Seed To Cup

This month on the Seed To Cup podcast, Sprudge contributor Giovanni Fillari interviews BLK & Bold Specialty Beverages Co-Founder Rod Johnson. "We are a coffee roastery located in Des Moines, Iowa, that bridges the gap between specialty coffee and community impact," says Johnson. "We were looking to do something more meaningful, and we are checking that box by contributing a portion of our proceeds to organizations that support youth in need." BLK & Bold pledges 5% of its profits to initiatives aligned to sustaining youth programming, enhancing workforce development, and eradicating youth homelessness. They've enjoyed a meteoric rise in popularity and sales over the last few years, becoming one of America's best-recognized coffee brands along the way, with major placements via Target, Whole Foods, and other national retailers.  Johnson talks about their pivot from non-profit work to the coffee industry and the connections made along the way. Fillari asks about the company's collaborations with Ben & Jerry's and the NBA, accomplishments Johnson is most proud of, and what he hopes to achieve in the comings months and years. This episode is sponsored by La Marzocco.

Sprudge co-founder Jordan Michelman interviews Angel Medina, the polymath co-founder behind a growing group of Portland small businesses. These include the coffee company Reforma Roasters, the cafe La Perlita (with Axel Villa), and the extraordinary new restaurant Republica, a collaboration between Medina and an extraordinary team that includes chef Lauro Romero, baker Olivia Bartruff, cocktailer Adriana Alvarez, and tortilla maker Doña Chapis.

Seed To Cup guest host Nathanael May (Customer Marketing Manager, Pacific Foods) interviews the brothers behind BKON—Lou and Dean Vastardis. "[Lou and Dean Vastardis] have an incredible journey that they have taken in coffee," says May, "but then they also come from a family that has taken a long journey in coffee as well." 2021 marks the Vastardis family's one-hundredth year in the coffee business. This season of Seed To Cup is sponsored by La Marzocco and Seattle Coffee Gear. 

On the sixth episode of Seed To Cup, Sprudge Editor-At-Large and The Chocolate Barista Founder Michelle Johnson interviews Kahawa 1893 Coffee founder Margaret Nyamumbo. Nyamumbo is a third-generation Kenyan coffee farmer and uses blockchain for people to not only trace their coffees back to the farmers but tip them too. Johnson asks Nyamumbo about her ideas on innovation, the future of the industry, and making sure more money gets into the hands of farmers directly. This episode is sponsored by Seattle Coffee Gear and La Marzocco.

Guest host Nathanael May interviews Anita Tam, founder of Slow Pour Supply. This episode is sponsored by Seattle Coffee Gear and La Marzocco.  

Michelle Johnson guest hosts this episode of Seed To Cup on the Sprudge Podcast Network. Johnson interviews Jeanine Niyonzima-Aroian of JNP Coffee. JNP is a Boston based importer of coffees from Burundi, where Jeanine was born and raised. Earlier this year, Michelle Johnson had the opportunity to present one of JNP's coffees at the U.S. Coffee Championship.  This episode is sponsored by La Marzocco and Seattle Coffee Gear. Transcript

On the third episode of Seed To Cup, James Beard Award-winning journalist and Sprudge co-founder Jordan Michelman interviews Abigail Forsyth, the co-founder, and CEO of KeepCup, based in Melbourne, Australia. Founded in 2007 by Forsyth and her brother, Jamie, KeepCup was designed to address an intrinsic issue in the specialty coffee industry: reliance on disposable cups. "Today, KeepCups are used in more than 65 countries around the world. KeepCup users divert millions of disposable cups from landfill every day, and through their actions inspire others to do the same," says the company. Abigail Forsyth continues to direct the brand from its new headquarters in Clifton Hill. 2020 has offered an unprecedented set of challenges to the reusable movement, as cafes around the world convert to takeaway-only and struggle to keep up with an ever-changing set of information about the transmission of COVID-19. This moment feels especially desperate from where we're sitting right now—Sprudge is published out of Portland, Oregon, currently engulfed in smoke from the largest wildfire event in modern history. But it's also an opportunity, a defining moment for the human race to address the reality of environmental destruction. "COVID-19 is a frightening glimpse of what is to come," Forsyth told Smart Company earlier this year. "Zoonotic diseases, which spread from animals to humans, climate change, loss of biodiversity, plastic oceans—they are all facets of how we co-exist with the natural system. This is a wakeup call to bring our economic and social systems back into line with earth's finite resources." All this and more is addressed in our interview with Abigal Forsyth. This season of Seed To Cup is sponsored by La Marzocco and Seattle Coffee Gear. 

Host Jordan Michelman interviews Brooke McDonnell and Helen Russell, cofounders of Equator Coffees in the San Francisco Bay Area.  Transcript here.

On the first episode of Seed To Cup, Jordan Michelman interviews Erica Escalante, the founder and entrepreneur behind Cafe Reina and Kitchenhood Commissary in Portland, Oregon. Formerly The Arrow Coffeehouse, Cafe Reina [official website] is a specialty coffee shop, bakery, and busy shared-space commercial kitchen in North Portland, located at the intersection of NE Alberta and Martin Luther King Jr. Blvd. Escalante's story through coffee leads us up to this moment today, where she has emerged as a small business leader and innovator in the time of COVID-19, adapting her business model in a series of fascinating ways and garnering a gaggle of local news coverage along the way. Full transcript available here.

This is the future home of Seed To Cup. Seed To Cup is hosted by Sprudge co-founder Jordan Michelman. Inspired by interview podcasts, late-night TV, and radio, Seed To Cup is our chance to learn the origin stories of the companies, founders, and major coffee culture movers that help shape the industry. Each show features a deep dive interview with a different fascinating figure from the world of coffee and lets us learn their life story, early experiences with coffee, and big business decisions along the way that have helped them achieve success in the world of coffee. Aided by an in-depth interview research process, this show is a canvas for original storytelling. The companies and individuals in coffee you love all have a deeper story behind the scenes—that's what we'll be bringing you in this new show. This season of Seed To Cup is sponsored by La Marzocco USA.