Blue Bottle Coffee, Inc., is a

coffee roaster Roasting coffee transforms the chemical and physical properties of green coffee beans into roasted coffee products. The roasting process is what produces the characteristic flavor of coffee by causing the green coffee beans to change in taste. ...

and retailer once headquartered in

Oakland, California Oakland is the largest city and the county seat of Alameda County, California, United States. A major West Coast port, Oakland is the largest city in the East Bay region of the San Francisco Bay Area, the third largest city overall in the ...

, United States. In 2017, a majority stake in the company was acquired by

Nestlé Nestlé S.A. (; ; ) is a Switzerland, Swiss multinational food and drink processing conglomerate corporation headquartered in Vevey, Vaud, Switzerland. It is the largest publicly held food company in the world, measured by revenue and other me ...

(68%). It is considered a major player in third wave coffee. The company focuses on single-origin beans.

Locations

The company once based in

, soon expanded to other areas around the country. Blue Bottle first expanded to several cafés in locations around San Francisco, including the Ferry Building and the

San Francisco Museum of Modern Art The San Francisco Museum of Modern Art (SFMOMA) is a modern and contemporary art museum located in San Francisco, California. A nonprofit organization, SFMOMA holds an internationally recognized collection of modern and contemporary art, and was ...

's rooftop garden. The company operates 99 stores as of June 2021, with locations in California, New York, Washington, D.C., Boston, Chicago, Seoul, Kyoto, Kobe, Tokyo, Hong Kong, and Yokohama.

History

James Freeman, CEO Blue Bottle Coffee, May 2014

W. James Freeman founded Blue Bottle Coffee in the early 2000s in Oakland’s Temescal District. Freeman borrowed the name from one of Europe's first cafés,

The Blue Bottle Coffee House The Blue Bottle coffee house was one of the first coffee houses in Vienna, Austria. It was founded in 1686 by Polish-Ukrainian Jerzy Franciszek Kulczycki, a hero of the Battle of Vienna. Background According to legend, the Blue Bottle was Vien ...

. His intention was to roast coffee in small batches (6 lbs. per roast) to sell within 24 hours of roasting, initially as a home-delivery service. Blue Bottle soon ceased deliveries and opened as a traditional café. Blue Bottle opened additional locations in San Francisco and elsewhere in the

San Francisco Bay Area The San Francisco Bay Area, often referred to as simply the Bay Area, is a populous region surrounding the San Francisco, San Pablo, and Suisun Bay estuaries in Northern California. The Bay Area is defined by the Association of Bay Area Go ...

, and then opened its first New York location in Williamsburg, Brooklyn, in 2010. The company-owned stores carry off-menu items such as the "Gibraltar", a form of

cortado A cortado is a beverage consisting of espresso mixed with a roughly equal amount of warm milk to reduce the acidity. The milk in a cortado is steamed, but not frothy and "texturized" as in many Italian coffee drinks. The cortado comes from Spain, ...

. In 2012, Blue Bottle received $20 million in

venture capital Venture capital (often abbreviated as VC) is a form of private equity financing that is provided by venture capital firms or funds to startups, early-stage, and emerging companies that have been deemed to have high growth potential or which ha ...

investment. In January 2014, Blue Bottle raised $25.75 million in new round of funding. In 2015, Blue Bottle completed a venture capital round in which it raised $70 million from investors led by

Fidelity Fidelity is the quality of faithfulness or loyalty. Its original meaning regarded duty in a broader sense than the related concept of ''fealty''. Both derive from the Latin word ''fidēlis'', meaning "faithful or loyal". In the City of London f ...

Since its inception, the company has raised $120 million from investors as of 2017. In February 2015, Blue Bottle Coffee opened its first location in Tokyo, Japan, in the Kiyosumi neighborhood. In September 2017, Nestle S.A., the world's largest food and drinks company, acquired a majority stake of Blue Bottle. While the deal's financial details were not disclosed, the ''

Financial Times The ''Financial Times'' (''FT'') is a British daily newspaper printed in broadsheet and published digitally that focuses on business and economic current affairs. Based in London, England, the paper is owned by a Japanese holding company, Nik ...

'' reported "Nestle is understood to be paying up to $500m for the 68 per cent stake in Blue Bottle". Blue Bottle expected to increase sales by 70% in 2017. In May 2019, Blue Bottle Coffee opened its first location in

Seoul Seoul (; ; ), officially known as the Seoul Special City, is the capital and largest metropolis of South Korea.Before 1972, Seoul was the ''de jure'' capital of the Democratic People's Republic of Korea (North Korea) as stated iArticle 103 ...

, South Korea. In December 2019, Blue Bottle Coffee announced they would test eliminating

disposable cup A disposable cup is a type of tableware and disposable food packaging. Disposable cup types include paper cups, plastic cups and foam cups. Expanded polystyrene is used to manufacture foam cups, and polypropylene is used to manufacture plasti ...

s at some of their shops in an effort to increase sustainability efforts, with the goal being zero waste within one year. nothing has been reported to date about this test and whether it was successful. In April 2020, Blue Bottle Coffee opened its first location in

Central, Hong Kong Central (also Central District) is the central business district of Hong Kong. It is located in Central and Western District, on the north shore of Hong Kong Island, across Victoria Harbour from Tsim Sha Tsui, the southernmost point of Kowloo ...

. Amid COVID-19, the café opened from 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. daily for takeaway only. In February 2022, Blue Bottle Coffee opened its first location in mainland China, Yutong Cafe. Yutong Cafe is located at a historic building by

Suzhou Creek Suzhou Creek (or Soochow Creek), also called the Wusong (Woosung) River, is a river that passes through the Shanghai city center. It is named after the neighboring city of Suzhou (Soochow), Jiangsu, the predominant settlement in this area prior ...

in downtown

Shanghai Shanghai (; , , Standard Mandarin pronunciation: ) is one of the four direct-administered municipalities of the People's Republic of China (PRC). The city is located on the southern estuary of the Yangtze River, with the Huangpu River flow ...

References

External links

* {{Authority control Coffeehouses and cafés in the United States Companies based in Oakland, California Food and drink in the San Francisco Bay Area Drink companies based in California Nestlé brands Food and drink companies established in 2002 American companies established in 2002

Locations

History

See also

References

External links