A Label Worth the Coffee
A label seems so small. It's just a slip of paper riding on the side of a bag. But for me it carries the whole promise of the project. It has to tell our story in a single glance: hand‑craft, contrast, quiet curiosity. It also has to survive the inglorious journey from roastery to countertop without bleeding, smudging, or costing more than the coffee inside.
A few months ago I told myself, half‑jokingly, that I would try lino‑printing again—something I hadn’t touched since high‑school art class. That same evening, on the way to dinner, I passed a shop that sells nothing but professional lino supplies. Serendipity yanked me off course. I rearranged my roasting schedule, squeezed through their door the next morning, and spent an hour with a lino artist who spoke about gouges and brayers the way farmers speak about weather. When I explained our coffee project he nodded and said, almost off‑hand, “Why not make paper from your old jute sacks?”
Paper or Plastic?
Earlier this year, I attended Paris Packaging Week, a name that sounds fancy but is a little misleading. It suggests a week of varied events – a gift-wrapping championship, perhaps, or a presentation on new shrink-wrap styles – when in fact it’s a two-day trade show filled with booths from manufacturers and distributors. "Packaging Week" is a bit of an overstatement.
Still, I went for one clear reason: to discover innovative new ways to package coffee.
I arrived straight from the metro with high hopes, grabbed my badge, and began winding through the aisles. My mission was to scan for keywords: “Made in France”, “recyclable”, “compostable”, “circular economy”, “food grade”. I was searching for an undiscovered El Dorado of thoughtful packaging, hoping to find a product that met our needs or, at the very least, to spark some new ideas.
Signals
We’ve recently begun the real adventure: physically looking at properties. It’s thrilling and terrifying, hopeful and heartbreaking all at once. Each place we see becomes a question about what it might become:
« Is this space laid out in a way that aligns with our vision? »
« Does it flow naturally toward the areas we plan to activate, or does it feel awkward, like we’ve stumbled into a stranger’s home? »
« If I were arriving here for the first time, would I feel excitement about what lies ahead—or would I instantly want to turn around and leave? »
This elusive quality—the intangible thing about a place that pulls us in, makes us feel welcome, comfortable, excited—is central to everything we're trying to build.
A Local Table, A Global Conversation
"Don’t ask me how this scales. Ask me how this spreads." — Dan Barber
Not long ago, every fine‑dining menu was judged by the same yardstick: How close could the chef land to the canonical duck confit, the flawless bouillabaisse, the perfect coq au vin? Today, we arrive at restaurants with a completely different hunger. We don’t want the same dish executed immaculately. We want a dish that could only have been imagined here, on this soil, by these hands.
Coffee, oddly, still lives in yesterday’s dining room. We slip into a new café, puff up our critical feathers, and decree, “I shall judge thee by the merit of thy flat white! …Ooh and may I have a cookie, too?” In response, most specialty coffee bars around the world have converged on a single, safe template: same gear, same drinks, same pale pastries, delivered with the same earnest smile.
Which leaves us with the same restless question the restaurant world faced a decade ago: What’s next?
Digging Deeper
When I was little, maybe six or eight, we lived in a modest suburban house with a backyard that felt impossibly large. Huge trees lined either side, and the far end touched the land of a local animal doctor, so occasionally a lost duckling would wander up to our door.
It was there, with my mom, that I first began gardening.
Shouts & Murmurs
Unnoticed by some, but constantly impacting the experience for everyone. One’s willingness to stay, to relax, to enjoy. Noise.
The two girls laughing and practically shouting at each other from just across the table in an attempt to tell a personal story which unfolds inevitably to the displeasure of the entire room. Crashing dishes which momentarily cut the hearing out of one of your ears.
As someone who has worked behind the counter but is also continually a client in many different coffee shops—noise is something that consistently has an enormous impact on my experience.
Made by Hand
This is a project I want to build slowly. To spend years refining and growing. To make something that carries the best of what I’ve learned—and everything I still want to explore.
I’ve drawn since I could hold a pencil. Studied fine art. Worked as a graphic designer. I’ve been a florist, delivering bouquets by bicycle. A shoemaker, sewing one-off bags and stockings from scraps. I’ve made jam from family recipes and inherited a cookie recipe laser-etched onto a cutting board in my mother’s handwriting.
And coffee…
Lay of the Land
For those unfamiliar with Paris—or with how the city fits into the wider map of France—it helps to know about our layered public transit system, which is constantly being remodeled and expanded. The three main layers of rail travel here are the Paris Metro, the TER, and the TGV.
The Metro is without question the most iconic. Just saying the name conjures images of white-tiled tunnels with arched ads, and well-worn subway cars rattling through the dark while the Eiffel Tower’s spotlight swings its nightly arc over the city, keeping watch.
But the layer I want to focus on here is the TER—Transport Express Régional…
Mixing It Up
Blending remains taboo in specialty coffee.
Say the word and you can feel the room stiffen—how dare you muddy a prized geisha with something else? For years, we've celebrated purity: single origins, single varietals, singular stories. But as I cup hundreds of coffees each season, I find myself wondering... what if we’ve misunderstood the true potential of the cup? What if we stopped treating coffee like a solo act—and started treating it like a canvas?
A Pallet and a Plan
Our project may still be on paper, but it’s important to go through what a typical day could look like. This will give us a clearer picture, help us to avoid potential problems, and see aspects of it that we hadn’t yet considered.
Coffee delivery day. The truck pulls up.
“Bonjour monsieur, vous allez bien?”
The driver waves as we unload sacks of green coffee, the smell of jute mingling with damp stone and the hum of our little electric mini-truck. It’s a bit beat-up but it gets the job done.
This is how it starts. Not with fanfare, but with a pallet and a plan.