There are a lot of futuristic things that we never could’ve imagined living with in 2023 — self-driving cars, AI for just about everything, and beanless coffee. Yes, I just said beanless coffee. And it’s delicious. Meet Minus Coffee, a San Francisco start-up that calls itself “coffee minus the beans.”
The inspiration behind Minus Coffee
Founder Maricel Saenz saw firsthand how coffee was affecting biodiversity in a negative way growing up in Costa Rica and decided to do something about it.
“We are going to be running out of coffee in the future because climate change is threatening the way that we currently produce it,” Saenz says. “The way that we’re currently producing it leads to a lot of pollution. So we definitely think there’s a better way to do it where we can enjoy everything that’s great about it without sacrificing lots of water use and carbon emissions.”
On a trip home a few years ago, Saenz began a discussion with her family on how rising temperatures, increasing pests, and erratic rain were depressing coffee yields and quality. Minus says that this problem isn’t unique to Costa Rica; it’s happening across countries in the “coffee belt” which is the narrow band around the equator where coffee growing was once lucrative. According to the company, 50% of the land where we grow coffee today may no longer be suitable for the coffee plant in the future, forcing coffee farmers to look for opportunities elsewhere.
Coffee is the second most consumed beverage in the world after water and ranks sixth among the most polluting crops. We also need about 37 gallons of water to make just one cup of coffee!
Saenz, who had previously worked in the biotechnology and food science industry, saw a need for a more sustainable coffee that not only tasted great but didn’t pollute the environment or deplete natural resources. She applied her know-how and began talking to people who could help make her vision a reality.
How Minus Coffee is different than traditional coffee
Minus uses less water, creates less environmental damage, and is created with a much shorter supply chain than your typical cuppa joe (95% of their ingredients are sourced in the U.S.).
They use upcycled ingredients to create the same taste as coffee with a fraction of the environmental footprint. Minus’s product, a beanless cold brew in a can, is a combination of date seeds, chicory, sunflower seeds, carob, lentils, grape seeds, and millet malt, with an added 100 mg of caffeine (a smidge more than a tall latte at Starbucks, for reference).
Minus uses a fermentation process of their ingredients — just like regular coffee — but they use sustainably grown microbes “to produce a coffee with sweeter tones, brighter acidity, and more nuanced aromas.”
“[It’s] a completely new world for us,” Saenz says. “And we’re breaking ground in everything that’s on the food science and fermentation side of the coffee industry.”
Their website has a pretty in-depth description of the tasting notes for this tiny can:
“Intense chicory and sweet carob get roasted for a deep molasses body. A dusting of cocoa and nuts comes from earthy lentils and toasted sunflower seeds. Grape seeds surprise with a buttery pie crust essence, and date seeds punch in with fruit and flower power. Burnt sugar millet malt helps bring forth a bright, and citrusy acidity. Then the roasted grounds are brewed in this fermentation extract to produce our silky, caffeinated cold coffee.”
My review of Minus Coffee
I would have to agree with all of this. From the first sip to the last, it reminded me of these carob-coated raisins that my mom used to get at the health food store when I was little. It was smooth with heavy notes of chicory, citrus, and brown sugar. And even though I drank it black, it had a serious herbal quality to it and was not at all bitter. It was a little mellower than a typical glass of cold brew and I think it would be even more spectacular with some milk or creamer added in, or even as a cold latte on a hot summer day.
Right now, Minus only has a cold brew can but they’re currently experimenting with a decaf blend and coffee grounds for people to use in their coffeemakers at home. Playing around with different ingredients as well as caffeine levels means that the possibilities for the future of this company are limitless.
Find Minus on their website in 8.4 oz. cans for $5.
Image courtesy of Jessica Wrubel
