In the U.S. coffee is commonly associated with Starbucks, a daily pick-me-up taken on the go, or a fancy specialty coffee shop often located in a gentrified neighborhood. However coffee has a deeply Black and deeply communal history. What would it mean to understand coffee’s Black history and its Black future? Cxffeeblack is on a mission to find out.

On this episode, I’m joined by Bartholomew Jones, a Memphis-born entrepreneur who in late 2018 co-founded Cxffeeblack, a Black social enterprise alongside his wife, Renata Henderson, Memphis’ first Black female coffee roaster.