We’re excited to introduce you to the always interesting and insightful Zach McCutchen. We hope you’ll enjoy our conversation with Zach below.

Alright, Zach thanks for taking the time to share your stories and insights with us today. So, naming is such a challenge. How did you come up with the name of your brand?

Naming a business IS hard. When I first set out to start my own small business, or really what I viewed as a “coffee project” at the time, what I wanted to do was clear. I wanted to bridge the gap between the “coffee industry” and the “coffee consumer” by producing exceptional quality coffees that were easy to understand and even easier to enjoy.

The name however, took quite a few weeks, maybe even months to conjure up. I almost went with Very Nice Coffee Roasters; a no-nonsense name to let my customers know that my coffees were indeed very nice. Another iteration was Koa Koffie, a blend of my personal hobbies (making surfboards, which at one time were made from Koa wood) and my own coffee origin story which started in South Africa (Koffie is Afrikaans for Coffee).

Clary is a family name; my mother’s side. Growing up, I would go to the Clary farmhouse – a humble piece of property in Fort Lawn, South Carolina where my grandparents raised cattle and grew fresh produce. They had apples, figs, corn, greens, tomatoes – you name it. We would pick and eat right there in the yard. It was like the storybook depiction of rural living. I’d run around barefoot with my brothers – and I swear my grandma would even have fresh pies and cobblers sitting up on the kitchen windowsill.

The Clary farmhouse represented a space of simple living, flavor, and enjoyment. It is my hope to invite my patrons into a similar space through the enjoyment of my coffees.

So that’s it – Clary Coffee is really an invitation to be present in the moment, live simply, and drink well.

Awesome – so before we get into the rest of our questions, can you briefly introduce yourself to our readers.

I’ve been drinking coffee for a long time, too long probably haha. When I was young, maybe six or seven, my mom taught me how to operate the coffee machine because I was getting her up so early on Saturday mornings. So the first thing I would do on weekends was brew a pot of coffee and fix her up a cup with the very specific amount of cream and sugar she wanted. I found a lot of gratification in that experience as a kid.

In my early twenties, I was exposed to specialty coffee in my travels – and I became a pretty avid consumer, though I still didn’t know much about what coffee was.

In 2019, I left my job and started working at a local shop as a barista. From my first week I was hooked. I quickly made my way from barista to coffee roaster. I knew then that I wanted to someday have a coffee brand of my own. I spent about three years roasting coffee in a really immersive environment – and I was just a sponge soaking up as much knowledge and experience as I possibly could.

A year in now, Clary Coffee exists to put delicious coffees in front of everyday consumers. In a time where the coffee industry is heading towards a more nuanced and intricate approach, we just want to help regular ole folks enjoy really, really good coffee, whether at their local cafe or at home. We do this through our wholesale partners, and also directly to consumers at our website – clarycoffee.com.

Our offerings currently are exclusively whole bean coffees – though that will one day expand I’m sure. We’re always taking on new wholesale accounts where you can carry our stuff, or work with us to source the white label coffee of your dreams – and really take ownership of your own coffee experience.

What’s been the most effective strategy for growing your clientele?

As a new coffee roaster, we’ve had a lot of our success coming alongside other businesses who are also early on in their journey. There’s a really fun camaraderie of learning and growing together – sharing information, providing honest feedback, and of course reveling in each other’s wins.

So if you are a new business in your industry, I’d recommend finding other newer businesses where there’s an obvious intersection. Host an event together, release a collaboration, or just offer support and assistance. Start small and see if there are opportunities to continue to grow alongside each other.

Starting something new can feel really, really isolating at first – especially if you try to do it all on your own. Offer help to others when you can, and be willing to accept it yourself.

We’d love to hear about how you keep in touch with clients.

I always try to keep an open line of communication with the people I’m working with. Asking them how their business is doing, how they are enjoying our products, interacting with them on social media, and visiting in person as much as I can.

It’s really easy to communicate about the fun stuff; new products, developments and growth in your company – those kinds of things. It might feel a little harder to be open and honest about the less fun stuff – like you’ve run out of a product they ordered, their shipment got lost in the mail, or you’re unable to move forward with an idea.

I’ve run out of coffee before and haven’t been able to fulfill orders. You just have to bite the bullet, be honest, and hope they’ll understand. If you are B2B, they probably will – because odds are they’ve been in a similar situation themselves!

Contact Info:

• Website: clarycoffee.com
• Instagram: @clarycoffee
• Other: tiktok and threads: @clarycoffee

Image Credits
Nolan Sritan @nolansritanphoto