Mesh Gelman didn’t set out to build a cold coffee company. In fact, when he left his role leading innovation at Starbucks, he didn’t want anything to do with coffee.
“I was interested in the left side of my email address and not the right side, the Gellman part, not the Starbucks part,” he told The Spoon. “I was like, okay, I’m gonna innovate and it’s not gonna be in coffee.”
That resolution lasted about six months.
Now, as founder and CEO of Cumulus Coffee, Gelman is back in the world he knows best, only this time he’s tackling what he sees as one of the most overlooked challenges in modern coffee: cold brew.
Cumulus is a countertop device that delivers nitro cold brew and cold espresso on demand, using a proprietary capsule system. It doesn’t require refrigeration or nitrogen tanks, and Gelman says it produces a café-quality drink in under 60 seconds.
“If we could deliver a premium experience every single time, better than café quality at the push of a button, why would you ever choose to go back?” said Gelman.
The epiphany that set Gelman on his journey to build a cold brew system came during a visit to Starbucks’ Roastery in Seattle, when he tried nitro cold brew for the first time. “I took one gulp of it, and I was like, my God, I’m gonna be in trouble. This is like full of dairy,” he said. “And the barista was like, ‘No, there’s nothing in it.’ It was a transformative experience.”
After three years of bootstrapping the product, Gelman raised funding, including a seed check from former boss Howard Schultz. In total, Cumulus has raised over $30 million.
For Gelman, the mission is clear: bring premium cold brew into the home and beyond.
“We need to take a step back and say, let’s delete everything we know and craft something for cold,” he said.
Cumulus has launched online and in select Williams-Sonoma stores and Gelman says they are targeting both consumer and commercial markets, including offices, cafés, and bars.
You can watch my full conversation with Gelman below or listen to it on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts.
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