Freeze-dried coffee sweeps North America
Not long ago, Blue Bottle Coffee, which originated in Silicon Valley, officially entered China. Silicon Stars wrote an article about the behind-the-scenes story of the brand becoming an “Internet celebrity coffee”.
Blue Bottle Coffee is seen as the face of the "third wave coffee" movement. Now the movement is gaining momentum, with a rapidly expanding audience for specialty coffee. However, considering factors such as the supply and demand of raw materials, production and consumption methods, the main consumption scene of specialty coffee is still in the store.
However, a brand from Massachusetts in the United States is emerging. It wants to combine specialty coffee and capsule/freeze-dried coffee, so that consumers can enjoy specialty coffee at home, creating a new miracle in the coffee entrepreneurship market in recent years.
It is Cometeer, the current “net celebrity” in the coffee circle and an American freeze-dried coffee brand that has attracted much attention from capital.
Founded in 2015, Cometeer claims to have invested "millions of dollars" to build an "unprecedented" line of coffee extracts and freeze-dried coffee in coffee, delivering freeze-dried coffee in K-cup capsules to consumers. doorstep.
They claim that through this brand, people can enjoy high-quality coffee from 10 well-known specialty coffee roasters in the United States with the highest degree of reduction without leaving home - no matter whether you prefer to drink coffee hot or cold, It's black coffee, latte, cappuccino, or Afgardo.
In the field of coffee entrepreneurship, it seems that there are always product managers, engineers and all kinds of entrepreneurs with excessive caffeine intake, imagining that they can subvert the coffee field and become the next Starbucks, Luckin, and even blue bottle coffee - however , most of these coffee startups have not been successful in the end.
Cometeer is different: it has recovered the cost of early investment in the production line shortly after its establishment, gained the first batch of core users, and achieved stable income.
As the current leading brand of freeze-dried coffee in the U.S. market, Cometeer’s technological innovation and revenue-generating capabilities have made it a favorite among investors keen on the DTC (direct-to-consumer) field, with a combined known financing of over $100 million.
The company’s funding: $18.5 million in seed, $50 million in Series A the year before, and $35 million in Series B last October. D1 Capital, an institution that has invested in well-known companies such as Unity and Robinhood, is the lead investor in its latest round of financing; and the founders of well-known DTC brands such as Allbirds and Warby Parker are also helping Cometeer.
It is also interesting to say: the coffee consumption market in Europe and the United States is larger and has a longer history. However, in the innovation of coffee consumer product technology and product form, China has seized the opportunity. Take freeze-dried coffee as an example. In China, related brands began in 2018, and soon became the sales champion in major channels; on the contrary, in Europe and the United States, freeze-dried coffee did not enter the mainstream until 2020.
What's so magical about Cometeer's freeze-dried coffee, which is so popular with the coffee snob in the US?
Brewing coffee is science, and so is freeze-dried coffee
The founder, Matthew Roberts, was very busy with his studies during his studies at Bentley University, and he didn't even have time to buy coffee, resulting in a lack of energy for a day... He couldn't accept low-quality instant coffee, so he bought a lot of beans, brewed them at home, and used ice trays. Freeze it in the refrigerator, take one in the morning class and put it in a cup, just add water and rinse it.
This approach does seem special, but it solves Roberts' pain point - more importantly, under the "third wave coffee" movement, potential consumer groups like him who have the same requirements for coffee quality are gradually expand.
Roberts decided to make frozen coffee into his own business, so he recruited a group of chemistry and mechanical engineering students from MIT next door, went to the bank to raise the credit card limit, and founded Cometeer in his attic. The company is devoted to one thing: how to turn coffee into freeze-dried.
Freeze-drying is the rapid cooling and packaging of food materials before they can be marketed. The machines required for freeze-drying production and processing are indeed relatively expensive, but the production principle is not complicated. It is a very popular production technology in the food industry in recent years, especially in the pet food industry, which is widely used.
However, for Cometeer, freeze-dried coffee is not as simple as "brew coffee, freeze it, and package it to market". It did not use the simpler freeze-dried powder process, but invested heavily in the production of a set of independent patents and extremely complex coffee brewing, extraction and liquid nitrogen freezing production lines in the early stage of the business. Coffee becomes a 'science':
Including (but not limited to) the moisture content of the original coffee beans, the degree of roasting, the grinding particle size, the extracted water temperature, water pressure, particle distribution, oxidation, and the residual solids after the finished product freeze-drying is dissolved under different consumer-end brewing conditions Density - all within the scope of Cometeer's extremely complex production process...
Immediately after brewing the essence, Cometeer uses liquid nitrogen at minus 196°C to freeze the coffee liquid and encapsulates it in a standard K-cup capsule-sized aluminum box to lock in freshness and flavor.
The result is that each capsule of freeze-dried coffee sold by Cometeer can guarantee the optimal TDS (total dissolved solids), whether it is cold or hot or normal temperature, milk and wine or ice cream, it can be brewed Create a taste that will satisfy specialty baristas and regular consumers. And as long as consumers continue to freeze the finished product in the refrigerator, even if it is taken out three years later, it will still be able to rush out the taste when it was extracted.
Competition-level boutique, enjoy at home
But if you want to make coffee snob full of praise, it is not enough to have advanced freeze-drying production technology. In school, Roberts could not drink commercially available instant coffee, and today he still cannot accept mediocre coffee beans.
At present, Cometeer has launched in-depth cooperation with 10 specialty coffee roasters/coffee shops all over the United States, so that consumers in the United States can enjoy the experience that used to be only available to local coffee shoppers with the highest degree of restoration.
These partners include well-known big names, such as George Howell in Massachusetts, Counter Culture in North Carolina, Joe Coffee, the pioneer of specialty coffee in New York, and the award-winning independent brand Onyx Coffee Lab. Cometeer put the logos of these co-brands directly on the lids of the aluminum box capsules:
In terms of purchase, the minimum purchase unit provided by Cometeer is a box of 32 capsules, but consumers can choose the source of coffee beans (single or mixed), the degree of roasting, whether it is de-caf, etc. Cometeer will choose according to the preferences filled in by the user when placing an order. 4 types (8 each) capsules, packed on dry ice, frozen and delivered to your door.
A box of the monthly subscription is $64, or $2 a cup. After all, it is specialty coffee, which can be said to be very affordable.
More importantly, Cometeer tries to allow coffee customers to drink some of the most sought-after specialty coffees in the United States without having to worry about their coffee knowledge and brewing skills:
Take out directly heated water from the refrigerator and brew a cup of black coffee close to the level of a competition-level barista:
Defrost and serve with a scoop of ice cream to easily make Affogato:
Because the capsules are K-cup size, they can also be inserted directly into compatible coffee machines:
The official website also provides methods for making cold brews, latte, cappuccino, and coffee mixes.
Even if the capsule is thawed, the liquid capacity meets TSA standards and can be taken directly on the plane. So if you are on a business trip, you can carry a capsule in your pocket before going out, ask for a glass of water when you get on the plane/train, and enjoy a cup of boutique coffee for afternoon tea at a high altitude, making those passengers who hold Starbucks in their hands dwarfed and envied. no no no...
Kyle Glanville, founder of GGET, a local coffee shop in Los Angeles, said that the biggest highlight of Cometeer is that it has greatly lowered the threshold for ordinary consumers to enjoy a cup of specialty coffee:
"I always say coffee should be savored like wine, but red wine doesn't need you to brew it at home... Cometeer is a huge leap forward for enjoying specialty coffee at home."
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