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When Gabriel Shohet and Eirik Holth started Black Sheep Coffee in 2013, robusta was often thought of as a swear word in specialty coffee. They built the company on it anyway, serving 100% specialty-grade robusta at U.K. street markets. Shohet says that Black Sheep now has roughly 150 shops across the U.K., the Middle East, and the U.S., and Shohet moved his family to the U.S. to lead the expansion here.
I first heard about Black Sheep in 2017 from a barista in Tallinn, Estonia, who told me that the company’s robusta espresso, which he tried on a trip to the U.K., had inspired him to serve a robusta espresso at his own shop. It took me almost a decade to try robusta as espresso myself. When a few of us on the Fresh Cup team finally visited Black Sheep’s Austin shop the day before this interview, the barista pulled us a shot of robusta revival, the company’s signature robusta espresso, on an Eversys espresso machine. It was bold and heavy-bodied but impressively smooth, with classic chocolate and walnut flavors.
Black Sheep is not only known for its bet on robusta, but also for its strong seasonal menu and limited-time offer (LTO) game. The company tends to be early to flavor trends, like banana and hojicha, compared to other high-growth chains, and Shohet has strong opinions about how his team tests new ideas.
In this interview, we discussed the revival of robusta across the industry, experimenting with new flavors for seasonal menus, and what it takes to grow a coffee brand to 150+ locations.
What We Discussed:
- Why most robusta tasted bad, and what changes when you process it like a specialty arabica
- How robusta revival grew to 85% of Black Sheep’s coffee sales
- Why robusta works in milk drinks, but not as well in filter coffee
- Proving the model with about 50 corporate shops before franchising
- Competing with drive-thru chains, and the “open right next door” philosophy
- Whether matcha hype has peaked, and what’s next
- How Black Sheep builds conviction on flavors like hojicha before the big chains
- The story of the liquid cookie, and the three-year-old behind it
- How franchising takes the seasonal menu grind off operators’ plates
Here are a few pieces of the conversation I found interesting.
Shohet Says the Customer Is the Test, Not the Cupping Table
The two co-founders knew their bet on robusta would put them on the fringe. All the coffee businesses around them were marketing their 100% arabica coffee, hence the Black Sheep name. Shohet recalls at one point trying to put their coffee on a cupping table among other local brands and barista champions in the U.K., and being rejected.
He says many specialty coffee professionals had “never even tried specialty-grade robusta, but they had this very strong opinion about it.”
In the end, however, Shohet says that positive customer feedback convinced them that they were on the right track. “What was really important was not the blessing of the coffee sect of the world,” he says. “It was really the blessing of the customer on the high street and the public.”
Today, robusta revival makes up around 85% of the company’s coffee sales, according to Shohet.
Copycat Seasonal Launches Leave You a Step Behind
Black Sheep is consistently early on flavor trends, at least compared to other high-growth coffee chains. It’s been among the first of the larger chains to implement banana, hojicha, and other flavors. Shohet says that comes from his refusal to launch products just because competitors have them.
“It’s good to look over your shoulder a little bit to see what others are doing, of course, but it’s more important to look straight ahead,” he says. “If you’re just launching things to imitate others, you’re always gonna be a step behind.”
He describes the approach as having two parts. First, “to have conviction, you need to really like something, really love a particular product.” Second, listen to what customers are starting to show interest in. “A lot of people talk about educating their customers about stuff and we think of it the complete other way around,” he says.
On whether matcha has peaked, he won’t guess. “Customers will tell you when matcha is over or if matcha is gonna be here forever,” he says. His advice holds either way: “Source the best matcha in the world. Even if it costs twice the price, get the best stuff out there.”
Influencer Marketing? Shohet Has Opinions
Shohet says he loves the traction Black Sheep has with organic social media. But for him, paying for influencers to try to maximize opening-day hype feels inauthentic.
“The idea that you’re gonna go out and pay someone to drink your product because you’re opening a new shop in a given city, that gives me the willies,” he says.
He thinks aiming for early hype is optimizing for the wrong thing. “Who cares about opening day? You’re gonna sign a 15- or 20-year lease on that location. You want your shop to be busy every day.” If a paid endorsement creates the line, he asks, “Do you need to keep buying that line?”
Instead, he says focusing on consistency and quality is the best way to generate hype: “People come back not because of celebrity endorsement, not because of social media, but because they love what they’re drinking.”
