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PAUL:

If you think coffee is just a quick caffeine fix, well think again. It's an art. It's a science and a connection to the world around us. Hey, it's Paul Wolf with a front-row seat to conversations on culture from Jackson, Mississippi. We call our podcast Soul Sessions. It's the people, places and events that make the City With Soul shine.

On today's season five opener, we're diving in with Trey Malone, coffee aficionado and CEO of Northshore Specialty Roasters, about how a great cup of coffee isn't just about the brew, but about creating spaces that connect us all.

I was not a coffee drinker in 2010 when I'm officially moved to Fondren. Just wasn't, couldn't get into it. It was too bitter for me. I didn't want to add sugar and all that stuff to it. So I moved into the Fondren Corner building right next door to Sneaky Beans. And I said, if I'm going to live next door to a coffee shop, I probably need to learn to like coffee. And my first cup of coffee was a Bean Fruit black coffee with nothing in it. And that is still how I prefer to drink my coffee.

TREY:

Let's go, man. Both are just behemoths of amazing, you know, foundational businesses. So Bean Fruit, my buddy Paul started that and he was just a lone wolf in the wilderness back then with doing specialty coffee in Mississippi. And he is just stuck to it and is just a hero of mine in so many ways and, you know, Byron Knight starting Sneaky Beans back in the day that just completely—I believe is one of the businesses that transformed Fondren that really brought people there for music, to have a nightlife, to have a place to connect. I was one of the musicians that would come and had this like community of other musicians around us that would hang out and do shows there late at night and it was the best, loved it.

PAUL:

Oh man. I miss Sneaky Beans every single day. Let's get into your coffee origins. How did Northshore get it start?

TREY:

Yeah, there's a, pastor, Doug Elzeroth and he was pastoring a church on the north end of the reservoir, which is not necessarily called the north shore, but it was the north shore of the reservoir, which is really funny. And that kind of harkens to later in my story. But he had a church called North Shore Bible Church and there was a guy in his congregation that was roasting coffee and he just got into it and started roasting and ended up taking over and called it Northshore Specialty Coffee. I came into the picture around ‘22, kind of early ‘22, and I have some amazing business partners in Covington, Louisiana. We were talking about doing coffee. So my best friend, Justin Fontenot, gave me a call. He's my business partner now. He called me he said, I really want to partner with you. And what would you think about it? So I talked to my wife and I had built a business in California and was working remote. So we moved back and I would fly out there and my kids were getting older. And so I was just kind of tired of getting on an airplane every other week. And I said, you know what, I think this could be a good time for us to focus on something here on a project locally. So we decided to start a coffee company and Doug and I had become friends at that time. And so I said, hey, you know what, we've got a lot of great coffee roasters here in Jackson, rather than us just starting another one, what if we talked to Doug and what if we partnered with him and we helped build this business? And so we did, we decided to do that. It was funny. I sat down with Justin and Stephanie and you know, I'm not from Covington, the Mandeville area. So I was like, yeah, he's got a name for it. And so we can change the name. He's kind of loose on that. It's called Northshore Specialty Coffee. they're like, you know, that Covington is the north shore, right? They're like, we actually love the name. So let's keep that.

PAUL:

I would say you alluded earlier to those who've come before you like Paul Bonds with Bean Fruit and what a great product he created. So that kind of paved the way and, opened the doors - Cups roasters, of course, long before any of that, maybe the OGs here in Jackson. But I guess what I need to ask, because there are people who are listening right now that say “coffee is coffee, right? Like what's the big…” what is different about Northshore Specialty Roasters? What do you do that makes that perfect cup?

TREY:

Yeah, that's a great question. So, we've been drinking coffee since the foundation of the country, right? But for a while it was more of just the commodity products. It was like flour, sugar, and coffee. And there wasn't a ton of emphasis on the quality. It was really just, it's coffee. It should be hot and it should be caffeinated. And frankly, people started putting cream and sugar in it just to make it palatable, because it wasn't very good. Three companies, really in the 90s started focusing on specialty coffee, really built the industry that we call specialty coffee today, which is uniquely different and distinct from commodity coffee. So, where coffee is grown how it's grown, the soil treatment, the way that the producers process it: there's a ton of processing that goes on before it even gets put into a bag and ships to our country or to wherever It's going to be roasted. That's where the real work is. Honestly, so we tell people that the most the roaster can do to coffee is mess it up, right? All we try to do is not mess up the coffee and the quality that God put into that, that he put into the soil, the quality that's already in that bean. We're just trying to unlock it. Our job is to really look at a coffee and try to find the flavors, the experience, the mouthfeel, the texture, all of the things that are intrinsically in that coffee. We're just trying to unlock it. We're trying to clean the window into the terroir. Are you familiar with that term, terroir?

PAUL:

I'm not.

TREY:

It's a French term that doesn't have a direct translation in English, but it's used in the wine industry. But it essentially means all of the components that go into a product and you can get melodramatic with that and even talk about a space or people, all of the components that make it what it is. It really comes out in a product that only has one ingredient. So wine or a single malt bourbon or coffee or steak is a really great example where you've got one source and that source is directly impacted by all of the surrounding factors of how it was raised or grown. And so for us, Robert (Aikin) is our head roaster and he aspires to this as well where it's like, he is a master at roasting and roasting takes all of this time and experience and knowledge and research to do well. But at the end of the day, you're trying to unlock the flavors that are already in the seed. It's a wildly exotic product that we take for granted every single day. Every single time you have a cup of coffee, it took about 50 to 60 cherries of someone having to pick cherries, like picking blueberries off of a bush, just to make that one cup of coffee. What separates companies like Norths hore and Bean Fruit is that we really focus on highlighting the flavors of the soil of the producers of the farms that these coffees come from and make sure that we're able to communicate that to the people around us, to our customers, so that they can enjoy it like we do.

PAUL:

Yeah. And to use your word, the terroir of the process is not just the soil, the air, the water, the hands that pick it, the hands that roast it. in the processes, but it is in the place where you serve it and the people who enjoy it too. And Jackson has really really taken a liking to your coffee blends. I mean, I see your coffee in Urban Foxes. I know it's in other shops across the metro area and across the state, but you're expanding and bringing your own coffee shops, your own collaborations into the city. Tell me about your spot that's opening soon at the District atEastover. And then your second location at Belhaven Town Center, which is a collab with Fertile Ground Beer Company.

TREY:

Yeah, absolutely. So The District location, Ted Duckworth and I have been, we've been friends for a while and when Cultivat(ion Food Hall) was going, you know, in full swing, he was trying to get me to open up a little corner and we kind of sat on and prayed about it, decided that wasn't the right time, but he just kept, he kept sending me messages. And one day I went and I saw this spot, which we were actually almost done with construction on this spot. And we should be opening up in just about a month. And then you'll be able to come and get a cup of this delicious coffee at The District. And I walked in and just like he said, the environment, I saw the natural light, big windows, it had just, even with the walls completely bare and insulation still showing, I could feel it.

You're absolutely right. Terroir actually applies to every facet, like how you design a space, how you design an experience for someone. And at end of the day, we're in the hospitality industry where we want to invite people into the spaces that we create. We call it the third space, right? Where it's not work, it's not home, but it's a third space. It's a space where you can engage with other people where you can see friends maybe planned or in this town…what I love is, unplanned, right? I had at the same time, my across the street neighbor is David Turner and he and his partner, Ruffin started Belhaven Town Center. And the same kind of crazy people as me where they just see a vision for a city that it could be better, right? And we want to make it to where people don't want to leave. They don't want to leave this city. They want to stay here. They actually want to move in and be closer to what's going on.

I think that you first kind of heard about all this at the concert that David and I threw at Belhaven Town Center and all of that was a lot of work and a lot of money and a lot of headache to throw an event and at the end of the day like throwing a cool party. I'm gonna quote Jack Black in School of Rock, “a cool concert can change the world,” right, like a cool party can change the world and so something like that is worth investing in. So around that time I was working with The District and then Beans and Bananas is run by lovely lady, Emily Pote, who's been a part of the coffee scene for a long time. And she called me and she said, Hey, I think we're going to be moving locations to Banner Hall. Would you be interested in taking over and building a coffee shop? it was just like a dagger to my heart. Because I had just signed a lease with The District and I was like, I've wanted a coffee shop in that neighborhood for so long. was so hard for me. And then shortly after my conversation with Emily, David called me.

David asked me the same thing. was like, hey, let's do this. And I was like, man, I'm so sorry. And then two weeks later, one of my best friends, Connor Reeves, who owns Fertile Ground with Matthew (McLaughlin), he called me he said, all right, I know that you can't do two at once, but what if we did it together? And I was like, I'm listening. Me and Connor, through lots of conversations we worked out, let's do this together. Let's build a coffee shop together. So me and Connor have been working on starting Cultivate, which is, Cultivate, A Coffee Project, and it's a way to sort of harken to this is a little different than just the cafe. This is a partnership between a coffee roastery and a beer brewery and see what we can spin up together to provide once again, a unique and thoughtfully curated experience for our customers.

PAUL:

I'm very excited about this because I love beer. I love coffee. If the two of you are joining forces, I think there may be a product there that I would love even more. Do you have a timeline on the Belhaven Town Center spot?

TREY:

So we're gonna be doing some light renovations. The building, as you know, is brand new. Beans and Bananas was in there for just about two years and it looks lovely. So we don't have to gut it, we don't have to do a lot, but we didn't want to put our spin on it. We wanted to be, you know, with our personality showcased so we could really curate that cafe environment. I would say, don't hold me to this, but probably mid-February, you can expect to come get a cup of coffee at The District and then probably, three or four weeks after that, you can come and get one in Belhaven as well.

PAUL:

Before we get away from new and collaboration, now we’ve got to talk about the collab between Northshore and Cathead Hoodoo Espresso.

TREY:

Hoodoo Espresso is a brainchild of my business mentor, Richard Patrick and I. And so I have just always been in beverage, you know, I sort of picked coffee as a career and I've always just had a deep interest in spirits and distillation and, you know, craft beer. So Richard Patrick and Austin Evans started Cathead Distillery over a decade ago. About middle of August, he gave me a phone call. We would catch up and chat a lot. And he said, all right, man, it's time. So then he said, I'm envisioning some form of coffee liqueur or coffee vodka. And I said, I'll be right over. And so I had a recipe that I had been sitting on that I had worked on, you know, years before. And I brought it to him and I said, Hey, what do think about this? And he was like, this is delicious. We tweaked it a little bit and then we birth Hoodoo Espresso Vodka. So it's essentially three ingredients. It's Cathead Vodka, demerara sugar, and Northshore espresso.

PAUL:

Trey, Northshore roasts right here in Jackson. And I want to know why is that important to you?

TREY:

You know, we're very intentionally in the Midtown neighborhood, which I think is an amalgamation of Jackson as a whole, really. Like, it sounds a little melodramatic, but I heard someone wisely say one time that the way that people in Mississippi talk about Jackson is the way that people in America talk about Mississippi. And it's our job to change that. People that live, all live close to Jackson, are definitely benefiting from the value of being close to a capital city, to the largest city in our state.

I spent a lot of time in Los Angeles, specifically downtown. I was really close with a lot of the business owners that were a part of revitalizing the arts district in downtown. And it was really important to me. And I was there always with the intent of coming back to Jackson. Whenever I left, I told my friends, I'm gonna be back. And it took seven years, but I came back, right? And so always the hope was to make this place better, make our homes better and to invest our skills and our talents and our gifts here. So it's things like this, honestly, that really make a difference. And so thank you for including me, because this is really dear to my heart.

PAUL:

That's Trey Malone from Northshore Specialty Roasters. Trey and I had such a rich conversation, so much so, in fact, that we couldn't fit it all into this episode. From the art of roasting to the vision for Jackson's growing coffee culture there's so much more to explore. I'll put a deeper dive in our show notes at visitjackson.com/soulsessions.

This podcast is produced by visit Jackson, the destination organization for Mississippi's capital city. Our executive producers are Jonathan Pettus and Dr. Ricky Thigpen, and I'm the managing editor. If you want to learn more about the ways we're shining the spotlight on all the good that Jackson has to offer, you can find that at visitjackson.com.

I'm Paul Wolf and you've been listening to Soul Sessions.

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