Bianka Brunson and Sabreen Wilkes, the co-owners of Cute Coffee, are getting fruity aromas in their Inverness home from a freshly brewed Ethiopian coffee. Sabreen catches a whiff of blueberries, and Bianka adds strawberry and cherry notes, along with “a nice super-chocolately brownie.”
“Like a chocolate cherry cake,” Sabreen says, to which Bianka assents, “Mmm, yeah.”
As they dissect smells and chat about roasting time, their expertise in coffee sourcing, roasting and brewing is evident. Both have been in the coffee game for years, Bianka for almost two decades. But their passion goes beyond the bean itself; they are just as dedicated to the relationships they cultivate and the positivity they promote. Their motto is, “Keep it Cute or Put it on Mute!”
Bianka started as a barista in cafes across the East Coast before arriving in the Bay Area somewhat by accident. She nabbed a job at Grand Coffee in the Mission and eventually ended up in L.A., hoping to pursue opportunities in music and acting—and coffee.
“Coffee is actually the thing that brought me into all those things,” she said. “Easiest way to meet people is to serve them up some coffee.”
At Menotti’s, in Venice, she worked under world latte-art champion Nicely Abel, hosted cuppings that doubled as D.J. dance sets, and met Sabreen, who was just getting into drinking specialty coffee. At the time, Sabreen was crafting headpieces and jewelry, which the business next to Menotti’s sold, and she lived nearby. Bianka quickly took Sabreen under her wing.
“I couldn’t imagine going into any other coffee shop in L.A. and asking questions,” she said. But Bianka didn’t hesitate to bring her behind the bar.
The two soon decided to start a business. Bianka wanted more control over her time and artistic life, and they eventually landed on a warehouse space in Long Beach that could function as both a roastery and multi-use space. The two took music and dance classes at the community college to get in touch with the local arts scene and scope out potential grants to fund their venture.
Sabreen was a little apprehensive: As she put it, “I’m a dreamer, and Bianka is an even bigger dreamer.” But Bianka had experience curating art shows on the East Coast and was “blessed to have seen what the possibilities are and how to make it happen,” she said.
They started their first coffee label, Sunnyside Up Coffee. Though the beans were roasted elsewhere to their specifications, they served it pour-over style at the warehouse space, where they hosted events: album releases, writing groups, preschool art activities, doula workshops. Their ethos? The space could only be used “if you’re creating something that has a positive outcome and a positive influence on people. Want to make dark art? That’s cool, but this isn’t the place,” Bianka said.
Eventually they discovered that the space was being rented illegally, and they gave it up. Then their apartment building flooded, ruining everything they had in storage but providing insurance money to fund a move to the more coffee-centric Bay Area.
Sabreen got a job as a barista and spent time in production at Dandelion Chocolate. Bianka started working for a coffee importer, learning a new aspect of the supply chain, and did stints as a “mercenary barista” at events for area roasters. For the importer, she worked in a tasting room, teaching people about coffees from different regions, and performed moisture testing, coffee grading and color tracking. “A lot of that nerdy coffee stuff,” she said.
Finally, in 2019, the two kicked off Cute Coffee. It’s been mostly a self-funded venture, although they have obtained a few small grants, including from Seattle Coffee Gear, Fellow Products and Glitter Cat Barista.
They came up with the name earlier, in Long Beach. When they told their business advisor about the name at the time, he wasn’t impressed. “He thought it was a terrible name,” Sabreen said. “He was like, ‘Ladies…Cute Coffee? Now let me tell you something: I don’t think I’d buy that.’”
“Who doesn’t like cute things?” Bianka responded incredulously.
The alliteration of the two Cs appealed to them, alluding to coffee and conversation, and they are fans of the cute merchandise of Daiso, the Japanese dollar store. “Cute” also taps into their emphasis on positivity, which comes from a number of sources, including Bianka’s mother and father, whose affirmations are embedded in the lining of the Cute Coffee baseball caps: “It’s not what it looks like—it’s what it’s gonna be” and “Baby, you gotta be sharp!” They added their own, too: “Dream, believe, achieve.”
Bianka and Sabreen want everyone that Cute Coffee touches—farmers, collaborators, shops, customers—to prosper. Their goal comes through on their social media platforms, where they proudly tout the coffee farmers they work with. That includes Silvia de Lemus, who runs an almost three-decades-old coffee farm in Guatemala, and David and Lillian Rodriguez, who run another farm in Guatemala, in Mataquescuintla. “How can we all help each other elevate each other through this transaction?” Bianka said.
Of course, getting the best coffee to the consumer is important, too. The pair tends toward medium or medium-light roasts, often with a fruity profile. Bianka explains that, when roasting, the period after the “first crack,” called the development time, is crucial: Every second, a new aroma emerges. “Once I smell that super-sweet smell, that’s when I pop it out,” she said.
“When you get the fruit, you want to drop it,” Sabreen added.
It has to taste right—and be made right. “The goal in the end,” Bianka said, “is putting out what we feel is a blessed product that is going to bless people when they drink it. So then you’re going to feel that essence of feeling blessed. It’s just love.”
The focus on beauty, positivity and relationships percolates in the visuals of the business. Their website and Instagram, their coffee bags (compostable) and schwag, are dazzlingly colorful and playful, a far cry from the subdued branding of other third-wave roasters. The T-shirts are ice-dyed by a friend, and on the back emblazoned with the message: “You are a flower too.” Retail coffee bags have come with stickers and toys, including a small clear peephole that tints the world in rainbows; black scratchpads, etched to reveal colors beneath; and, during Black History Month last year, Yo! MTV Raps trading cards.
Their positivity has gotten them through hurdles, including coffee beans stuck at borders and ports, and doubts from others in the industry that their small new company could directly source coffees. But they’d spent over a year reaching out to farms, and the work paid off. In addition to Guatemala, they’ve sourced coffee from farms in Costa Rica, El Salvador and Honduras, as well as Ethiopia (the African coffee is so far the only one sourced through an importer), focusing on women-led farms when they can. Sourcing directly is important for them. The abysmally low market prices for coffee leave farmers sometimes making a dollar or less a pound, but direct sourcing means they can pay farmers more.
Bianka and Sabreen have brand-new plans to start roasting their beans at a large co-roasting facility in Berkeley, allowing them to increase production, although they hope to eventually roast all their coffee locally. The two have even contemplated farming coffee in the U.S., and although those plans are currently on hold, the idea led them to pursue a more rural life.
They came to West Marin last year, hitting the ground running. In October, they were the featured roaster of the month at Brickmaiden Breads. They sell at the Bolinas Market and Tama One in Olema, and they are contemplating starting a delivery service. They did it for a time in Oakland, and found it was “a wonderful way to get to know our customers,” Sabreen said.
Relationship-building is woven into each aspect of Cute Coffee, and the trajectory of the business itself. Their business plan caps employees at around five, to keep things familial. Sabreen said they know roasters for whom major growth was the goal, in part because “that’s what they’re used to seeing, or they think that’s what success has to look like. Success to us is: You roast this amazing coffee and…you get to do what you want to do.”
To learn more about Cute Coffee, visit www.ilovecutecoffee.com.