Meet Nanelle Newbom | Coffee Roaster

We had the good fortune of connecting with Nanelle Newbom and we’ve shared our conversation below.

Hi Nanelle, what was your thought process behind starting your own business?
Because I have never truly separated the idea of earning a living from creative expression, or making a point you might consider me borderline unemployable. A traditional work environment is one where my constant “well how about if..” can grate on most employers because most just want to get through the day. My thought process with regard to business more akin to someone taking on an involved work of art or a huge garden. I have things I want to show, conversations I want to start and ideas I want to test against reality. In the case of Torque we want to have a conversation about proportionality, and we want to have that conversation in the context of coffee and in the context of small business.

Alright, so let’s move onto what keeps you busy professionally?
I am currently part of the Torque Coffees team, I source and roast coffees and two weeks ago we opened a retail cafe to also present our coffees directly to the public. Until now the Torque project was solely online sales and sales through our wholesale cafe and restaurant customers. I have been in coffee since 2003, when I took the leap and purchased a failed cafe that happened to have a small Probat L12 coffee roaster in the back, I knew nothing about roasting at the time, I just loved coffee. We (Andy and I) had no idea what we were doing, and set about trying to learn everything we possibly could about BOTH coffee production and coffee service on top of learning how to run a business, but we founded Barefoot Coffee Roasters and set about making most decisions more on principle than on any structured version of Best Practices. If there is one thing I have learned it is that principles can in fact be applied to business decisions and yield positive results. After selling Barefoot and living in El Salvador for a couple years I didn’t do any independent coffee projects for a few years, but recently Andy and I became obsessed with proportionality, and with equity in the distribution of value. Seeing so many examples of distorted distribution of value made us want to simply redirect the conversation toward how the pie is sliced. This is where the Torque purchasing model comes from. The price paid to the people who produced the coffees is 20% (or more) of the full value of that same coffee at retail. Its proportional, On principle. And intended to be part of a conversation that is more broad than simply the price of green coffee. We use green coffee because we are familiar with the ins and outs. My end goal is to build the company in such a way as to be able to convert it into a worker owned cooperative, which is also a conversation I want to see had. Worker ownership, and proportional distribution of value.

Let’s say your best friend was visiting the area and you wanted to show them the best time ever. Where would you take them? Give us a little itinerary – say it was a week long trip, where would you eat, drink, visit, hang out, etc.
In San Diego? We need to get out in the water past the waves. But that likely starts with breakfast and Madi Cafe has really good chilaquiles. From there we need to get out past the waves and an easy place to do that is paddling out whether kayak or SUP from the bay. Ideally we come back tired but with enough energy to cook something over fire. Its true that we do need passports now, but anyone visiting San Diego who fails to spend some time in our sister city Tijuana is missing out. Their coffee, beer and food scene is on fire and its worth the drive to make it down to Ensenada for some food and local beer as well. For coffee in mornings while here I do have my own cafe, but shout out to Bird Rock Coffee as always consistently presenting amazing drinks based on exceptional coffee and they have locations all around town. Another lunch spot I recommend is White Rice on Adams Avenue (great street faire on Adams if the timing is right) and I always enjoy the drinks (and food) at Key and Cleaver. For a night time drink based experience Mothership is pretty fun and has an adorable bathroom. When in San Diego most people find that the food scene is underdeveloped but that’s only if you don’t like little hole in the walls or amazing taco trucks. Our fun is often water, bike or hiking based, but the museums in Balboa Park still hold a place in my heart (yes, I am a nerd, lets go stare at art!)

The Shoutout series is all about recognizing that our success and where we are in life is at least somewhat thanks to the efforts, support, mentorship, love and encouragement of others. So is there someone that you want to dedicate your shoutout to?
There are so many! The coffee community that I came up has a good percentage of people who are willing to drop gems of knowledge, open to collaborate, and don’t fear their peers. I look up to several accomplished women in coffee with admiring eyes and huge respect and one of my fears is forgetting to mention one or the other. These women leveled up and continue to drive the industry. I have huge respect and admiration for Gloria Rodriguez (and her entire family) of Finca San Jose in El Salvador who was so open and interested in explaining aspects of production important to coffee and Edwin Martinez of Finca Vista Hermosa Guatemala/Onyx Coffee Importers for the same reasons. So willing to explain so many things at length. I do feel that by naming a few it opens up a huge box of gratitude that I feel for a long list of people willing to share their expertise and their patience.

Website: https://torque.coffee

Instagram: @torquecoffees

Facebook: @torquecoffees

Yelp: Torque Coffee