Unpacking Coffee with Kandace and Ray: Bluebeard Coffee Roasters

Bluebeard Coffee Roasters bags. Photo by Needmore Designs.

This week’s Unpacking Coffee catches up with the 7-year-old, self-described 253rd-wave coffee roasting company Bluebeard Coffee Roasters, based in Tacoma, Washington.

Bluebeard founder Kevin McGlocklin shares with K-Ray Bluebeard’s origin story, which might colloquially be referred to as shotgun-style: “My wife got pregnant, and it was like, ‘Oh s$*t, we either need to do this now, or we’re never going to do it.”

Do it they did, and the rest is roasting history.

In this interview, McGlocklin talks about the Zen-like influence of his coffee mentor and first cousin Ed Leebrick of Lighthouse Roasters, the Bluebeard design approach led by Pat Snavely of Partly Sunny in Ballard, and the origin of the Bluebeard name. The latter involves a sordid bit of tragic French folklore or just a cat’s name, depending on what you want to believe.

Unpacking Coffee is a show discovering new coffee roasters one episode at a time led by Kandace and Ray of the Portland-based studio Needmore Designs, which specializes in coffee, wine and lifestyle brands.