Hello hello hello!!
So today, on Brissta's 6 month birthday, we are going to celebrate by discussing something big: Brissta's identity (sounds a bit too intense for coffee, huh? Bear with me).
Six months ago, Michael and I sent our very first bags of Café Au Lait out into the world. If you've been here since the beginning, you know we hand-packed them ourselves in a Bushwick commercial kitchen (which we are returning to later today - so expect a gnarly newsletter in the next few weeks).
And WOW has it been a journey. Since then we've served thousands of cups of coffee to the good people of Chelsea Waterside Park, learned how to perfect an iced Brissta, dragged 300 lbs of coffee through NYC (okay, Michael did that one), and mailed out more TikTok samples than I can count.
But the thing we've spent the most time on sounds the simplest, but is easily the hardest: figuring out what to actually SAY about Brissta.
What we're thinking about this week: What do you say when there's a lot to say?
Here's a very nice problem to have: Brissta is a lot of things.
It's convenient (just add water, ready in 30 seconds). It travels like a dream. It's delicious (I'm biased, but also correct). It's 100% clean label. And it's genuinely easy on your gut.
For our first six months, we tried to say ALL of that. Usually at the same time. Usually in one very crowded Instagram caption.
And as anyone who actually knows marketing could have told us (reminder: marketing is a foreign language to us, see Brissta Brew #1)... when you say everything, people remember nothing.
Good marketing is saying the same thing 1,000 times, not 1,000 things once.
If we had to pick the one thing we leaned on most, it was clean ingredients. It's what makes Brissta different from pretty much every other instant latte out there, so we put it front and center everywhere we could.
But the more we said it, the more we had to ask ourselves a pretty basic question: why did we care so much about formulating Brissta with clean ingredients in the first place?
For me, the honest answer is my gut.
Now time for some TMI about my stomach
I LOVE coffee. Coffee snob, coffee addict, the whole thing.
I also have a very, very sensitive gut.
Those two do not always get along. For me, coffee on an empty stomach was basically a coin flip on whether my morning would be fine or... very much not fine. And every "gentle" alternative I found wasn't really coffee anymore. Too sweet. Too heavy. Basically a 20g-of-sugar milkshake wearing a coffee costume.
I didn't want a sugary milkshake. I wanted a coffee. One I could have first thing in the morning without regretting it an hour later.
So when we started formulating Brissta, we read every ingredient label we could get our hands on: plant-based milks, creamers, instant lattes, you name it. So many of them were full of gums and chemical emulsifiers known to disrupt the microbiome. Translation: known to F up your stomach.
So we left all of that out, and we built Brissta around the one thing I needed most: a coffee I could drink on an empty stomach.
- 2g of natural prebiotic fiber. Prebiotic fiber is basically food for the good bacteria in your gut, and it helps keep you regular.
- Housemade plant-based milk made from oat, almond, and coconut. It mellows out coffee's acidity and adds a little fat and protein, so it's gentle first thing.
- Sweetened with maple sugar and monk fruit, not sugar alcohols (which are known for leaving a lot of people bloated). Just 2g of sugar a serving.
- Dairy-free, so no lactose.
- No gums, no emulsifiers, no seed oils, no "natural flavors." Nothing it doesn't need.
And here's my favorite part. Remember in Brissta Brew #3, when I told you chicory root fiber was how we got that creamy texture without an emulsifier? Yep. That same ingredient is the reason you're reading this newsletter.
Turns out, it wasn't just my stomach
Brissta started as a coffee made for me. But we still had to figure out why everyone else was buying it.
SOOOO we did what two recovering finance and tech people do best. We ran tests. We led with convenience, then travel, then taste, then clean ingredients. And most importantly, we talked to the people who bought Brissta and kept coming back, and asked them why.
The answer was loud and clear.
Their gut.
Over and over, what people loved most was that Brissta is a coffee that doesn't mess with their stomach. Our TikTok Shop data said the exact same thing: the videos that talk about gut health sell way more Brissta than anything else, and it's not even close.
Then last weekend, we took the message for a spin at Strong New York, a fitness and wellness expo. We talked to SO many people who had the same problem we did. People like Samantha, who told us she had to give up her morning coffee because it wrecked her stomach due to the weird additives in the milk and the acidity of the coffee. After trying Brissta, she asked if she could buy a bag on the spot (and like the two novice CPG founders we are, we didn't have the app downloaded to allow her to do this 🙄).
Which, in hindsight... makes a whole lot of sense. Because that problem is a big part of why and how we formulated Brissta in the first place.
So gut health was never a new idea for us. It was in the cup the whole time. It just took us six months to realize it was the part you all cared about most. (Classic.)
Introducing our new (and official!!) slogan
Drumroll please 🥁
Coffee made for your gut.
Same Café Au Lait. Same recipe. Same ingredients you can pronounce. Just a much clearer way of saying what it's for.
Random musing: instant coffee has MORE fiber than your drip coffee??
Get ready, because I am about to get SCIENCEY.
Just when you thought the gut benefits of Brissta couldn’t get better, they do!!
Back in 2007, two food scientists in Madrid measured how much soluble fiber actually makes it into your cup of coffee, depending on how the coffee is made. The results:
- Drip coffee: 0.4g per 100mL
- Instant coffee: 0.8g per 100mL
Yep, that’s 2x more fiber than drip! The high-heat process used in making instant coffee pulls more fiber out of the bean. And that fiber doesn't travel alone. It brings a bunch of antioxidants along for the ride. Even better? Researchers have also found that coffee fiber is the kind your gut bacteria can actually ferment (in a lab, at least).
Now, before you swap your salad for six cups of instant coffee... the scientists were very clear that you'd need to drink a LOT of coffee to hit your daily fiber goals. Please keep eating your vegetables.
But I'll take it. After years of being everyone's punchline, it turns out instant coffee has been quietly overachieving this whole time.
Want to try coffee made for your gut?
Our Café Au Lait mini bags were on a little coffee break, BUT more landed on brissta.com this morning, and they're the easiest way to give Brissta a try!
And if you do, I'd genuinely love to hear what you think. Just hit reply :)
Okay!! That'll do it!! And as ya know... I'll be back when I have something new to say :)
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