THE CONVERSATION
Kandace: Hi Ray!
Ray: Hi Kandace! Welcome to Unpacking Coffee. Today we’re talking about Cuvée of Austin Texas. They’ve been around since 1998. That’s a long time. In specialty coffee.
Kandace: That is a long time. That was before Stumptown even started right? That was ’99?
Ray: Right.
Kandace: Yes. Anyways, so, Cuvée was kind enough to send us coffee. Thank you so much this was amazing! We’ve really been enjoying these beautiful coffees.
Ray: Really have. Now, the packaging is, this nice sort of watermark here, it has a pattern on the side. It’s an instant recognizable branding because of the blue that’s kind of their thing. These are printed.
Kandace: Their labels.
Ray: It’s a sticker right?
Kandace: Yeah.
Ray: It’s so well done.
Kandace: What’s really cool about it, is that it’s always interesting to see how coffee roasters kind of think about how to print one bag, but then have labels that look different.
Ray: Yeah.
Kandace: Do you have another bag here?
Ray: Yeah.
Kandace: Cool. So, this is so fascinating to me because they did such an amazing job of just making the labels different. This part is printed on the bag but it just looks seamless.
Ray: Yeah. Details like the roast date and some of the flavors so you do get those…You do get those in there.
Kandace: Why are you taking them away?
Ray: I don’t wanna crowd it. I don’t wanna crowd it here.
Kandace: Here maybe I’ll hold one. Yeah. Cool illustrations on each of them.
Ray: Cuvée…They’ve been roasting for a long time but actually only opened their first coffee bar in Austin in, I guess…
Kandace: 2014.
Ray: Yeah. So, like a year ago.
Kandace: What year is it? Jesus. This is our last podcast of 2015 right?
Ray: Hopefully you had a safe and happy holidays, or will.
Kandace: Something happened. I’m back. So Austin, Texas.
Ray: Austin, Texas.
Kandace: They’re keeping it weird.
Ray: That’s right.
Kandace: Wait no that’s us.
Ray: No that’s…
Kandace: No that’s us. We’re that…that’s Portland.
Ray: That actually came…
Kandace: What’s the Austin thing?
Ray: That came from Austin.
Kandace: I don’t think so.
Ray: Austin is cool I was there last year.
Kandace: No, I think it’s like all the bumper stickers here in Portland.
Ray: I think we stole it from Austin.
Kandace: We totally stole it from Austin. Thanks for sharing your coffee and your slogan, Austin.
Ray: So, another thing that Cuvée has done that’s really interesting is, well first, when they opened their coffee bar, which is beautiful by the way…Let me just pause a second to say, I feel like they took their time and they got it right because for a first location…
Kandace: They took sixteen years!
Ray: The place is amazing! It’s really nice.
Kandace: Damn.
Ray: Yeah. They make cold brew and their nitro cold brew and then…
Kandace: On tap right?
Ray: Yeah, on tap.
Kandace: And then behind that, beer and wine on tap.
Ray: Oh do they?
Kandace: Yes!
Ray: Oh man.
Kandace: This is on my list of reasons to visit Austin.
Ray: I did not realize that yeah.
Kandace: Yeah it sounds pretty fantastic.
Ray: In addition to all of this, you can hang out in the store, have nitro cold brew on tap.
Kandace: What is nitro cold brew?
Ray: Well as a matter of fact Kandace, I talked to founder Mike McKim about cold brew…
Mike McKim: I had a full time job selling espresso machines but I was also building my roasting company at the same time. Seven months of trial and error and failed experiments and one night I’m drinking a left hand milk stout—nitro—out of a bottle. And reading the instructions and it tells you to pop it open and then pour it real hard so I do that (pour it into a pint glass) and I’m watching that whole cascade that nitro effect and I thought man, this would be really cool to do this in coffee. And, so there you go. That was the inspiration.
Kandace: Their videos are hilarious right? They’re…can we play one?
Ray: Yes yes we are playing one right now and while it’s playing…
Kandace: Isn’t that funny?
Ray: Yeah. What you’re seeing right now is pretty funny isn’t it? Yeah they have like, I assume it’s someone on staff who makes these videos where they..my favorite one was the scene from The Jerk.
Kandace: Not the Pulp Fiction one?
Ray: No.
Kandace: I’m gonna go Pulp Fiction.
Ray: Okay.
Kandace: Alright. Yeah.
Ray: Well that one at least was about coffee which was funny. But, did you wanna talk about…
Kandace: They actually won an award for the packaging of the nitro cold brew.
Ray: Oh yeah. Which was nice. The black and blue…yeah.
Kandace: Could you..like they do, could you take one and put it right here?
Ray: That actually would be funny.
Ray: What are you doing?
Kandace: Thank you so much for the coffee and for supporting the podcast. That feels like a nice support. We’re new.
Ray: Well it’s a bit over…Cuvée Coffee out of Austin, Texas.