Coffee People: Masa Higashida, NuZee, Inc.

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S8: E11

Guest: Masa Higashida, NuZee, Inc.
Role: CEO & President
From: Nagoya, Japan
Based: Vista, CA
Online: https://mynuzee.com/ • @nuzee_copacking on Instagram
What they order: Black coffee

“I believe.”

Masa said that when I asked why he decided to push forward with his company even when positive reactions weren’t turning into immediate sales. I think he may have been gearing up for further thought, but those two words stopped me.

There are moments in our careers—lives even—that overwhelm. Sometimes, all we have to go on is belief. I’ve thought about those two words a lot since we spoke. They’ve given me strength in my own pursuits.

Masa’s company is based not far from my home podcasting booth, but we only connected because I sat on a plane next to Travis Gorney, NuZee’s Chief Innovation Officer. He and I drank a cup of airplane coffee and got to talking.

A few months later, I’m enjoying a pleasant chat with Masa about his coffee journey. What are the odds? Finding connections through coffee is one of my favorite things about shining a light on the people throughout this industry…besides the coffee, of course.

Peruse the various product offerings on mynuzee.com. Image ©mynuzee.com

“NuZee was started after the devastating tsunami that hit Japan in March 2011. At the time, our mission was to provide pure, safe bottled drinking water from New Zealand (hence our name) to help in the recovery effort. What began as a humanitarian effort led to the establishment and launch of NuZee products worldwide. We have since evolved to become one of the premier coffee co-packing companies in the world where we partner with companies of all sizes to help them develop within the single serve and private label coffee category.”

-The NuZee Story

Left: In the foreground a woman in a puffy black vest pours hot water from a thermos over a single-serving coffee being brewed in a camp mug. In the background , a man fly fishes in front of a mountain and blue skies. Right: a coffee filled tea-style bag is pulled from a clear glass mug filled with coffee sitting on a table in front of a lake. — Single-serving pour over and tea bag style coffees have become popular with campers and travelers looking for quality and convenience.

NuZee is a coffee co-packer specializing in creating a single-serving pourover experience for small roasters and big brands like Stone Brewing.*
Masa is from Nagoya, Japan. He remembers playing near a spent coffee grind mountain behind a local coffee shop.
He worked in finance in Japan and then started his own company in Seoul, Korea. It was a good business but incredibly stressful. He was looking for another path. After selling out, he moved to New Zealand to take a break.
Not long after he arrived, a tsunami hit Japan's Fukushima nuclear power plant, causing a meltdown disaster. There was an immediate need for clean water supplies. NuZee was borne out of that need and Masa's desire to aid his home country.**
First, by providing water to Japan immediately after the tsunami and again thinking about the lousy hotel coffee he had been drinking while in finance, even in grand hotels, Masa was instinctively filling a need. The need for safe drinking water. The need for better-tasting coffee, and finally, the ability to create convenient single-serving coffees for travelers and campers and those coffee drinkers who don't want to deal with an entire brewing process.
Even though the response from customers, in particular wholesale coffee roasters, was positive. Sales success didn't happen overnight, and the coronavirus initially scared clients off from investing in a new coffee brewing format. Still, when I asked why he continued, why he thought NuZee would succeed, Masa simply replied that he believed.

An overhead view of coffee brewing in a cardboard single-serving coffee brewer resting on a ceramic coffee mug. — There is more than one way to brew a single-serving pourover! Photo ©@nuzeecopacking on Facebook

Initially a challenge, the coronavirus eventually opened up a new avenue for NuZee. Their single-serving offerings and those of their copacking clients grew in popularity as the rest of us were trying to avoid public touchpoints in an effort to prevent virus transmissions.
We find connections through coffee.

*Stone is a big name in the beer industry. For decades, they paved the way for independent brewers until being acquired by Sapporo in 2022. Learn more about the Stone Brewing and NuZee coffee collaboration by clicking here.

**Fears about the impact of the Fukushida Tsunami’s devastation surrounding the nuclear reactor are once again in the news, as after 12 years, they’ve begun releasing some contaminated water from the nuclear plant into the ocean. Japan has claimed that according to their environmental studies the drainage, which will take decades to complete, won’t impact fish or the undersea environment, but that hasn’t been enough to assuage everyone. In particular, fishing communities are concerned, and it isn’t just the actual impact but perceived impact. China has already put a moratorium on purchasing fish from the region.