ATLANTA — One Black-owned business is bringing coffee and crypto together. Atlanta-based Hot Coffee is the first minority-owned coffee company to accept cryptocurrency as their preferred method of payment.
Co-owner Katerina Taylor started the e-commerce company two years ago when the pandemic started. Her vision was to simplify the gourmet coffee experience.
"We really wanted to take the coffee market into a different direction. So what we did was take really great gourmet coffee and we simplified it," she said.
Hot Coffee offers customers four different roasts grown in regions of Africa, Central and South America. From light, medium, dark to decaf, Taylor wanted to make her product accessible to everyone, everywhere.
"The reason we accept cryptocurrency as a preferred method is because we really want people to think about crypto as a way to purchase things," Taylor said.
Taylor said her online site accepts crypto such as Bitcoin, Dogecoin and Litecoin. She explains that it's as easy as using your debit card.
"If you have a cryptocurrency card, it's easy. Just to go to our website at Love Coffee.com and pick the coffee you want," she said.
Taylor conceptualized the coffee company along with co-founder Brad Hill in-between her corporate positions. She served as Vice President for Truist Bank before becoming the first woman president and CEO of the DeKalb County Chamber of Commerce in 2014.
She spent her career working with business owners before becoming one in 2020.
"I love being a business owner. It is definitely not easy. It is definitely a hustle. You have to work hard and you got to start early and leave late," she said.
Hot coffee will open its first coffee shop in Atlanta in the summer of 2022.