There were definitely these moments that I started wondering how I could actually get there, I was so close. I started competing in 2013 and I had got second in the US competition like three times. Having competed since 2013, she was crowned America’s Best Barista in 2020 – just before the Covid-19 pandemic took hold. It can also be seen in Onyx’s boxes, which Andrea likens to the distinctive iPhone boxes, complete with the company’s slick embossed branding.Īnother big boost to the brand’s following was Andrea’s success in national barista competitions. This approach is evident in every corner of the business, from the takeaway cups to the interior of the shops. We can’t just source and roast nice coffee, we have to show that it’s really nice and get people excited about it in every sensory way.” “Our branding stems out of that mentality.
“If you give people something that looks great, feels great, and tastes great, they’ll go away thinking it’s amazing. “So you can have really great coffee, but if you’re presenting it in a way that someone doesn’t perceive it as nice, what is their assessment of your coffee going to be? “People’s idea of how nice something is or what something is worth is built on different factors,” she says. Situated in their hometown of Northwest Arkansas, the aim was to bring better coffee to the region – and transparency was going to be at its core.Īndrea won America’s Best Barista is 2020Īndrea explains that a large part of this success comes down to a clear focus on the multisensory experience of coffee. In 2012, the first Onyx Coffee Lab was born. Andrea could use her experience as a barista, while Jon could apply his gift for branding. With or without the help of the specialty coffee community, the couple decided they were going to launch their own brand of coffee shops. No one wanted to share information, everyone that we asked said it was a secret, they said they couldn’t help us.” Even just getting samples from importers was difficult. “But when we first went into roasting, it was so hard to find any information. We began looking into roasting and sourcing, basically trying to scratch the surface of that. “We started to realise there was a lot to coffee – way more than we were doing.
“And after a time, we decided to run some coffee shops locally. “My husband, Jon, and I were working in coffee together, which was really fun,” she tells me. Jon & Andrea were surprised at the secrecy of the specialty coffee community
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