"Let's say I have a RU-vid channel, couple million subscribers and I think coffee would be a good fit." I'm so glad James is finally breaking into the coffee market, good for him!
Really untapped potential I'd say, pretty surprised how he hasn't made that connection earlier. Perhaps not as bright as he loves his coffee to taste like
@@hsvfanjan17He co-founded a coffee roastery called Square Mile Coffee in 2008, but I think he's more interested in having integrity as a reviewer than he is in promoting Square Mile.
Interesting fact: the Arabic word "qatam" (قتم) means "a coffee with a historic and architectural taste". Learn Arabic good-wise! Arabic is very good for your brain!
I think it is quite interesting although I wouldn't say it was a fully objective point of view, ultimately it was clear that his intentions where to bring people over his businesses.@@satanismybrother
I really appreciate how candid Matthew was with his business, especially explaining its commercial viability, how it scales, and not coming off as sales-y.
@@jpkatz1435 I too, got the feeling he was honest but maybe not 100% frank/forth-coming in every answer. TBF, we are talking about how their business works and he's going to want to keep some of the detail private.
I think that it helps that it's not a product that Master Roast is trying to sell to any of the viewers. They aren't retailers, their mass-manufacturers and vendors. They know that nothing they've said is going to impact their business model, since all of this information is basically publicly available and is intellectually interesting but not specifically titillating or anything.
While so many coffee 'experts' and RU-vidrs are overly obsessed with grinders, espresso machines, and new gadgets, you bring the public's attention to the coffee itself. None of these coffee RU-vidrs and channels talk about the coffee, the roasters, or the farmers-except you, sir. I always appreciate that you focus on where the attention should truly belong. Thank you for making this awesome channel about more than just gear reviews. Coffee should be more than just about stupid burrs!
Possibly because the RU-vid thing came third or fourth in line for James whereas it's possibly first or second for some of those other RU-vidrs? The fact that he cared enough about the beans to build a roastery speaks to his interest in and knowledge of the whole process.
The conversation with Matthew Mills was really interesting. I feel people often have an aversion to 'businessmen' - I know I sometimes look down on people who have 'removed the passion' from what they do. He felt really self-assured and forthright, however. I get the idea (and I recognise that I'm assuming this purely from his demeanour) that he's happy to make sure that even the churned out brands are at least manufactured with quality assurance, glad that the more discerning clients have access to tailoring their roast, and sees it as lowering the barrier to entry into an industry that he cares about. Really great video, as usual.
I got that impression, too. While he is absolutely willing to take money from people who just want to make a buck on their name (and I can’t fault him for that- who is he to keep people from buying what they want to buy), the way his company can help people create a brand based on a coffee they genuinely love is pretty awesome.
I'm sure this was completely unintentional/inadvertent, but a Welsh phrase for "I like coffee" is "dwi'n hoffi coffi" with "hoffi" pronounced like "Hoffee"!
I love that there's a slurp free audio track. It's very thoughtful. I don't mind the slurps, but I wish more youtube chefs would consider that with chewing sounds- which I absolutely do mind.
You should sell a joke bag (of some actually good beans) of "Hoffee Coffee." Bonus points if each bag has the first name of the orderer hand-writtwn on the bag.
In Wales, the well-known phrase ‘rydw i'n hoffi coffi’ means ‘I like coffee’. The last two words are homophones of this made up Hoffee Coffee brand so this whole thing tickled me. As an aside, if you were to say ‘rydw i'n Hoffee Coffee’ that would mean ‘I AM Hoffee Coffee’ 😂.
I can honestly say this is the first time I've seen any youtuber point down and suggest changing the audio track, and I had no idea that was even a feature! Using it for the "slurp free track" was incredible haha. You and your team's level of production and forethought in regards to it are always top notch, as is your insight. Very fun to peak inside the world of celebrity/white label coffee. Awesome watch, thanks!
He actually DOES have a coffee company / roastery called Square Mile Coffee. He doesn't promote it on his RU-vid channel often though which is why a lot of people may not even know! I guess you gotta buy some now.
I assume the target market is more of a "this is better than the grocery store stuff". No change to how you use it, but hopefully a better flavour in the end. I doubt it's good value for money, though!
For the merch brands I just think of the Simpsons episode where a giant vat feeds to Duff Lite, Duffbrau, Duff Beer.. Generic roasts with different labels slapped on the bag.
Please please make more videos with Matthew Mills! He is so interesting and he has great camera presence. And I think he reacts well to your sense of humor.
The slurp-free is absolutely game changing, I know this isn't the first video it's on, but I just want to share my appreciation. My mispphonia thanks you
I think it’s fair to guess that the overlap of people who watch your channel and the people buying these brands is probably minimal at best. Thanks for the video, James!
I've heard of the chamberlain coffee before but I didn't know it was created by a "celebrity" I think it's quite popular because the bag is a cute design
There's a very different "celebrity coffee" I'd love to see reviewed. Rocky Kanaka has a YT channel, Sitting with Dogs, where he sits with shelter dogs and works to get them adopted. He's in Southern California and has started a coffee farm - growing the trees himself. He finally is getting enough beans to sell bags of coffee. Obviously this is not standard "celebrity coffee" as he is the farmer. But Rocky is a celebrity, and he's trying something new with farming.
At least that's the story you can get behind and isn't a scam and he's growing trees and making coffee from the trees unlike the celebrities making coffee and putting in a bag and saying it's their coffee which is so cheap tacky and nasty it's not even funny and I'm not laughing I'm grossed out by it and makes me sick to the stomach that they've chosen coffee as their manipulating product that they can get you to buy PS I'm not easily sold to
The interview part of the video is just amazing. I like listening about the technicalities of various business processes in general, but very often the information in the videos is very vague and barely scratching the surface of the business. And yet here it was, honest, detailed information, that can actually get you started, even if you did not think about it before!
Hank Green did a video on his soap brand and it seems to be a very similar model to this coffee roaster. The company makes bespoke soaps for hundreds of brands.
Funny analogy, but I‘d say the ratio of the workload split between designer and manufacturer leans a lot more to the designer side in microchip development than it does with coffee.
@@toebs_ Hmm.. I won't discount that the design is a lot of work, especially for big chips like high end CPUs and GPUs. But there's other cases where the chip "manufacturer" is simply putting together a licensed CPU core with some licensed IO interfaces. You can't ignore the work that TSMC does themselves, including things like building the "libraries" of different types of logic blocks for different use cases and processes which actually implement the designs. They also have to deal with the engineering of actually making the chips - with good yields, producing reliable products that meet spec.
@@kepstin I‘m just saying that designing hardware, even if it’s just licensing a CPU and some IO and putting it together (even though I‘m not sure why you would make a custom chip for that, sounds like there should be generic solutions available for your usecase) requires actual work in conception, design and simulation, whereas it seems you can go to a coffee manufacturer and just say ”I have a brand, let’s sell your coffee” and be done.
Celebrity brands are just next step of all the stores and businesses and even towns subcontracting a customized product. Trying to say as an example this little village my parents are from have tourist products like coffee in the name of their town and they just ordered packs from a roastery with their own etiquette graphics and text. Companies (roasteries) sell rebrandable products, people rebrand them. It's a great opportunity to have knee jerk reaction "what do they know about this specialized product, I'm not gonna buy it" but in fact they're often buying it from professionals with just small requests on how they specifically like their product and the professionals just choose the right quality product for them. And coffee is a really nice way to up your sales and have something memorable that is perhaps bought in a gift shop once in 5 years or maybe even annually. If I was a celebrity, I love coffee enough to consider my own rebranding where I get to pick out what I like when professionals take care of the product being quality stuff, and then I get to enjoy it and sell it, getting a bit of credit to my name and status for having something good under my name. "I'm a home barista, I don't weigh the beans" I think really summarizes the phenomenon. "I'm a home musician, I don't play an instrument, I click play."
Very informative video! Celeb coffee hasn't been on my radar. I'm glad that Hoffee Coffee is offered as a t-shirt. That was my first thought when you showed that print. 😊
I don't know about others, but I am not particularly loyal to a brand of coffee. I love trying different ones hoping to try different flavours, so I'd only get a celebrity coffee maybe once and that's it.
I generally try to make sure the person selling it at least knows something about coffee beans and what it takes to make good coffee. But when you got people like Chamberlain who claims to be a "home barista" and doesn't even do the basics like weight their coffee....... Why would I buy coffee from them?
@@SheeplessNW6interesting. To me that reason (wanting to try different flavours) is the exact reason not to have a coffee subscription. Subscription with one company means: sourcing only one way (eg with one set of wholesalers), roasting in only one way, processing in one way. If I vary where I buy my beans, I’m more likely to taste vastly different coffees.
@@MatSmithLondonit's most likely a subscription that sends you different coffees from different companies, roasters etc, not purely one company's output.
Shame he didn't include the coffee of Brad Pitt and George Clooney. 😅 For clarification: they are in the commercials of Nespresso. They don't own the brand. And i am guessing they have a clause that prevents them for promoting or selling another brand of coffee.
In Brazil we have a really old "celebrity" coffee brand Café Pelé, yeah named after the football player since 1970's . Never tried it though, it is currently available in instant,vacuum sealed ground coffee and vacuum sealed beans.
Matthew would be great as a much longer conversation, really cool. And in terms of brands, the obvious missing ones are more RU-vidrs, Hank Green/Good Store for example
Laughing Man Coffee is great - I bought a bag and I could find it was excellent just drinking it black (and I HATE drinking black coffee). My entire family finished the bag in a week. That being said it's become almost impossible to find it on the shelf. Now it's in those stupid keurig cups only :( I haven't had it in a longgg while so idk if the quality is the same
Its not a celebrity coffee, but I would be fascinated to see what James thinks about the idea of a niche coffee trying to capture a specific group. The one I am aware of is Terminal Coffee, which is a quite nerdy new brand that the user needs to SSH in a terminal to even order. I am sure there are others in this vein that are trying to capture specific groups, similar to fan bases.
Phenomenal content! The interview with Matthew was very insightful, and your own experience did a lot to guide the conversation over key points. Thanks, James! 😁
You made a really good point about what really constitutes celebrity success these days... and it's pretty sad. Because obviously being a world renowned award winning artist is much bigger accomplishment, than being a small business founder. Somehow being a CEO carries a higher status than being a great actor or a musician.
I guess that's part of the American/Western disease... people worship those who talk instead of do. Money over talent. Everything gets cheaper in virtue (and more expensive in price). Perhaps this is the terminal result of the "Protestant work ethic" of a society burning itself down in poverty as AI and climate change draw ever closer.
As someone who is really into coffee and cacao and has studied a bit of branding during my Bachelor, I absolutly loved this video. They should show this at my school. Thank you!
Really great video as always. Happy to be a patron of content this quality! I'd really like to see a video like this but with a coffee producer and a coffee mill. Almost like an entire process of coffee from cherry to cup
oh, I’d love to hear your thoughts on Top of the Morning Coffee, by Jacksepticeye!! The branding and reviews won me over, and I ordered my first bag last week. Excited to try it~
Okay, that was truly fascinating to listen how they operate. I would assume there has to be company doing similar for tea, wine, chocolate, and similar type products, where people tend to not worry so much about how much they pay as long as they feel they are getting something special if not actually unique. I know people who have bought specialty coffee just for the bags or special run tins.
Hi I'm a person from the wine industry yes they do this and it's so tacky but even massive companies do this like supermarkets and put their own wine in their own fridges and shelves and market them as real brands and in Australia they claim a tax from the government called the WET and for every brand they start they can claim $300,000 it's a freaking scam and in Australia it needs to stop because it's just making shit wine with a very loud label and people have no idea and it's cheapens the whole wine experience if you give a shit about it if you don't then it doesn't matter right but coming from the wine industry it's a scam
This is the perfect level of detail! This is enough that I can legitimately decide if I want to do it based only on the interview and that's great. (It's a little too expensive for a fun lark)
Thanks, now I know how to start my own coffee brand with no experience, passion, or expertise! I enjoyed how happy James apparently was about getting the first two right
I would love to see you look at brands like Awesome Coffee Club or T. Hanks Coffee, where there are celebrity involvement, but they are charity coffee brands.
I loved watching the interview with Matthew, it was fascinating to see the finer details of running these sorts of businesses. Also something I would like to see for comparison is if content creators such as RU-vidrs that have coffee brands would fall into these categories in similar ways. I know for example Jacksepticeye has his coffee brand.
This video is great, and reminds me of “Super Size Me 2” where we see how many cottage industries exist, and how they can cater to any business’ needs.
I slightly dislike business related content, but I am beginning to believe that serious videos on a particular subject provide business related insights, thank you for the great content
There are a _lot_ of surprising similarities between coffee, tea, booze and Linux. You can go through the bother of building everything yourself from the ground-up to produce a final product you like, with processes you approve of or you can just take someone else's mix and make it to your preference if it's _close enough_ to what you sought.
@@kobalt_ren01 I am remiss to not mention tea in the original comment. Might edit to include it. There's a greater parallel to tea and Linux than coffee and Linux - _the waiting._ The need for things to just _do their magic_ for years on-end before something usable is available. It's a wildly-boring process unless you're super-interested in botanical chemistry and material half-lives to know what is decaying in the process of aging, only for the material to become anew and different with steeping before consumption.
@@kobalt_ren01Add beer to the list - big overlap in Linux users and home brewers of beer and spirits. Once you realise you can hack stuff, you realise you can hack anything.
Absolutely fantastic video. The commercial director was really great, has a great presence and just has a charisma. I imagine that has helped him a lot in his career! I love any kind of behind-the-scenes thing like this so I’d definitely cast my vote for me of this kind of thing.
Top of the morning coffee. The owner jacksepticeye doesn't do the typical buy my thing advertising and they recently did a rebrand and expanded their lineup.
How ironic given the video was sponsored by Shopify: I went to order a Hoffee Coffee t-shirt and the checkout process (using Shopify) was broken. "There was a problem with our checkout" error. Tried a few times. No luck. But outside of that - great video!!! I want my Hoffee Merch! :)
Malaysian street coffee brewed in a brass pot on hot sand has so far been my favourite coffee I have had. I’m lucky Australia has somewhat of a culture of coffee.
When she says “I’m still a home barista” she means that she /isn’t/ very nerdy about it - and then says the thing about not weighing the beans to give an example.
Everyone is on a journey. I met a coffee guy who mocked me for using scales. Shortly after we met, he moved in, got a new job at the then newly opened Prufrock, then went on to be a bit of a coffee celeb… (he changed to weighing beans at home I think!)
He actually DOES have a coffee company / roastery called Square Mile Coffee. He doesn't promote it on his RU-vid channel often though which is why a lot of people may not even know!
I am SOOOOO pleased that not only is there a t-shirt, but I did not miss the buying deadline (extended?)! Thank you, thank you!!! The conversation with Matthew was a delight, and while I have never bought celeb coffee (though i like "brands" like La Colombe or my local Honeymoon Coffee, but also cheerfully enough buy a good Melita decaf--it's good!--or a basic illy or Peet's from the super if it comes to that) I am DESPERATE for Hoffee!!! Desperate! It should be from one of these soup-to-nuts guys (like Matthew's outifit), and should taste like "good (not-terrible) coffee" while being the most total grist-for-the-mill medium-dark roast imaginable. Total innocuous bog-standard. Prepared to pay 27% too much (in comparison to lit. same product elsewhere in market, plus shipping below the free-ship threshold and outside offer periods) for the pleasure and get weirdly fixated on it for the next ~18 mos. To reiterate; pining to buy Hoffee, not a joke; those art assets are final-form ready-to-print! Will be attempting to content myself with my Hoffee shirt; which I will wear, and my husband's Hoffee shirt, which i will watch him wear. P.S. PLEASE consider Hoffee stickers--the HQ ones you can put on (absurd) water bottles or laptops, etc. We need a silhouette ver., and also PLEASE (for me) a nice reversed-out of a yellow portrait-oriented rectangle--just like your pitch clipboard. P.P.S. Offended by the RDJ coffee box. Looks like chewable gummy vitamin substances from Goop or a Kardashian's brand. Not coffee-ful in any way.
