Fresh Cup

MAY 2014

Fresh Cup Magazine, providing specialty coffee and tea professionals with unique insight into the trends, ideas, products and people that shape their world.

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18 Fresh Cup Magazine | freshcup.com News Briefs The FILTER ne development yet to hap- pen in third-wave coffee, and its absence may be one of third-wave's defining traits, is a craft-focused, direct-trade-roasting, single-origin-brewing, bespoke-shop coffeehouse chain going national. Sure, some companies send out café colonies, but a countrywide map of their territory only has pins on their hometowns and Manhattan (maybe also Chicago and Seattle). None of the companies has even pin-cushioned a large region. So when Blue Bottle Coffee announced they were expand- ing into L A, and then last month announced they weren't just expand- ing but buying two companies in the process, it represented a huge burst of growth. And because of Blue Bottle's recent, unprecedented fundraising, this is likely the first of many, many announcements. In 2012 Blue Bottle raised $20 million from investors and in February they announced another $25.75 million, much of it coming from venture capitalists. The com- pany expects the recent round to fund up to five years of growth. This is the first big purchase since then. Blue Bottle bought Handsome Coffee Roasters and the online cof- fee subscription service Tonx. Both will fold into Blue Bottle, with Handsome's roastery and retail space becoming Blue Bottle's first L A coffeehouse and the Tonx team starting a software and technology department while rebranding Tonx as Blue Bottle. (Along with the merg- ers, Blue Bottle announced it will open a roastery in Tokyo, something of a spiritual homecoming for owner James Freeman, who was inspired by Japan's coffee culture.) The news of the deal broke on Fresh Cup's deadline, and we couldn't reach Freeman to ask about his plans before press time. Likely, he would have kept his cards close, as he has in other interviews. "Could we be the first twenty-store chain, or fifty- or 100-store chain that doesn't suck?" he said in a New York Times Dealbook article in February, leaving it a mys- tery whether or not he would try. Talking with Slate in March he said, "The question I keep getting is, 'How are you not going to screw this up?'… And the answer is, 'I don't know!'" It seems one answer is to expand down multiple paths. The Handsome purchase builds a solid brick-and- mortar base in a major market, which is in line with Blue Bottle's past suc- cess. The Tonx crew, though, brings a new dynamic with a powerful and proven platform for online retail, which surely warms the techy cockles of Blue Bottle's venture capital inves- tors. Then there's the company's ready-to-drink New Orleans iced coffee, announced in March. Whether or not Blue Bottle goes for filling the map with pins, they have the cash (and investor expectations) to expand. It's the first test if a com- pany can go big and stay third-wave. —Cory Eldridge Blue Bottle's Growth Spurt Te beloved California company tests the limits of third-wave's size COFFEE RAP F or the fact that so many coffee folks are musicians, it's a surprise more songs and albums don't at least reference coffee. Texas rapper Born Soul has filled the gap with Hip- Hoffee House , an independent EP you can buy on iTunes. A Dallas café inspired him to "produce an EP dedicated to the warm and laidback vibe of a coffee shop." If you're worried the concept will end in obvious, lame rhymes, don't be. Born Soul focuses on underground hip-hop's familiar themes: writ- ing lyrics, keeping it real, and ignoring haters. The coffee references come light and rel- evant, the most heavy-handed being, "Lovin' the camaraderie, bringing a variety, grinding like Juan Valdez right beside me." The beats, true to the con- cept, hit with warm, head- bobbing grooves. Perfect for a post-lunch shift. C O R Y E L D R I D G E O May14_magazine.indd 18 4/18/14 10:42 AM

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