Coffee People ft. Jean Brillman, White Horse Coffee Roasters

Full video posted below, or watch and/or listen to Coffee People on:
Apple Podcasts • YouTube • Spotify • All Your Favorite Platforms

EDITOR'S NOTE: COFFEEFEST NYC

We recently attended Coffeefest NYC as guests of our presenting sponsor, Roastar. They included a late-night-esque studio set for us to engage with visitors to their coffee packaging booth. We're dropping batches of them on our podcast channels each week.

EVAN SANTIAGO, FOUNDER HYBRID KITCHEN + BUTTER BAKERY

Guest: Evan Santiago
Role: Founder at Hybrid Kitchen + Butter Bakery
Where: Jersey City, NJ
Find online: @drinkhybrid • @butterjc

"When you get to a point where money isn't your goal, I believe that you are ready for entrepreneurship...Get to a place where you really care about servicing people, you really care about a product, and that's your goal. and then you're ready for entrepreneurship, and you can follow your dream."
• Evan Santiago on being an entrepreneur.

Advice from Evan: "Ask good questions. Stay quiet, and listen."

I'll be at WOC all week. Look for Coffee Santa, or hang out at the Roastar booth. I'll inevitably invade their space.

Visit with the Roastar Team IRL Booth 2443 at the upcoming World of Coffee San Diego, April 10-12. Learn more about the upcoming event at: https://usa.worldofcoffee.org/world-of-coffee-san-diego-2026

VISIT ROASTAR.COM

TORI MININNI, FUTURE CAFE OWNER

KEY TAKEAWAYS

Tori is opening a coffee shop—potentially named "Flourish."
She has been an entrepreneur in the beauty industry space, but fell in love with the coffee industry after a stint as a barista.
She knew she wanted to stick around but wanted to find a place that reflected her outgoinging and maximalist personality. She decided to create her own, ideally at the Jersey Shore.
CoffeeFest NYC made her even more excited to start her coffee shop because of how welcoming and willing to help the people she was meeting were.
The money is scary. You have to love coffee and being of service, but don't forget about the business side. She had family role models for entrepreneurship.
She loves a vanilla latte, and is getting into matcha.
She doesn't know Keanu Reeves movies.

FREE COFFEE? Become a paid annual subscriber and be rewarded with some Yeah, No...Yeah Coffee from our friends at Relative Coffee Company in Minneapolis, MN. Roaster Bryant Banker-Scannell is also a coffee educator at Mill City Roasters.

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GIO BARRETO, CO-FOUNDER RUNNING LATTE

Guest: Gio Barreto
Role: Co-Founder at Running Latte
Where: Bergenfield, NJ
Find online: https://linktr.ee/runninglattecafe • @runninglattecafe

KEY TAKEAWAYS

Running Latte Cafe recently celebrated their grand opening.
He and his sisters (also business partners) have parents and family who worked on coffee farms in Colombia.
They found their cafe space on Facebook Marketplace, which is not somewhere I would have been looking.
"It's all vibes, bro."
The business is a reflection of the identity of the owners with a nod toward adapting to the needs and desires of the local customers.
He drinks an ice-shaken espresso.

A coffee shop menu with drinks on the left and food on the right. — The current listed Running Latte Cafe menu. Note the focus on Colombian Specialties.

YUNNAN COFFEE ARTICLE

We have some background on Yunnan coffee from our chats with Ben Wilde of Pacifica Renew green coffee importers. Ben was a previous guest of Coffee People and his importing business has a particular passion for bringing in coffee from the Yunnan province of China. While you're reading this article in Barista magazine,* we'll reach out to Ben for comment.

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