Erica Rojas
Ericabrojas18@gmail.com
Connor Morris struggles with the coffee jitters. He started adding CBD to his coffee in 2019, his senior year of college, to take away the anxiety he got after drinking caffeine. This worked for some time until he realized this wasn’t enough. To fully take away these jitters he needed to find a different solution. This is where the idea for Coffee But Different was born.
Morris and classmate Cam O’Donnell took this idea and ran with it. They began their journey with Coffee But Different their senior year at Cal Poly SLO between 2019 and 2020 and have been on a roller coaster ride since. Today they say they feel that they have perfected their recipe and are excited for what is in store for the future of their CBD cold brew company, Coffee But Different.
Erica Rojas | The Intrepid
“If you just put CBD in your coffee, it doesn’t fully get into your bloodstream,” O’Donnell said. Research supports this claim.”Particle size analyses and zeta potential measurements are a critical component for research and quality control of CBD emulsions because droplet size and stability dramatically influence the bioavailability of the final product,” according to “Droplet Size Matters: Bioavailability of CBD Emulsions” by Anton Parr.
What he was doing here was trying to counteract the anxiety he would get when drinking coffee. He later found out that in order to make his idea work, he needed to utilize emulsion to blend the liquids. The pair found a fellow Cal Poly alum who worked in the CBD business and worked closely with him to learn the science behind how to make hemp extract in their cold brew more bioavailable, which in turn provides a rapid commencement within the body.
Up and Down
When California passed a hemp bill in 2021, it allowed CBD to be used in food products. That opened up the opportunity for Coffee But Different. “This [was] huge for us,” O’Donnell said. It was the beginning of an expansion for his coffee company, he said.
The entire first year of this company revolved around building business relationships and what the pair thought was perfecting their product. After their first batch, they realized their first partnership wasn’t one they would be continuing. The product shelf life they brewed with this partner was too short to get on the shelves and ultimately led to all 10,000 cans not being sold.
Instead of giving up, they went back to the drawing board. Five months passed and they relaunched their product, this time brewing a black and vanilla cold brew. Cans of the new products were sold at local shops for a few months until they decided they were still not satisfied with the cold brew’s shelf life. Two attempts and almost a year later, in August 202l, the two decided to start from scratch, this time with no preservatives and a whole new process.
After trial and error, the pair decided it would be best to roast, brew, and can their coffee from different sources so they could reach the full potential for their product. Today their product is preservative-free and each element that goes into making their coffee is done by an expert in that field. Their coffee is now sourced from Guatemala, brewed, roasted, canned, and, infused with CBD individually, and Coffee But Different plans to do this for the foreseeable future. On top of this, the product’s new shelf life is up to one year and it is shelf-stable, meaning it doesn’t have to be stored cold.
Erica Rojas | The Intrepid
Where are they now?
With the new formula came a new goal: ” distribution throughout California by the end of the year,” O’Donnell said. He and Morris hope to get their product on the shelves of health food grocery stores and to expand to health food stores and other California coastal cities with a market for CBD products, including San Diego, Los Angeles, and San Francisco. Today you can find Coffee But Different online and on the shelves at local shops including Lassens, Avila Market, and CalFresh.
