Local couple and coffee proprietors look to expand

 

Some of who I am is borrowed. I grew up in a tea household, bagged black Lipton hot or iced, where April Sinclair’s Coffee Will Make You Black looked down from the shelf. My coffee drinking only started during the pandemic, which I spent cooped up with a self-assured aficionado and his unfiltered opinions on coffee-to-water ratio, grind yield, and superior temperature. To me it was all just bitterness, until one day we’d built a ritual. Scalding cups in hand near the window, looking out on a world quieted by lockdown that brought the two of us together, apart from everyone else. When we ended, my only regret was that I didn’t pinch my favorite mug. 

 

But I didn’t leave empty-handed. Now I, too, have coffee-opinions. I bop around the city getting cups between appointments, giving in to that first bitter sip, licking at the froth on the rim. There are places I look forward to visiting just because I like a particular cafe nearby. For years, beach days down the shore meant meeting Eunice on the Jersey side of bridge, which meant getting to the G.W. Bus Terminal early enough to snag a latte from Buunni. But now, Buunni, which was started by married founders Sarina and Elias in 2012, is bigger than the bridge.

 

 

Buunni has 3 uptown locations (all off the A train) and you can buy their beans in the Met’s gift shop or at select Trader Joe’s in the northeast. In 2024, they opened the Roasting Room where their Ethiopian beans are roasted, packed, and readied for distribution. It’s tucked into an industrial corner of the South Bronx, and the nondescript warehouse exterior belies the fragrant and vibrant experience inside. Buunni’s Roasting Room doubles as an event space and “Travel Behind Your Cup” brought together coffee enthusiasts, commercial distributors, and local food service buyers with the promise of free sips and lunch. I assume I was there as an enthusiast, but the particulars of my invite are still a mystery to me. 

 

A light-to-medium chunk of the details went over my head. I understood that the beans were named after where they came from and they were single-origin (not mixed together), but I wouldn’t be able to pronounce their locations or articulate which ones I liked the most. I was just munching on the pairings and listening to other people’s tasting notes. Yirgacheffe, light and dark roast, was paired with candied citrus pistachios and Caribbean jerk nuts from Live Loud Foods, a Black woman-owned company from the South Bronx. Jarabacoa, red honey and dark, was served with coconut passion fruit Linzer cookies and double chocolate chip sea salt cookies from woman-owned bakery Bizcoterra. (You can get both Live Loud and Bizcoterra offerings at Buunni’s cafes.) The coffee I remember most was the Harrar, not because of the bean, but because it was prepared with salted butter the traditional Ethiopian way. I was the only one in the documentary screening room who asked for another serving, but I think my continental family is onto something with the combination of salty, bitter, and silky. When I make it to Ethiopia one day, I’ll be expecting a cup upon arrival. The documentary implied that locals drink more than five cups a day (there was no mention of avoiding proximity to bedtime). 

 

 

After attendees mixed and mingled at the tasting stations, Sarina and Elias shared remarks highlighting the journey since they opened their first shop in 2012, published a book in 2019, survived the pandemic, and set-up the Roasting Room. They can prepare 14,000 pounds of beans a day and they’re “ready to do business” either with cafes who need beans, or companies with beans who need roasters. We were there because word of mouth has been the key to scaling; the Trader Joe’s deal was the result of a TJ employee recommending their neighborhood spot to a coworker.  

 

Over catered lunch from Addey Ababa, an Ethiopian restaurant in the Heights, I chatted with a guy who “works in coffee” who’d met Sarina at CoffeeCon. I asked for his two cents on instant coffee, just to see if he’d steam, and he gave me more than I bargained for re: home brewing options for solo-drinkers with small-format kitchens. He grabbed a nearby Aeropress and demonstrated the process while he talked up its features. He strongly recommended the plastic option over the glass, since he felt the risk of ingesting microplastics was lower than the chance of shattering the press during extraction. I wondered how long I’d last at CoffeeCon; I was getting jittery from the 6 samples (2 Yirgacheffe, 2 Jarabacoa, 2 salted butter Harrar) and dampening the underarms of my blouse with cold sweat. I was still just a coffee baby. 

 

 

Attendees were sent off with gifts: Jarabacoa Dark which you can smell through the geometric-printed bag and a matching espresso cup and saucer decorated with an Ethiopian motif. I grabbed another passion fruit Linzer cookie for the road and headed out. With no beans in need of roasting, and no cafe in need of beans, I figured I couldn’t help scale capacity at the Roasting Room, but I could spread the word and find a new errand to run in the Heights to support, one cup at a time.              

 

blacklove 🖤 and starlight 🌟

 

Travel Behind Your Cup was hosted on April 30, 2026 by Buunni Coffee at their Roasting Room at 542 Barretto Street in the Bronx. I was invited to attend this private event.