Coffee Grind City

Three local coffee purveyors are brewing up fresh cups and fresh ideas.

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A welcoming aura greets anyone who steps into a coffee shop. The whirring of machines, the loud grinding of beans, and a smoky, nutty aroma that floats in the air invite you to “sit, take a load off, and stay a while.” Behind the counter, roasters brew cups all day long, eagerly sharing their recommendations and talking up their favorite blends. Each and every mug of freshly brewed coffee that scoots across the counter is the culmination of the roaster’s hard work, and the many others who help with the journey from bean to brew.

We all know that Memphis is Grind City. But Memphis is also grind city. Look past the barbecue, the blues, the beer, and even the Grizzlies, and you might be pleasantly surprised to discover that the Bluff City’s burgeoning coffee scene is plenty strong on its own merits — and deserves plenty of buzz.

Longtime flagbearers like Ugly Mug and J. Brooks have led the charge since the early 2000s, while boutique shops with a special spin seem to pop up every year. There’s Boycott Coffee, which places an emphasis on a bean’s point of origin and the strength of its native community. City and State on Broad Ave. combines caffeine with local retail, jazzy renditions of video game soundtracks playing in the background all the while. Downtown’s Vice & Virtue stands out with bourbon barrel-aged blends. And perennial favorites like Otherlands Coffee Bar will always be there for moments of respite.

Each and every Mid-South coffeehouse puts its own stamp on the industry, and merits a visit and further attention. We’ll focus here on three relatively young local coffee institutions embracing a spirit of innovation and creativity, and offering different approaches to what might once have seemed like a standard cup of joe. But for these shops, it’s about more than just coffee. Their work, and their passion, is all in service of elevating our communities, providing a caffeine kick, and helping other roasters succeed.

Cxffeeblack and the Anti Gentrification Coffee Club

Something is brewing down at 761 National Street. At the Anti Gentrification Coffee Club, Cxffeeblack founder Bartholomew Jones serves up cups of his Guji Mane blend, sells six-packs of snapchilled coffee, and invites folks from The Heights neighborhood to kick back for a spell.

Over the last couple of years, the multitalented Jones, who grew up in Whitehaven, has received national attention for both the Cxffeeblack brand he founded in 2018 as an entrepreneurial and a social venture, and for the shop that brews some damn good coffee.

Part of the driving force behind Cxffeeblack is Jones’ sense of belonging. Or a lack thereof, in some places. “I’d go to coffee shops when I started my music career, and a lot of times I’d be the only Black person in there,” he says. “Back when I was a teacher, I was a rapper teaching English to kids. Every time I would enter one of these new spaces, there would be a lingering thought like, ‘Do I belong here?’”

But those nagging doubts never deterred Jones, who spent a decade as an educator before launching his music and coffee careers. The history of coffee, as he learned, was a very relevant metaphor for the Black experience globally and historically. “You get a lot of people who don’t like their coffee black,” he remarks, “and that got me thinking about themes of anti-Blackness and the history of colonialism, and it became an easy metaphor to explain my music.” Diving into that history inspired Jones to finally launch Cxffeeblack.

Cxffeeblack is supported by an all-Black supply chain that sees the beans travel from rural Guji to the shelves at the Anti Gentrification Coffee Club here. And when a bag of Guji Mane is sold, $1 goes back to the community in Guji, and another $1 is dedicated to the community in Memphis.

And yes, you read that correctly: The “x” in Cxffeeblack isn’t a typo. The name is a tribute to Malcolm X, with the human rights activist replacing his surname with the letter X as a way of reclaiming his identity, and casting off the name given to his ancestors during slavery.

After initially working with Arlington’s Ethnos Coffee Roasters as their roaster, Jones and his wife, Renata Henderson, decided they would try their hands at it. Henderson took on that responsibility, becoming Memphis’ first professional Black female roaster in the process. At the same time, her new role allowed Cxffeeblack to pay tribute to the history of coffee. Jones’ and Henderson’s Guji Mane blend combines a whiff of Memphis culture with an homage to the Guji zone in Ethiopia where they source those beans. Roasting coffee is a tradition that Black women do there, according to Jones, and Henderson wanted to continue that culture.

But the connection to Ethiopia goes beyond just supporting that tradition. Cxffeeblack is supported by an all-Black supply chain that sees the beans travel from rural Guji to the shelves at the Anti Gentrification Coffee Club here. And when a bag of Guji Mane is sold, $1 goes back to the community in Guji, and another $1 is dedicated to the community in Memphis. “Coffee is a $460 billion industry,” says Jones, “and only $2 billion of that goes to the producing countries.”

Legend has it, according to Jones, that two Dutch spies entered Yemen to steal coffee seeds. “Slaves were used to move this product,” he says. “By building this pipeline now, and getting money back to those communities, that’s our way of making coffee Black again.”

But alongside their donations, Jones and Henderson are doing their part to promote their partners in caffeine. While the money certainly helps, many of the coffee farmers have appreciated the partnership’s ability to grow their brands.

“They said the most important thing is that people recognize their brand and see the work that they’re doing,” says Jones. “This is marketing for them. We’re trying to put Guji at the forefront of the global coffee conversation.”

Back home in Memphis, Jones continues to push the club as a place for his neighbors in The Heights to spend time and flourish. “We have someone here, Omar, who I met when he was a fifth-grader,” says Jones. “Now, he’s our longest standing employee. We intentionally built this club as a foundation for the community that we’re in.”

Jones is happy to share his knowledge of coffee history through The Cxffeeblack Podcast (available on platforms like Spotify or Apple Podcasts), or Cxffeeblack to Africa, a documentary covering Jones’ recent trip to Africa that’s currently available on his Patreon page. In the meantime, all of his success is a good sign for a venture that wants Black entrepreneurs and creatives to reclaim their part of coffee history.

“We’re approaching a point where it will hopefully be normal to see more Black people in coffee shops, and we’ll start moving beyond just even the conversation of race, the specific neighborhood cultures, specific music cultures. But for now, we’re starting the conversation, and people are responding to it.”

Muggin Coffeehouse

Before they moved back to Memphis several years ago, Mary and Ken Olds struggled to find a decent coffee shop during visits to their family. Staying in Whitehaven usually meant a trek across state lines down to Southaven, Mississippi. Not a long journey, by any means, but not always an ideal way to spend their time. When they made the move home to Whitehaven and started working there again, they took matters into their own hands and opened what is currently the community’s only local coffee shop, Muggin Coffeehouse.

“Growing up in Whitehaven as well, we never had that coffee shop to hang out at,” says Mary. “I really started drinking it a lot in college, and whenever we came back, those coffee runs were a bit of a pain. And when we returned from Chattanooga four years ago, we thought we could either keep complaining, or tackle this ourselves.”

The Olds thought about working with established companies to bring their brands to Whitehaven. But when that quest hit a dead end, they brainstormed what kind of solution they could provide. The answer? Open up their own shop. They embraced the idea very quickly, and with confidence. And the name is a testament to that, the “muggin” term of phrase used to indicate bravado and confidence.

Pulling the trigger on the idea in 2020 was a no-brainer. “Coffee, I think, is just one of those things that should be available in any community,” says Mary. But to get the ball rolling, they needed to learn more about the coffee industry and how to succeed in that space. The Olds approached J. Brooks Coffee Roasters, which has been operating since 2010 out of Memphis, to work with them.

“It’s bringing the community back to the community. The neighborhood understands we’re authentic in what we’re doing: We’re from here, this is our home. The community has really rallied around Muggin, and it’s crazy. People from farther away and the outskirts of Memphis have come out too.” — Ken Olds

“We partnered with them to do the roasting, since we didn’t have the capacity for that at the time,” she says. “We still partner with them today, and they’ve been fantastic. It’s not just the roasting. It’s the coffee education they provide, helping us with connections, sharing their contacts. [Co-owner] John [Pitman] has been an excellent mentor to us as we got started.”

At Muggin’s location at 1139 Brownlee Rd., the Olds want their menu to be authentic to Memphis and the era of their formative years here. Glancing over the list of specialty drinks, customers find references to Libertyland, the Zippin Pippin, and plenty of ‘Manes.’ “Memphis is synonymous with the word ‘mane,’” laughs Mary. “So we came up with the Muggin’ Mane, which has a couple different flavors: cheesecake, caramel, steamed milk, and espresso. That’s one of our most popular drinks. It’ll change your life.”

Was Whitehaven ready for its very own coffeeshop? Absolutely, according to Ken. “We didn’t know if people would come out. But I kept calling Mary, panicked, like, ‘There’s a line stretching down the sidewalk!’” Building that community magnet, though, was exactly what they were going for when opening the doors to their first shop.

“It’s bringing the community back to the community,” he continues. “The neighborhood understands we’re authentic in what we’re doing: We’re from here, this is our home. The community has really rallied around Muggin, and it’s crazy. People from farther away and the outskirts of Memphis have come out too.”

The majority of workers staffing Muggin are drawn from the Whitehaven area. Ken estimates that 80 percent of their workforce is local to the neighborhood. And that platform has helped the coffee shop move past the survival stage and into thrive mode. Later this fall, the Olds plan to open up a second Muggin location in Uptown’s Malone Park Commons mixed-development area.

The Olds are also eyeing the broader Southeast region, like Mississippi, Alabama, and Georgia. But that’s still a ways off. The focus remains to serve their neighborhood and their community as they continue to expand their coffee knowledge. Eventually, that means roasting their own beans and continuing to expand. For Ken and Mary, there’s no better place to be starting out.

“We were the new kids on the block,” says Mary. “There were a few shops who were a wealth of knowledge and helped us get started, like Vice & Virtue, the team at Cxffeeblack, and again, J. Brooks. The coffee community is encouraging and helpful. We give each other ideas. It’s a nice space to be in, especially when you’re in a competitive kind of environment like hospitality.”

Dr. Bean’s Coffee & Tea Emporium

The doctor is in. And the prescription? One cup of joe (repeat as needed). Dr. Bean’s Coffee and Tea Emporium has been roasting for almost a decade now and shows no signs of slowing down. The duo behind Dr. Bean’s has been brewing some of the best coffee (and tea) around, and currently operates out of Downtown’s Stock & Belle building at 387 S. Main.

The twist behind this business is the meeting of creative and scientific minds. Coffee shop owner by day and emergency medicine nocturnist for Baptist and Methodist hospitals by night, Dr. Albert Bean is one half of the brains behind the venture. Born in Naples, Italy, Bean moved around a lot as a kid and became accustomed to coffee and tea varieties from all over the world. He’d always had the idea to open a coffee shop since his days in medical school, but that dream went on the backburner to focus on medicine. Enter hospitality veteran Charles Billings, who was Bean’s neighbor in Cooper-Young and has spent most of the last 20 years working in restaurants.

“He worked overnight, and I did night shifts at my restaurants,” says Billings. “So we’d always kind of operated on similar schedules, and over the years we talked about doing something together.”

Bean takes a scientific approach, looking for consistency and finding new information that will help steer the artistic side of things. Billings, meanwhile, handles the visual side as he strives to make every cup he pours look its best, all the while using Bean’s research to push him in the right direction.

Then in 2009, Bean vacationed in Panama, where he toured the Lamastus family’s prestigious Elida Estate coffee farms, known for producing world-renowned beans that have auctioned for up to a staggering $1,029 per pound. That trip reignited an idea Bean had to open his own coffee shop, and he approached Billings in 2012. The two trained together at Bellissimo Coffee Advisors in Oregon to sync up their skill sets, and began carving out their own niche in what was then Memphis’ young coffee community.

“At the time, it was really just J. Brooks and Ugly Mug,” says Billings. “Bruce Milletto, who owns Water Avenue Coffee in Portland and runs Bellissimo, came to Memphis and said we should start as a roaster.” The two focused on farm-direct bean pipelines, starting with Elida Estate, and have grown from there.

Bean and Billings’ separate backgrounds have meshed well when it comes to creating the perfect cup of coffee. Bean takes a scientific approach, looking for consistency and finding new information that will help steer the artistic side of things. Billings, meanwhile, handles the visual side as he strives to make every cup he pours look its best, all the while using Bean’s research to push him in the right direction.

Finding that balance is key, says Billings. “You see it in the best chefs in the world; when cooking a steak, you have your thermometer in there the entire time to know what temperature it’s at, but it’s also about the look, and the feel, of the meat. There’s a little bit of science and a little bit of art. Food has to be beautiful; coffee has to be beautiful and consistent at the same time.”

Billings points to Dr. Bean’s house espresso as an example of their ethos. Currently a blend of Honduran and natural Ethiopian beans, it has changed forms over the years, jumping between Ethiopian and other Central American sources. “It’s the best of both worlds, the boldness of coffee with a nice sweet finish to it,” he says. “And as we mix and match, find new styles and flavors to use, we’ve been consistent in maintaining our standards.”

One component to maintaining consistency is reliable access to Memphis’ high-quality water supply, thanks to the Memphis Sands Aquifer. “Water attaches to coffee on a molecular level,” he says. “And you need certain mineral deposits to aid in that process, which Memphis has in abundance. It makes your coffee more flavorful by having those minerals in the water, being able to attach and adhere to the coffee and build those flavors out.”

And if keeping high-quality water is important, Memphis’ coffee community has certainly rallied around it. Billings praises Daniel Lynn, founder of the Grind City Coffee Xpo, a now-annual event that celebrates coffee roasters in the city and donates proceeds to the water-advocacy nonprofit Protect Our Aquifer. That task is much simpler when all the city’s roasters are pulling together.

“We’ve got plenty of great roasters out here doing really cool things,” says Billings. “It’s amazing to be partnered with them and connected with them, and everyone really wants to see each other succeed.”