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For sisters Jasmine and Danielle Neveles, the co-founders of Uncharted Coffee Supply, the love of coffee is deeply rooted in family, community and ritual. “Our mom used to have friends, family, neighbors over to our house all the time at the breakfast table, over coffee. We realized that our mom was this ‘connector,’ this builder of community at our house, and she did all of this over coffee—because coffee was something that was important to her,” says Jasmine about her late mother.
The love of coffee instilled by their mom is what inspired the sisters’ buzzy sustainable coffee brand, which made Oprah Daily’s list of “Oprah’s Favorite Things 2024.”
Inspired By Mom’s Coffee Ritual
Jasmine believes coffee was a daily morning ritual her busy working mother, a former teacher, gifted herself. “Every morning, she woke up and she made her coffee. She made her to-do list for the day, she made breakfast for us,” recalls the Chicago native. “I think that morning coffee routine and bringing people together was her making mental space for herself.”
Coffee also strengthened the bond between Jasmine and sister Danielle during their annual vacations together. “We began to realize that coffee was something that brought us closer. And as we began to reflect on being sisters, and the bond and the strength that we had together, it was really something that was inherently in our core,” recalls the entrepreneur.
Savoring Every Sip
Taking the time to enjoy coffee, rather than gulp it on the go, was also something the duo observed during their various trips abroad. “People actually sit down with friends and they meet up over coffee. And if you ask for a to-go cup, people look at you like something’s wrong. You’re supposed to slow down and have a real conversation while you have a coffee, and that’s the expectation,” notes Jasmine, who said visiting local coffee shops whenever in a new city was a must-do for the sister duo trips.
She continues, “Picking up these little cultural learnings has also helped influence the brand because it helps us think about what type of experience we want to create for people when they interact with our brand. And more importantly, how can we remind people of what coffee means to other people globally.”
The Beginnings of a Sustainable Coffee Company
But perhaps the one thing that resonated with the pair the most—and served as their “ah-ha” moment for planting the seed of a sustainable coffee company—happened during a trip to Cartagena, Colombia, six years ago. There, the sisters visited a coffee museum to learn about coffee’s influence on Colombian culture, its agricultural process, and the rigors of manufacturing high-quality coffee.
“From that moment, it was a shift in how we began to pursue how coffee shops fit into our [travel] itinerary. We went from, ‘How can we find a popular [coffee spot] on Google to ‘How can we find something that sources local coffee that is single origin, organic,’” relates Jasmine.
The first time the sisters visited what Jasmine describes as “a real coffee house” was also in Cartagena. During another trip to Colombia, the pair was blown away by the variety, flavors and craft that went into enjoying an exceptional cup of coffee.
“They had ten different ways to brew coffee, and I had never seen that before,” she recalls about the local coffee house. “It created so much curiosity and excitement that we wanted to replicate this joyous moment that we had together as sisters. We wanted other people to experience that. And so that’s when we first got the idea to start Uncharted Coffee.”
The idea of Uncharted Coffee brewed between the sisters and came to fruition in late 2023. “We started to really put pen to paper to develop a strategy and understand what our sourcing process would be in February of last year. And then we launched the brand officially in mid-November,” says the coffee company co-founder.
Decolonizing Coffee
Jasmine’s career in marketing, paired with her sister Danielle’s professional background in product communications and social impact, set Uncharted Coffee up as a sustainable coffee brand whose mission is to decolonize coffee—and shift its story and supply back to Black and Brown generational farmers globally.
Uncharted Coffee does this by supporting farmers within their communities and directly sourcing and partnering with small coffee growers while paying living wages, not just fair trade. “Because even fair trade doesn’t pay people enough to make a good living,” points out Jasmine.
As for its business model, New York-based Uncharted Coffee offers weekly or monthly coffee subscriptions to consumers online because, as the coffee company co-founder points out, coffee is something you should never run out of.
“We source coffee every month from a different part of the world—Ethiopia, Guatemala, Mexico—so you can always look forward to seeing something different,” explains Jasmine. “Our current offering is from Costa Rica. Next month will be Peru. We try to introduce people to countries of origin that they may not have experienced coffee from before so that they can understand and explore their Uncharted Coffee palette.”
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Coffee Subscription Model
Among Uncharted Coffee’s selections, Jasmine says she enjoys coffees from Central America. “We currently have a decaf coffee from Mexico that is absolutely exceptional. You would never know it’s decaf. It’s all organic. It has these really bold flavors of chocolate and bourbon. I enjoy that on the weekends,” shares the coffee connoisseur. “During the week I am really enjoying a coffee we have right now from Guatemala. It’s just very smooth. It’s a little bit nutty.”
Jasmine shares that consumer demand and feedback are top of mind for the sisters’ sustainable coffee brand. “Product innovation is really important to us when listening to our customers. One bit of feedback we received is that people are trying to make more conscious health choices. People are asking us for decaf. So we’re planning to launch, in quarter 1 of next year, a decaf cold brew coffee [that’s] ready to drink in a can. It’ll be completely organic, decaf, full of flavor without any additives or chemicals.”
As for what the future holds for the Neveles sisters and their sustainable coffee company, Jasmine embraces the unknown while also turning to the familiar example their late mother set. “We’re kind of learning as we go, and we want that feeling of unknown, the uncharted course that is life to be accepted and to be discussed,” she says.
“And so, we encourage our consumers to chart their own path, define your life, do what you want to do—and do it with people you care about over coffee.”
To learn more about Uncharted Coffee Supply, its products, and its efforts to change the coffee industry, visit online and follow on social media.
