lesson plans. I was an elementary education major as well, sociology minor, but I would just be there because it was an inspiring place to be. And you know, over time my curiosity began to be a part of my inspiration. I think that's normal for most people, like the things you're curious about become a part of your inspiration.

Speaker 3:

As an artist, uh, I famously remember like chicago actually getting put on mick jenkins and mick jenkins having like the drink more water mixtape and like taking his curiosity about like health and the nature of water and flipping it into metaphors for the community and like for me, I was like, oh okay, I gotta drink your coffee black. You know, I'm saying that's gonna be my niche, that's gonna way, that's the way I differentiate yourself, because the Memphis hip-hop scene is, you know, it is what it is and I love it. It's a part of my roots, but I also know like my particular notes to borrow. Borrow from coffee. Language don't necessarily mirror what you would expect when you meet a artist or a rapper out of memphis, and so, like, coffee was my way to differentiate myself and we had a song we did probably 2017 of me and my brother spent forever mixing it, but it was like it was a song and it went like you know, know, no sugar, no cream, please, don't cover my dreams. No sugar, no cream, please, don't cover my dreams. But that was the vibe of the song. It was kind of neo soul joint. We were like, hey, man, coffee black is a metaphor for being yourself. It's a metaphor for connected to the creator's purpose. It's this metaphor for health, and it's like the copy is actually way better when you get into the notes and it's roasted well and so on and so forth. And I was like, yeah, this is tight.

Speaker 3:

And we ended up doing a million streams off the music and I made 1200 bucks and my wife was looking at me like what you doing? You know what I'm saying. We definitely spent like 10 bands on the marketing, the mixing, the you know, and it was just like, okay, this is something, but it's not the final point. And we eventually everyone would always ask me like you know, I was a part-time barista as well people actually like yo, y'all gonna, y'all gonna start a coffee shop. I'm like heck, no brother's gonna gentrify my neighborhood. Like we moved back to the hood after college and after graduate school to start doing mentorship and community development and I was like now I'm gonna gent about my community, I'm gonna do this content, though, you know, I'm gonna educate people about this industry, we're gonna do this art.

Speaker 3:

And eventually, bro, like we ended up dropping like maybe 50 pounds of coffee as merch like basically flipped it like streetwear, like limited edition. You gotta come to this concert, buy a ticket, you get this piece. It was a guji man actually got the, got the bag right here. So, like yo, it feels like a piece of merch, you know. And so for me, it was like as an indie artist, merch was my salvation for being able to pay my bills. That's how you made the money, yeah, yeah.

Speaker 3:

So we did it and I made like three beds in like two hours. I was like whoa, there's something here, hold up, that's different. And people kept hitting me up. We started having shops reach out like yo, can I carry it? And at this point we weren't even roasting, we were co-roasting or basically having somebody white label for us. It was one of my homies, kenny, and so this led me on a very long journey to start learning more about the industry and, of course, as I got into it, I'm always the only black person in the coffee shop, right, even if the coffee shop is in a black neighborhood.

Speaker 1:

You know what I'm saying, saying like I'm the only one who's in there participating in the culture and it made me realize like, oh, this is an opportunity to start bringing way more transformation, and that really led us on the journey to start coffee black. Yeah, so so let me, I gotta ask. So it to me that you have roots in coffee, you have roots in music. This is as much of a movement as it is a product. Yeah, but at the end of the day, you gotta've got to have a product too. And so tell me more about the product. What makes it special? I mean, you obviously have done a good job from a branding perspective and, as you said, making it into almost it's like merchandise. But how have you figured out the coffee? Because coffee is competitive, right, I go down the block and there's three coffee shops. Have you figured out the?

Speaker 3:

coffee Because coffee is competitive, right. I go down the block and there's three coffee shops yeah for sure. And I think part of that is talent, right, and I kind of explain coffee in this way. There's generally two value propositions that you see in the coffee industry, and this is just from my 10 years of being a barista, being a connoisseur, being a nerd and just nerding out on coffee right. The first picture is what we're all familiar with, which is like we have the cheapest coffee, right, and we can think of a billion brands that fall into that category, and people work with super, super low margins and that's how they get. This is actually not specialty coffee. This is not the stuff that I'm talking about as far as strawberry and rhubarb and persimmon and these kinds of notes, but that's a big part of the industry In fact that's, honestly, 99% of the coffee that's sold on the planet is what we call commodity grade coffee, and that's coffee I honestly don't like, still Like.

Speaker 1:

I have really no interest in drinking that coffee. It's not. It doesn't make me curious.

Speaker 3:

Give me an example of that Now would you put like Dunkin' Donuts into that category? Actually an interesting case, because I got to meet with their like cheap diversity of marketing manager a year ago. Prior to that I would have said yes, but you would think, as far as a branding perspective, america runs on Dunkin', we're here for the working class. Folgers is also another example, bustelo is another example, community Coffee. These are coffees that kind of win in the marketplace by being super cheap and one economically that is a very cost-intensive game to play Like you're playing at scale and you're basically betting that you can outlive your competitors because you're going to have that much control over supply. You have that much margin to be able, or capital to be able, to outlast people. And we can get into this if you want, because the C market is actually doing something really fascinating for for your, for information. Traditionally the c market, you know, would have been like a buck 20 for a pound of coffee, right that's grown by a producer. Right now the c market is at almost four dollars and so like the industry is scrambling right now as far as like my degree coffee. Why is that? Why such a huge increase? Well, a lot of it has to do with the way the market is built, is built on a futures market, and so, like there are people in new york and in london it was actually the first commodity, one of the first commodities traded in the stock market and so, like there are people who wake up every day and make a projection based on what they think coffee is worth, and then they decide the price of coffee moving forward for the next year. And so, based on what's happening in brazil, what people expect is happening with the weather, what the harvest is looking like and, to be honest, brazil is an interesting case too. We're about to get very nerdy here.

Speaker 3:

Brazil is an interesting case too, because brazil is the largest producer of coffee in the world. But we have to ask the question why this coffee is not native to brazil. Coffee where's it native to? Is native to ethiopia, and actually that's the specific species of coffee which is cafea arabica. The cafea species there are, or genus I guess you could say there are 120 species of this particular genus is native to the continent africa. They grow in east africa, west africa, but the one we all are most familiar with is arabica.

Speaker 3:

But it was exported due to colonialism. It was stolen and brought around the world, and its slaves and indigenous people were used to grow it, and so Brazil was the largest place for this kind of hotbed of like free labor. And eventually that free labor became mechanized and it was the slaves were replaced with machines, and so this is why Brazil is kind of like the hotbed, because they produce the most due to the economic model built off of slaves. But anyway, what happens in Brazil is basically what determines what happens for coffee in the rest of the world.

Speaker 3:

For the most part, and the people who woke up and decided that, you know, coffee is going to be based at three dollars really 360 right now are looking at a lot of the planetary changes that are happening in brazil as far as, like, what's happening with the environment. They're also looking at the uh decrease in production, which means the coffee is going to be more valuable, and we can get more into this if you want. But the long story, and short of it, is that, like coffee is more expensive now than it's been in the last 60 years and it doesn't so shine, so drop people who work with the commodity market, and so this is hard this is hard.

Speaker 1:

This has made your job a lot harder.

Speaker 3:

Well, it didn't make my job harder and we'll get into the other part, the other side of it. So the first problem that you have is this is the cheapest coffee, and people generally do super low-grade coffee. It's super burnt, it's sprayed with pesticides. The FDA says it can have 10% roach particle in it. So when people say like, oh, coffee makes stomach hurt, I don't really like coffee. It's like a lot of those things have nothing to do with coffee. It has to do with the process, the product.

Speaker 1:

Cause we're drinking roaches. Yeah, classic, how you feel about this?

Speaker 2:

I don't. I don't feel good about that at all, but no, I don't of two really important things, especially for folks that are watching. Whereas you have to have a passion first but you can't necessarily nine times out of 10, you probably won't fully profit off of that passion. That passion is a creativity. You have to then apply it to something tangible and it's usually. We usually meet these two influences and so you were fed this influence all throughout your life.

Speaker 2:

You have the music like Memphis is a music hotbed, which influence all throughout your life.

Speaker 2:

You have the music like memphis is a music hotbed, which they're telling you about coffee, and you found these intersections.

Speaker 2:

And now you know people don't make a lot of money off the creativity because of how you know a lot of these systems have done down the works when you think about streaming and whatnot, and that's why they're like, if you want to make money as the, as an independent artist, you better have merch and you better be creating shows and so create this secondary aspect.

Speaker 2:

Uh, whereas, like I'm not one, you super niche down everybody has a t-shirt, everybody has a vinyl, how many, how many rap shows you go to? And it's probably, and it's just like a freaking coffee barista and you know you're selling bags, selling cups, whatever the case it may be but then I like to say that you're never going to make it as a rapper. If you're trying to create opportunities at a rapper convention, like it's just too many people doing the same thing in the same room, yeah, you stand out. You, as a rapper, went to the coffee convention and all you had to do was find the folks that are like one. I like rap too. I like coffee, and it's so like, it's such a small segment that you can own it.

Speaker 1:

Yeah all you had to be was yourself in essence. You had to be yourself in that, in that niche yeah, and literally cross, connect with literally.

Speaker 2:

but there's not one person that hasn't listened to rap in some way, shape or form, and if they haven't, that's just a really small percentage because of how large the genre is and just about everybody drinks coffee and so the intersections are so broad. But then you came in so narrow that you can build that up, because nobody else is doing it like you and by time folks actually catch on, it's too late, because look how much we've sold, look how many people have played the music, look how many people are in our CRM. I think it's beautiful, uh, what you've done. And and the fact that you're continuously learning, because I'm like you're sitting here nerding out on a coffee, I'm like what the hell is this background? And I thought you said you're wrong.

Speaker 2:

And but because of that passion, it now has forced you to learn even more so you could become even better at it, which then separates you even more, because now it's like we're about to. You know, we're watching a 60 minutes or a Dateline interview one day and we have this person that's in venture. We have this person. Then we have you, raffer, bartholomew Jones, and you're like running circles around everybody else at the time. Yeah, then inspires even more people to kind of like, look into you and potentially use you as a point of influence for their own endeavors.

Speaker 1:

Now I want to know okay, so that's all a good point, but I want to get into now the differentiator, because you said that we have that end of the coffee and then we have what I'm assuming you're in on the other end of the coffee world.

Speaker 3:

So I'm actually a third option, but I'll explain the second one and I'll try to be a bit more brief. But I just wanted to touch on what Classic was saying because I agree, interesting thing is like I'm invited to speak at national coffee symposiums and conferences and I pull up, you know, semphos D, and we get they bring the dogs out to sniff our bags like who, why? It just doesn't make sense to them that we're there. I'm like I'm speaking on panel, like I'm here because we're a global thought leader within the coffee industry, and I think it actually speaks to the root issue of coffee, right, which is that coffee is this African plant that was grown by these people who the world doesn't associate with the highest quality of that product, and I think we see that across a ton of industries and of course that's a problem, but I also see that as a possibility, right, because I'm very curious about multiverses and things like that. What would coffee have been like had it actually been able to benefit the people who created it globally? And that's kind of the genesis of the question that frames a lot of our product development.

Speaker 3:

But the second part of coffee, right, and this is where specialty coffee comes in. This is where you see hipsters with mustaches and flannel shirts, a lot of this stuff that came out of Portland and that's specialty coffee. And the general value proposition by specialty coffee is that we have the best coffee. So some people say we have the cheapest coffee. That's the legacy coffee. That would be known as, like the first wave coffee, their second wave coffee, which is like kind of the 90s we're not even gonna talk about that, to be honest, because like, but that was like Java, erykah Badu, you know whipped cream, board games, like everybody kind of familiar with that. But the third wave of coffee is this piece that really is like you'll see, with like a blue bottle, right, or even if you're following Jimmy Butler's brand and he just dropped Big Face. It's like this is the. We have the best, the most, the rarest, the most exclusive, the most hype coffee on the planet. And that's really what made me curious, right, that was what made me interested in coffee, and so I did spend a lot of time as a barista and as a connoisseur in that space.

Speaker 3:

But the issue again with that is that that at the end of the day becomes a gas to problem. The first problem is that turns into a money game as well. So it's a money game if you're trying to do the cheapest coffee because you're super low margin, that you're trying to work at a huge scale and dominate big segments of like grocery and things like that. On the other side of it, you have the we have the best coffee, and that turns into a race to buy the rarest coffee on the planet. And just as a independent rapper and community educator from Memphis um, with a little bit of an activist and deacon streak in them, I can't afford to play either one of those games.

Speaker 3:

And we were bootstrapped for the first few years of our business. But the game that I felt like I could do better than anyone else is that we have the most authentic coffee right, that we have the coffee that's best for you and for who you were meant to be. We have the coffee. That is what it was always meant to be. And let me take you on this journey into something you've never thought about but that you always needed, and that, honestly, was the thing that got me into all of this coffee music, all that. It was the curiosity about possibility that I've had since a kid. Before I was a rapper, before I was a coffee and I was just a curious kid and I think that our brand is built on people who have a desire to be curious, is built on people who have a desire to be curious but don't have a way to actualize that, and our product turns into a means of seeding this curiosity about possibility in the world. So that is what we've been built on.

Speaker 3:

So when we built GujiMain, of course we had to have super high quality coffee. Coffee is scored from one to a hundred. We're doing coffees that are consistently scoring at 86. So this is the top 1% percent of coffee and then of that, top one percent of coffee in the world. So most of those coffees started like a 78 or 80 and we're doing 86, right. So these are like who scores the coffee? Uh, basically coffee somalias. They're called q graders, uh, but these people are great scoring coffee around the world. They're doing what's called cupping, which is essentially like a coffee tasting and there's a wheel similar to, like you've seen, a flavor wheel for wine. They associated basically these different characteristics and these are the copies that are single origin, that have like a specific farm associated, a specific terroir, specific processing methods, maybe even experimental processing methods. Like the coffee I just showed you guys is like an anaerobic fermentation, which means it was fermented without air for about 86 hours by our honey, tere Waji, in Ethiopia.

Speaker 3:

But you know, when we started the brand, my thing was like there's an intersection, like there's a story that's not being told and that story happens to mirror my own. And so, by telling my own story and using the coffee as a metaphor, we're speaking to a lot of people who the market is ignoring. So a little bit of coffee research here, as if we haven't done enough right. 10 years ago, african-americans were the lowest coffee consuming demographic racially in the United States, according to the National Coffee Association. Last March, I believe, a report came out and they said African-Americans are the fastest growing ethnic segment, followed up by Gen Z, which is the fastest growing age demographic. And of course, you can think about our brand and everything that went into it. We're perfectly positioned to be the coffee brand for the next generation of coffee connoisseurs.

Speaker 3:

And you think about as well, like what are the issues, what are the incongruencies with both of those other examples I've sent you? Well, I mean, the first example is that the coffee tastes bad. And then the second piece, especially when it comes to the demographics I mentioned, whether we're talking about gen z or diverse coffee drinkers from different ethnic backgrounds. It's like most of our communities were colonized because of the practices that make this cotton cheap, and so once people are aware of that, there's, uh, unwillingness to really participate in what I call sharecropping. Right, so it's like, hey, I don't want to be.

Speaker 3:

Most consumers at this point are aware, like we, our generation doesn't trust the establishment at all, whether we're talking about grocery or government, and so we're looking for things that are more just, more ethical, better for the planet. But the other part is, most of us are also looking for things that are more interesting, more niche, more curated, more artistic, and so we're at this unique intersection of doing both of those things without time. And so we're at this unique intersection of doing both of those things without time. And so, when you look at the history and the legacy of hip hop and what we're bringing, but also blending it with, like this kind of streetwear piece, we're, we're bringing this high end, elevated, niche product that also happens to be really radical and really just, and so it's perfect for these new emerging trends.

Speaker 3:

Now, we started this before I knew these trends were happening. Obviously, we started in 2018. I knew this is what I wanted and this is the brand that me and my homies wanted. This is what we wanted to drink, and so we created the brand we wanted. And then we're able to see okay, the market is actually catching up to the things we were already looking for.

Speaker 3:

So that's really where you get products like Gujimanay, where you get products like our gold brew, which is like a coffee on a plumber. Instead of iced tea, we use iced coffee and, because of my palate and my taste, like all of the products taste immaculate. But I also know that's a terrible marketing strategy to say we have the best coffee. At the end of the day, it's just who bought from the richest farmer. You know, I'm saying like who's gonna pay the highest price from the richest and you can't sustainably offer their product as well, like next year, that farmer is going to sell to wherever is the highest bidder. But if you have this story of authenticity, this story of like returning to the root but also imagining the future, by that I kind of frame it as sampling Right, just like interesting thing of sampling the past, contextualizing the present, imagining the future.

Speaker 2:

Then that story is always going to be a story. Only I can tell and only my community can tell, and so we built a brand to lead the way you you're. You're essentially what a wall street trapper and eyl is for stocks, but you're doing it for coffee. Yeah, yeah, like, like. The super big benefit for them was the fact that they can talk to talk, walk the walk, but only they can walk into that community. Uh, do it. So therefore, the other groups now have to they become the gatekeeper. Now you have to. You have to come through me to get to them, because I'm the only one who knows how to talk to them. In the same way, you know how to talk, but it also creates opportunities for you to go over on that side, because it's a lot of interest.

Speaker 2:

This is all a game of curiosity. At the end of the day, we're all selling the same products. We're all selling the same products. We're all making the same videos. We're all using the same films. The difference is the director and what's their perspective with that story, and so, with yours being so unique to you and you being able to capitalize on it properly by attaching it to an awareness filter via the music and then a product capture once they get to where the landing spot is in the coffee, at a really nice price yeah, we're doing that on fulfillment creating something, what a lot of folks like to say, like full scale, like apple, like everybody wants to be apple.

Speaker 2:

You build your own product, you sell it to your own audience out of your own store, uh, and, and then you get to the point where eventually, you get to invite other folks because what you're building is the system. So I wonder if there's like plans down the line for, like what does it mean to then find somebody else and then say, almost like a label on that music site, hey, I really like your story. Put it behind this, yeah, and like lay directly to your.

Speaker 3:

That's crazy because, yeah, you're, you're right on track with like part of our growth strategies. This is one of our strategic strategies, but we really want to revitalize the merch industry through coffee. So if you look at a lot of these legacy artists like you, the way they're living is because of merch and they're dropping merch and they sell it once. Right, you make a t-shirt and I can't talk about who I'm pitching to, but we're pitching to a potential lead investor and this is part of what I discussed with them is like, hey, look, man, you have a history, you have a legacy, you have a brand and you can at this point, you're not dropping new music, right? So you're living off of touring and merch and things like that. You drop a t-shirt, your customers are going to buy it, but they're going to buy it once a year and then it's over. Right?

Speaker 3:

I have access to an exclusive all-black supply chain sourced from diaspora communities around the world. It's also some of the rarest coffee on the planet. We have all these accolades and awards and you know cosigns and I can give you a free. Basically, I can give you access to the world's most popular legal drugs that you can drop every week. You know what I'm saying and we'll be right back.

Speaker 1:

Ready to launch your podcast? Merrick Studios offers comprehensive services, from concept development and seamless production to strategic marketing and monetization. Let your story take the mic, visit MerrickCreativecom slash studios and let's get to work. And now back to our show and let's get to work.

Speaker 3:

And now back to our show $495 billion industry and the lane is wide open for us to be able to speak to the demographic that you're speaking to. So that is a big part of our growth strategy down the line right now. I know y'all didn't ask about that growth strategy.

Speaker 1:

This is interesting though, because I think the two things that I find interesting is where do you find your customer base? And then, why does somebody believe right? Why does it, whether it's an investor or a consumer? And so that I was going to get into that, because you know most coffee brands, right, they either have a physical location and they're hustling Like they just got to help people come in the door.

Speaker 1:

Some of them are selling online. Hey, I guess where are your touch points at this point and maybe dive a little further, because I really like what you're saying about. That's a different way to approach how people would try your product for the first time through, in essence, influencers, but huge influencers that actually meet your. You know your particular story in essence, yeah, and this originally happened just because of me being in music, right?

Speaker 3:

So I was the first test case, right? I have a small audience, a million plus streams, but that's nothing in today's audience as far as music is concerned. But I was able to convert my audience into over a million dollars in revenue over the course of the company, because Crazy, yeah, because I was bringing a differentiated product. So on two points one, it's for the people who are in the coffee space. They've. So on two points. One, it's for the people who are in the coffee space They've never seen storytelling like this, they've never seen branding like this.

Speaker 3:

And when you're playing the, we have the best coffee. At this point, everybody has access to buy the same coffees. If you're going from traditional importers, we can all talk to the same importers, we can all go to the same coffee options, and then it just turns into who has the most money, right, because a lot of these coffees roast themselves, to be honest, spiking tape. When you're, when you're purchasing like a 99 point, a 98 point coffee, you know which is like the rarest of the rarest of the rarest, that coffee is going to be amazing if you just throw it in the oven, you know saying like you don't have to be an amazing roaster so you somewhat can't screw it up, unless you really I mean, of course.

Speaker 3:

But I'm saying, like you know, if you're decent, if you're halfway decent, that coffee is going to be amazing to a consumer. So to me the argument is like yo and this is coming from a hip-hop perspective but like yo, what can you do with like eight tracks? You know I'm saying what can you do with no samples? You know I'm saying what can you do with limited access? To me that's actually the market talent. So we have a skill set here that we develop and I can get into how we develop our skill set to be able to differentiate, like our talent, in the market. But at the end of the day, like we're bringing a unique product to people who already love the industry that we're in and they're like this is crazy, they taste it, it tastes amazing. So it checks the box of like oh, I want high quality. But it's also like this coffee makes me feel a way in this story. This brand makes me feel a way in this story. This brand makes me feel a way that none of these other brands make feel and because most people who love high quality products they also are there because they care about the justice and we expose a lot of the hypocrisy, like a lot of these folks who say they care about farmers. It's all okay, so you care about black and brown farmers, but there are no black and brown people in the black and brown neighborhood that you live in, like some may. Some may add something, adding up. You know, I'm saying and so for a lot of those consumers as well, they're really interested in integrity and congruency. And so when you check the flavor box, you check the storytelling box, and then you check the wow and this, this, I can see that this is more just than what I've been doing. It's a. It's an easy answer for people who love industry.

Speaker 3:

Let's go to the other side, people who don't know anything about coffee. They've been drinking folgers their whole life. Everything I dropped is better than what they have. You know what I'm saying? They've been drinking the the some of the worst coffee on the planet. And then you go reverse back to those. Oh, and it happens to be more just. Wow, I don't even know anything about this history, but I definitely don't want to drink that now. I didn't want to drink it before, but now I definitely don't want to drink that. Oh, and it feels fly, it feels aspirational, it feels like I'm a part of something bigger than me. So, okay, yeah, and I want to do this because it's low-key, a flex right, like I'm flexing, like I would drop the new Jordans.

Speaker 3:

Or we got the new, latest collab from Joe Fresh Goods, or you know, like we got the most exclusive strain of our particular stimulant we like to inhale. You know, it's like this is another kind of aspirational brand that speaks to who they are and also is like affirming and also delicious. So that's really those two audiences, in the intersection of those offers that we make, gave us a really unique group of customers who just are right or they love everything we're doing. They consistently buy from us. And then we stack that on top of brand partnerships, because all the issues that make us unique are also issues that, like these larger legacy brands have. So they started reaching out to us to do activations, collaborations, co-branded products. Issues that make us unique are also issues that, like these larger legacy brands have. So they started reaching out to us to do activations, collaborations, co-branded products.

Speaker 3:

And that also led to us starting to speak to other influencers, naturally, who would just reach out. Like I'm doing research about who's in the industry, I see you guys name pop up? Can we do a collaboration to raise some money for the scholarship I'm doing? Can we collaborate on this product? We ended up connecting with chenis, the rapper out in ghana, and like got to shoot some content with him, you know, like dropping us into work, cited for this freestyle he did last year, but we were there because there were no other popping people there, right, and along the way we did a ton of marketing and branding with our basil and all this stuff. But yeah, it led to these partnerships and connections because we're showing up uniquely within the space and so when people get a little bit of curiosity, they see us right, and that leads us to a partnership, either from a legacy brand or from a larger influencer who wants to tap into this.

Speaker 2:

That's interesting. It makes me think a lot about. So it's why it's important to tell your story and be as authentic as possible, because the more you do that, the more people can resonate with it. If they see themselves inside of what it is that you're pushing, the more they are encouraged to want to attach to it. But then talk about it because they know how to talk about it. And it kind of takes you back to this analogy of like um, your friend would probably sell you want a bank better than a bank teller would, because the bank teller is going to have it is going to be like this real structured thing. But like I don't really know you, I don't really trust you, you're just trying to sell me on something. Meanwhile your friend can give you that same information, but it's probably janky as hell, like it's how they explain it.

Speaker 2:

But you try, friend, you know your friend, your best interest, and so you're probably going to go check that bank out because you are in the market for a bank To apply to something as simple as like a beverage as coffee. Now, especially like you think about the black community. Now you're like you might get somebody might start busting on you because you're drinking something else, like you got to drink coffee black. It turns into a thing which happens.

Speaker 3:

You know what I'm saying, why you got Starbucks. What thing which happens. You know what I'm saying, why you got Starbucks. What's wrong?

Speaker 1:

with you. Why are you drinking at Starbucks? Which is interesting because, I mean, I never thought of it like you just said it, coffee is the biggest drug in the world. There are more people hooked on coffee, I would assume, than any other drug.

Speaker 2:

Oh yeah, because it's accessible and it's the second largest commodity.

Speaker 3:

It's the second largest commodity traded from third world countries. It's the most popular beverage drink on the planet. Like you know, the coffee industry is huge and is ripe for disruption. It's right for someone to come in with a different story. And that's where we come in, because not only do we already have all this being from Memphis and just naturally standing out when we show but I have the contrasted like deep, nerdy core to me. That like allows me to speak the language. There's also the piece of like 2021,.

Speaker 3:

I'm doing this research, I'm learning and I have a mentor, martin Mayorga. He's doing 60 million a year and I probably do a way more than that. Now, to be honest, that was like a four-year-old number, but they're going crazy. They're in Costco and they built the world's first, like all Latino supply chain. And he reaches out to me when we're starting. He's like hey, man, see what you're trying to do for your community. I did this for Latinos in the 90s. Let me give you some game, because some of these importers who are sending you samples are literally shell companies for some of the oldest colonial companies on the planet. Right, and you're just looking to connect with, like these farmers, to connect your community and do this change and all the things you want to do, but like, meanwhile, like, these folks are sending you samples. This is like the coffee Illuminati, like watch out, right. Yeah, and to this day, I don't even say those companies names because, like, I'm not Look, don't come for me, bro, I'm small, you know what I'm saying Like we're, we're see, I'm not trying to, you know, I'm just space.

Speaker 3:

But it made me want to go to the root. It made me want to learn about the history of coffee, and so we went to the only pre-colonial coffee community on the planet that still exists, which is in ethiopia. Yeah, we put out a tweet in like 2021. Hey, if a black american coffee company wanted to go to africa to learn about its indigenous roots, like, would anybody let me crash on their couch? We got crazy dms. I wouldn't say it went viral, but we, like our dms blew up. People were really like, hey, let's do it, we'll fund you, so I'll put a go fund me out. We had 10k in less than 24 hours, 24k in less than 72 hours. There was no, this wasn't an investment, dude, it's crowdfunding, like. People were just like we want to see this happen, that huge audience I had mentioned we had built like they're national, they're global, and so they sent us.

Speaker 3:

We shot a documentary. It won best, ended up going on this crazy journey to build this black supply chain, learning about coffee's free colonial history, the philosophy, the spirituality. And then last year we did something called a Pan-African Black Barista Exchange Program with Vanderbilt, where we took seven black Americans to go on that same journey with me and we paid for the whole experience for them because of brand partnerships. And then we brought five African and Afro-Latino baristas here last year after that to do the same experience. African, afro latino baristas here last year after that to do the same experience.

Speaker 3:

And like those things created this crazy situation where, like, we have access to this global community and began to get access to these exclusive costumes, like, hey, I want to be a part of this unique supply chain. And so then that begins to attract there's a group of people who are like super nerdy, super curious, don't really care about the justice, don't really care about the branding, probably don't listen to hip-hop. But we started these crazy dms and eventually we got nominated as the world's most notable roaster. Um, only people from memphis, only people from tennessee to ever be nominated. We were one of two companies to be nominated in the us. The other one, of course, was in portland. Uh, and we won. We won that award beat out portland, which is crazy bro you know the drug capital?

Speaker 1:

yeah, that's, that is the drug like.

Speaker 3:

Two years ago the, the coffee, the like, the specialty coffee association was in portland and I was. I didn't realize it was like that in portland it's crazy up there.

Speaker 3:

Yes, yeah, I've been in my whole life and I'm like I ain't never seen that like this, bro, y'all just doing fentanyl just outside in the coffee. Yeah, this is well. I don't know about Indica, that's somebody's brand. Yeah, man, it turned into this whole space and so we started getting access to a higher level of, like, exclusive restaurants and other clientele who, just like we, just want the best right. And because you guys have all this curated coffees from these partners that you're building with through this black chain that we're building, it's like yo, we just want that. I don't really care, don't tell me about anything else, I just want the product right. And so that led us to a situation where we have to start getting a different level of supply. Oh, this has been bootstrapped right. This is crowdfunding. That being, you know we dropped the T-shirt in 2020 before we went to Africa. They said love black people. It was like a 60K month. I went from a 4K month to a 60K month.

Speaker 3:

We donated a portion of the proceeds to the George Floyd protests and helping people get out of jail, and it was like this whole, all this stuff was happening and I was always able to just bootstrap everything. So I was like I don't want an investor. I'm a comic book nerd, I'm like I don't want Lex Luthor coming in my business. You know what I'm saying. Nah, I'm good on that, but once we started really, you know they call it the valley of death. But once we started getting these bigger opportunities and I would try to execute on them I couldn't show up how I wanted, because you can't pre-sale your way or fundraise your way from like a GoFundMe into the opportunities in the room you're getting put in. And that's where we decided, ok, we have to raise capital.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, at some point that changes and you got to figure that best thing out.

Speaker 2:

You have to be able to accelerate and meet that demand. A lot of people view it as a scary thing, but that's why you vet.

Speaker 3:

Yeah.

Speaker 2:

Also think about when I was in Nashville we met this guy and he started a hemp farm Super affordable and he was breaking down all the different applications for hemp and that's why he was doing it. So it was like man, if we own it, then we can actually supply to people that have then applied in these various ways, one of them being bricks.

Speaker 3:

so there's like a whole bunch of like homes being built I'll do some of the digital kind of brick my brother, I was- I actually was with you, by the way.

Speaker 1:

I was like where are we going with this?

Speaker 2:

no, but like. It just made me think about, like the idea, because a large part of his process is going to be since they have the farm they want to, they were going to put together programming to teach people how to farm so that way they can get down to the base, uh, like, understand it from a ground level, like, even before we this, these final products, what did it mean to create its source? So I like, I wonder, like, is that like one of your plans for down the line? Like, like you know, get you a smaller piece of land, not necessarily to grow coffee for the sake of selling coffee, although you will be able to, but you might actually be able to make like even more, just through the training of what does it mean to maintain the land? Like? It's the idea of coming, it's a big endeavor.

Speaker 3:

Oh yeah, oh yeah To your point like, the more that you get into physical products, the more that you get into like supply chain work, the more expensive it gets, the more capital intensive it is. And so we're trying to stay light right now by building like partnerships is centered on these exclusive partnerships with different African communities or diaspora communities, primarily in Ethiopia and in Colombia, in a small Afro-Colombia part of the region called Calcutta Right, and so those are our two primary partners. We have other partners in Kenya, rwanda, ghana and other places, but we're really trying to center our focus there because we don't want to get skewed heavy and I've made that mistake before where we just, you know I'm a nerd, I'm nerding out, I skewed heavy and I've made that mistake before where we just, you know I'm a nerd, I'm nerding out. I love this process, this is so interesting, but you can't take that to scale. And so then we have our canned beverage, the rtb lane, which is huge right now and it's a rapidly expanding segment of the market which is like they're ready to drink cans.

Speaker 3:

And so we have a gold brew which I mentioned is like the honor palmer profile coffee. We use iced coffee instead of iced tea and it's inspired by me being in ethiopia and eating coffee, fruit and being like, oh, coffee's not a bean. Like I used to go to my grandma's farm in alabama. We had the whole peas. You know, peas and beans come in pies. I'm an african. They call it a coffee bean my whole life. I'm there and they're giving me a tropical african cherry. I'm like, okay, I'm eating the cherry. It has a totally different flavor profile and it's even deeper than what I had tasted through. Like the nerdy coffee stuff or their notes of strawberry. I'm actually tasting strawberry. So what would a beverage like that look like? We have another one we just dropped, called Rose Gold Brew, which is rose water and hibiscus infused into this and this is, like you know, no, artificial sweet, no, no, like hyper-processed sweetness. So it's honey amongst with agave. It's healthy for you. So that product line.

Speaker 3:

And then we have all the virtual training, uh, that we're doing and we, we have plans we might need to cut this. We have plans for like a. You're talking about a farm we're basically going to build like a, like a, like a ai. Not ai, but like a vr, like a virtual reality space. There you go, there you go, we, where we can actually start like creating farms right, creating that access, but what you're actually going to be doing is like we're gamifying reparation, essentially, uh, and and market access for farmers who strapped with hundreds of years of debt, and we'll use merch and music and all these things to drop your products with them. Share the profit. So allow people to like, begin to like trade virtual assets. Yeah, yeah, that are connected, yeah, yeah, yeah, I'm like, I'm not even that's that's series a.

Speaker 2:

You know, I'm saying like we need serious bread together and, uh, we'll get there yeah, we'll get there and I was gonna say you finally have an application for the metaverse there you go.

Speaker 3:

Yeah, man, like that's, that's and this was created again during the black barista chance program, when we brought these people together. They dreamed together, you know, and it was my son, who's one of my sons, who's eight, and then the af Afro-Colombian second generation farmer who's a diaspora professor in Paris. So we're all in my house, just, you know, talking. He's trying to lend a head of wings for the first time. He's bringing it out. He's like this is crazy, what is this?

Speaker 3:

And we're just talking about like, what does it look like to take all of these inspirations, we Right, which is a part of the colonial history of carving? That that's really the metaverse, I feel like, is the place where you can begin to create and like, communicate value without needing a physical product, without needing to like, well, trade time for money. And we all know, like you know, that's really the path towards poverty is trading time for money. So we got to get out of that. But, yeah, we have had offers like hey, do you want to buy a farm? And there's multiple reasons why I've said no right now, one day, One day yeah, it's happening, and we actually connected with somebody who's done it Like.

Speaker 3:

If y'all don't know, jackie Robinson was like one of the first black-owned coffee production owners in American history right Chock full of nuts, you know. And so his son moved to. One of his sons moved to Africa like 40 years ago and they bought a coffee farm in Tanzania and his daughter was just in Memphis for MLK day.

Speaker 1:

So we're telling me, one of Jackie Robinson's sons moved to Africa 40 years ago and started a coffee farm. Yeah, it says all this crazy history. I didn't know that.

Speaker 3:

And they're looking to get into, like what we do, right, they're looking to get into the American market. They want to do more branding.

Speaker 1:

You need to team up with that guy.

Speaker 3:

That's already in the works. Don't put this in the interview.

Speaker 1:

All right, we'll cut this part. We'll cut this part. Hey, let me, because we're running out of time. I want to ask two important things. Let's dial in Number one. Sum it up for us.

Speaker 3:

You've told us a lot about. Thumb it up for us in one sentence, like why should somebody been lost? For the most part, and the history of coffee is rooted, actually in peace. When you look at the Oromo people, who are one of the oldest indigenous groups in Ethiopia, they have a 2000 year old tradition where coffee is a seed of peace in their perspective, and last year I was made an honorary elder in that community called Namagada.

Speaker 3:

And we're here to bring that perspective back, because most humans experience with coffee is built around commodities. It's built around exchanging time for money, trying to get energy. But there's a, there's a reality where coffee actually brings us a peace, creativity and a drive for the future that we're looking to reclaim for everybody in the supply chain, and that's the only way we're going to have it. Coffee has seven harvests left. No, coffee has 70 harvests left, if the research I'm reading is correct. And the only way we're going to have coffee in the future is if we honor its root and allow the resources from that root to actually reconnect to the fruit, and we're doing that.

Speaker 1:

I like it All right. Lastly, you need to tell everybody listening. Where do they find your?

Speaker 3:

products. Yeah, so right now you can find it at coffeeblackcom. That's the website. It's coffee with an X, no O like Malcolm, so C-X-F-F-E-E black that way, and then you can also get our products right now at South Point Grocery locally. You can also grab them at various coffee shops around the country that are trying to create this curated experience, and so, to me, you'll be able to get Gold Brew nationwide.

Speaker 1:

That's a big part of why we're pushing this raise is to be able to distribute the product, get national application and adoption of the product and the process. It's amazing. And where can people find you? What if I want to listen to your music? Where do I find that, mark?

Speaker 3:

Alamir Jones everywhere. We're actually dropping two singles here soon. We shot a new soundtrack about the Barista Exchange Program, and so we obviously did new soundtrack about the barista exchange program, and so we did a. We obviously did a soundtrack for the documentary, and so those two singles are going to be dropped. I got one spoken word piece and then one single that's dropping on. Some, like you know, that looks like me, so I like it.

Speaker 1:

I like it. Hey, we need you to do our soundtrack. I want to be able to think about you, and I want to be able to talk about coffee every single time we do this.

Speaker 3:

Yes, sir, how great would that be. Come on, man, I got to shoot y'all some bags. Shoot y'all a couple of other brews too.

Speaker 1:

I can't wait. I am completely hooked on coffee. I'm an addicted. Every day have to have coffee. Well, thank you, Bartholomew. I mean, that was amazing. I feel like I just got a Coffee 101 course.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, master class for sure.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, that was a master class and that's something we're still recording.

Speaker 3:

Yeah, we're still recording. We're still recording, okay, cool. I think that's been a part of the transition right in Capital. It's been like I am a creative, I am curious, I call myself a black coffee anthropologist and that's actually becoming more real than ever. You got a couple of announcements that are dropping soon.

Speaker 3:

It was an academic institution, but these pieces are a part of what's allowed us to get the notoriety.

Speaker 3:

We saw the TV show, the HBO Max, we did a TED Talk, we did Vice. We've done like crazy stuff right, and the curiosity, the notoriety, the notability of it, even being the world's most notable, all the notable roasters because what we're doing is noteworthy and we prove that our model is possible. But the real goal here is to prove it's profitable to be able to do it at scale, because there's the only way I'm ever able to be the partner I want to be for the partner and the coffee producers that we work with is if we're working at scale. Otherwise we're just a novelty. And so moving into this space has been a big part of like, okay, cool, we have so many things that we're doing. We got to reach down to really create the plan to be able to scale this product and get access to these larger markets. So that's a big reason why we're even doing the WeFunder is because the capital needed to be able to prep for that. It's something we can't bootstrap that on our own.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, classic, we ready to dive into the lab we got a lot to brew.

Speaker 2:

Here we are. I like that pun. Did you think of that? Yeah?

Speaker 1:

it just came to me. I'm a rapper at heart, man, let's get it, bro, let's get it, here we go. You ever think about how coffee was born in af?

Speaker 2:

Every morning while brushing my teeth and how it got stolen, rebranded and now Starbucks got folks paying $7 for the watered-down version.

Speaker 1:

That's the game, but Coffee Black is flipping the script, bringing coffee back to its roots, supporting black farmers and making sure every sip tells the real story.

Speaker 3:

So when I drink Coffee Black, I'm drinking history and the future.

Speaker 1:

That's deep. So when I drink coffee black, I'm drinking history and the future. That's deep. So is the flavor Coffee black, where coffee meets culture.

Speaker 1:

Thanks for listening to our conversation with Coffee Black founder Bartholomew Jones. Hope you enjoyed the 32nd brand piece that resulted from our chat. You can catch this episode and all episodes on Apple, spotify, iheart or wherever you get your podcasts. And don't forget if you like what you heard, hit that follow button, leave a review and tell a friend. Pitch Lab is produced and distributed by Merrick Studios and hosted by me, tom Frank, and my co-host, the one and only Classic. Until next time, push boundaries, ask bold questions and let your curiosity lead the way.