Newsletter

Coffee People: Joe Raya, Tippleman's Coffee Syrups.

Joe Raya is the Co-Founder of Bittermilk Bottling Company and Tippleman's Syrups. He joined the Coffee People Podcast to share his entrepreneurial journey from chef to businessman.

Header image of text over a black and white image of Joe Raya, black tee, beard, and baseball cap talking in front to the computer camera.

Watch and Listen to Coffee People on:
Apple Podcasts • YouTube • Spotify • All Your Favorite Platforms

SPONSORED
CTA Image

NEW SAMPLE PACKS!: Unboxing just got an upgrade.
We gave our sample packs a glow-up: Fresh look. Smarter structure. And way more ways to get hands-on with your next packaging decision. Snag 'em for five bucks + free shipping.

CHECK OUT ROASTAR

SEASON 15. EPISODE 2.
Guests: Joe Raya, Co-Founder of Bittermilk Bottling Co. & Tippleman's Syrups
Based: Charleston, S.C.
What they do: Create a series of intricately made small-batch syrups that help bartenders, baristas and others easily introduce more complex flavor characteristics into beverages and promote creativity behind the bar.
What they drink: Not the safe drink! Joe takes chances on the drinks baristas recommend or get excited about.

Joe's father-in-law played an instrumental role as a model for Joe and his partner, MariElena. Seeing him run a business helped them demythologize entrepreneurship and see themselves in a similar role. They were able to see the differences between theory and putting theory into practice. That led them first to opening a cocktail bar, which led to pre-mixed cocktails, and eventually to small-batch syrup drink additives.

It was MariElena who made the push to evolve their business beyond the cocktail bar by asking, "What's next?" Starting Bittermilk Bottling Co. as a line-up of pre-mixed cocktails offered them an opportunity to create a life that better suited their growing family and long-term goals.

Lesser understood outside the world of hospitality is how hard working as a server, bartender, or barista is on the body. Most of us have a day when we wonder how many more late nights we can manage, how many double shifts standing on concrete floors our knees will take, or how many espressos our elbows and wrists can tamp. The limits of the human body are finite!

Once asked, the question, "What's next?" never really goes away. It marinates somewhere in the ether of our mind until the time comes when there is enough bandwidth to look at it, mull it over, and potentially see another new avenue. Entrepreneurs are in a constant state of reevaluation. For the Raya's, the next step (and current state) was taking the Tippleman's syrups concept they had been using for cocktails and applying that lens to coffee.

There are plenty of established syrup brands with corporate money and backing, but when I asked Joe what made Tippleman's unique in the market, he didn't shy away. Rather, he espoused some of the core tenets that small businesses have to believe in order to succeed.

We're different because we care more. We're offering a different take on flavor. We're not beholden to how things have always been done. We're nimble and able to adapt. We're sourcing better quality. We believe we're the right people to create this experience.

Turn those into questions and you have the entrepreneur—or want-repreneur's—playbook.

Do I care more? Am I offering something different, unique, better? Is there a better path to take? How flexible can I be in my vision? Is there a better quality widget available? Am I the right person(s) for the job?

Happening at Tippleman's
CTA Image

Tippleman's just-launched seasonal releases of their Pumpkin Brûlée Syrup as well as the sugar-free line of syrups that includes the flavors: Simple, Vanilla, Caramel, and Lavender made with alluose, a natural sugar alternative extracted from plants and fruits, and a combination of carefully selected all natural flavors.

SHOP SYRUPS

Find them online at: https://tipplemans.com/ • https://bittermilk.com/
See more on the socials: Facebook • Instagram

Tall bottles of Tippleman's coffee syrups frame a coffee in crystal glass. The coffee is dark colored with thick, creamy head, and a scattering of coffee beans on the wood counter around it.
©@tipplemans on Facebook.

TAKEAWAYS

  • Starting your own business is a big step. You have to have confidence, or you have to fake it. 
  • Want-repreneur is a great term. We all start as want-repreneurs until the dreaming turns into action.
  • It is more work than you ever realize it is going to be.
  • The core Tippleman’s customers are industry members and drink nerds who want to get really into the quality (and sometimes chaos) behind flavor development.
  • Joe loves stories. I love stories. Being a writer is not as romantic for most of us as we imagined. A recent informal survey of fellow coffee writers put the average pay per article at between $60 and $300. How many articles would you need to research, write, submit, and have accepted to pay your rent for a month
  • Some of the best ideas you have are random ideas.
  • Is flavor development more science or creativity? Joe thinks it is both. Developing new flavors requires experimentation with precision. The goal is to tap into flavor creativity to make something interesting and unique, but maintain precise data to enable scaling the product from a one-off to small-batch, and eventually, larger-scale reproduction without losing quality or consistency.
  • Charleston is off the beaten path, but it is always growing in popularity. The good thing about being based out of the mainstream or stereotypical big business centers is the affordability, allowing for the building of a business, and the potential support of community leaders who don't take your local effort for granted.
  • There is no requirement to start a business. Anyone can do it….
  • Allulose is a sugar replacement. From Wikipedia:
💡
D-Psicose (C6H12O6), also known as D-allulose or simply allulose, is an epimer of fructose that is used by some commercial food and beverage manufacturers as a low-calorie sweetener.[2] Allulose occurs naturally in small quantities in a variety of foods...

The sweetness of allulose is estimated to be 70% of the sweetness of sucrose.[8][9] It has some cooling sensation and no bitterness.[2] Its taste is said to be sugar-like, in contrast to certain other sweeteners, like the high-intensity sugar substitutes aspartame and saccharin.[2]
Read More: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Psicose

OTHER BRANDS WE USE & HAVE PARTNERED WITH

The partner links below enable us to generate some affiliate revenue. As always, we don’t partner with brands we don’t use, coffee we don’t drink, or a brand we don't strongly recommend.

COLLABORATION COFFEES AVAILABLE NOW

COFFEE COLLABS
See all of the collaboration coffees we’re producing with small business collaborators like Coffee Cycle Roasting, Marea Coffee, The Pinery Coffee Company, and Relative Coffee Company.
COFFEE PEOPLERyan Woldt
Header image advertising Roastar as the presenting sponsor of Coffee People

NEXT WEEK:

Coffee People with Ryan Woldt and Nolan Baker, collaborators on a new coffee to support the Ice Age Trail Alliance.

R!WC X THE PINERY ICE AGE TRAIL BOOTS EDITION COFFEE

Celebrate wild spaces and small business collaborations with this Costa Rica Medium-roasted Honey Washed process coffee sustainably roasted on a Bellwether roasting machine.

A portion of every purchase from this bag of beans goes right back to The Ice Age Alliance! 

JUST FOR FUN-ISH: What the 'eff is a Zarf? Find out on NPR.org. "What to know about zarfs, the fanciest way to drink coffee."


Read more