blackroad coffee en

This happened when I was running a cafe with “Cupping Post.”

Business wasn't booming, but I had quite a few regular customers. Among them, one person had experienced Rwandan coffee.

He praised it as the 'coffee of a lifetime'.

He came back a few days later.

“Could you recommend?”

“Would you like to try Rwanda again, which you enjoyed last week?”

“Oh, are there any other good ones besides the ones I've tried?”

It may not seem like a big deal, but this has become a very important part of my coffee philosophy. Of course, this may not generally apply to everyone, but from my experience, people can be categorized as follows.

People who are looking for dark roasted coffee generally like it without any change in taste. In other words, if it was good, they would look for similar coffee a lot next time.

However, people who like light roasted coffee with a lot of acidity usually look for a new coffee after drinking it once, even if there is a coffee that suits their taste.

Even though they said, “This isn’t my taste,” they thought that experiencing new coffee was very important.

The birth of Black Road Coffee was inspired by the joy of encountering “new coffee.” Grandiose and great intentions may be important, but to be honest,

it purely reflects a lot about the life I've lived. The excitement of encountering a new coffee is a completely different thrill than simply drinking a cup of tea.

But it was very difficult to introduce this pleasure to people.

Some people say “No way, if it was good, we can drink it again. Why do you keep looking for something new?”

It was difficult to explain this new joy in just a few words, and they were even not interested in the story.

Nevertheless, when I explained that finding out and introducing new coffee is similar to "exploration," people seemed to grasp the concept more easily.

All of this happened when I met "Hammer Design".

Garam Choi, CEO of the Hammer Design, said the following when she started working with us.

“The name ‘Cupping Post’ is too difficult. No matter how much I try, it doesn’t fit. How about changing the name?”

Honestly, at first, I thought, 'Is this person sane?' I thought, ‘Why should I change my name?'

I have worked hard over the years to get the "Cupping Post" out there.

Then, she threw me a book.

That book was “Positioning.” A lot has changed since then.

That's how Cupping Post went on to become a YouTube channel and a green coffee company.

Black Road Coffee has been reborn as a brand for more consumers. Isn’t it a really cool name that brings to mind both exploration and coffee?

Black Road Coffee has also completely redesigned its operating system.

With the concept of “coffee exploration,” our showroom has a museum-like image with an explorer’s room.

we created a system that after conducting a coffee taste type survey on everyone who came to the store, we recommend coffee beans based on their tastes.

we provide a small book called "Coffee dogam" to record and commemorate all the coffee consumed at Black Road.

If you come to our showroom in Bongsan-dong, Daegu, you can experience being immersed in this brand called ‘Black Road’.

The first and most important thing we consider is finding good ingredients.

Of course, all roasters will look for good ingredients. But we look for something a little more unusual. Since starting Cupping Post, we have been spending 1 million to 1.5 million won every month just for sampling. There is no royal road to finding good green beans. All we have to do is to do it diligently and consistently. We are also introducing a large amount of new coffee discovered while traveling to coffee producing regions to Korea.

The second is the spirit of experimentation.

We don't blindly believe in existing beliefs, but constantly explore and experiment.

“Blooming should be done for 30 seconds.”

“Tamping must be consistent.”

“The coffee is stable only when you use a distributor.”

We often go against what everyone else is doing.

This is because although experiments were conducted based on prevailing notions, there were many cases where the opposite results were obtained.

Likewise, please do not blindly trust us.

As a result, the people we work with are either crazy about coffee or like to experiment.