Look ma, we're famous! 😎

Our friend Jane, who works on the University of Washington Marketing and Communication team, pitched our story last fall to her boss. After two interviews and two photoshoots, we're on the front page of the UW website! Even if you've followed our story from the very beginning, I think you'll learn something new about us!

White Coffee R&D ☕️

As we work hard on extending our shelf-life so that we can work with distributors, we are also keeping in mind how we can scale our production. Currently, we use an automatic espresso machine to pour 300+ shots of espresso in about three hours. Kathy stands in front of the machine the entire time to fill the grounds, pour the shot, empty the grounds, repeat. Sometimes when we get a large order, the espresso machine overheats mid-production and we all go into a mild panic.

Luckily, we recently started working with a local roaster to develop our own organic, fair-trade, white coffee roast. We are still finalizing the recipe but also got to try cold-brewing the grounds. If this works, this means we can make about 600 bottles worth of coffee in one pail by just adding water to the grounds and leaving it to brew for 48 hours. The team still need to do more iterations to finalize the flavor and to get the caffeine content recalculated/adjusted. Because the grounds steep for longer with the cold-brew technique, it extracts more caffeine than an espresso.

Fun fact: Kathy named our espresso machine Peter 🤷🏻‍♀️

Tuan Sisters Spring Internship 🌸

Kathy's younger sisters, Grace and Zoe, visited Seattle for their spring break from California and Oregon. They were both very enthusiastic about helping out and getting behind-the-scenes! They definitely have their sister's hard-working genes and it was such a treat having them around.

Social Media is Fun

One of our mentors once told us that our social media isn't going to be what makes or breaks us as a business. We agree! But he also said that as long as we were cognizant of the time we were spending on it and that it was an outlet we enjoyed, that it can be a very powerful tool.

And we enjoy it a lot! Karin and Minnie love getting creative with the content and it's awesome being able to see our customers drinking a bottle NASTEA and sharing it with their friends.

Karin and Minnie attended a Social Media for Small Business workshop last week put together by some local leaders: Molly Moon's Ice Cream, Jujubeet Juice Bar, and Lark Rising Embroidery. We learned some very useful tips and got a chance to connect with many local, women-owned businesses!

Nice to Meet ya! 👋🏼

In March we did two giveaways with Athleta Bellevue and University Village and got to meet some of our customers and talk to people about our drinks and company. We have one event planned in April and a couple big events in May including the University District Street Fair and the Seattle Business Magazine Daring Women conference. We will be updating our events page soon. Hope to see you there!

Here are two of our friends doing amazing things! 🍫🍦

Joe Chocolates – Sam and Peter started Joe Chocolates also at the UW in the Creating a Company class. Their chocolate barks have bits of coffee beans for that extra delicious boost in energy! Not only can you find their chocolates across the country at stores like Nordstrom and REI, they have big plans to take over their new space in Pike Place Market. Thank you for helping NASTEA & Co. navigate the consumer goods start-up world!
Sweet Lo's Ice Cream – Lauren is one of our favorite people. She is so genuine and makes one of, if not the best ice creams in town. All of her ice cream is made from scratch, with no additional stabilizers or preservatives. She has six staples including my favorite, lemon bar, but I feel like she's coming up with a new flavor literally every week. Find her in these 21 locations around Seattle!

March 2018 Update

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