SEATTLE, Wash. (CNBC) – A Seattle startup is putting a new twist on an old favorite, creating the perfect cup of coffee without beans. The founders are hoping to achieve something even more important than perfect taste.
Coffee is a ritual for many. The brewing of it, the taste, the smell. But one Seattle startup says it’s figured out how to make a great cup of coffee, without the bean. It’s called “molecular coffee.”
Atomo co-founder and CEO Andy Kleitsch said, “Many people actually don’t like the taste of coffee, you know? In fact, a lot of people add cream and sugar. 68% of people add cream and sugar to their coffee because they simply don’t like the taste. And so one reason we thought, ‘Let’s just make a better-tasting cup of coffee.’ But really what’s driving us is the whole deforestation and the long term viability of coffee.”
Atomo, based in Seattle, is not far from the famous Starbucks in Pike Place Market. It was founded by friends Andy Kleitsch and Jarrett Stopforth, who come from the tech startup and consumer packaged goods worlds.
The two say they’re coffee lovers, but know that coffee production as it stands today may not be sustainable. Most of it is grown at certain latitudes and climate change will force farms to continually move higher where there’s less land. So they’ve reverse engineered the coffee bean, making coffee from materials including sunflower seed husks and watermelon seeds.
Kleitsch explained, “These are waste stream products that are normally discarded by farmers, and we take those ingredients we find compounds and those ingredients that we can use to contribute to the flavor and the aroma and the body and the mouthfeel of coffee.” And yes, it does have caffeine.
Among Atomo’s advisors is Bryan Crowley, CEO of Soylent, which makes plant-based meal replacements. He said, “It’s not a fad. This is here to stay because we have to do it. We have to find disruptive solutions to these issues that we’re facing from a sustainability standpoint.”
CNBC put the product to test in Seattle, up against another leading cold brew. The people liked it. Seven out of ten chose Atomo. As it turns out, maybe the perfect cup of joe doesn’t need a bean after all
The project began on Kickstarter, raising $25,000. Then the venture capital world came in with $2.6 million from Horizon Ventures, backer of Impossible Foods.
Atomo plans to ship its first batch of cold brew to its Kickstarter investors this January and said the cold brew should be available at retailers by mid-2020.
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