Interview with Kyle and Luke of Blackboard Coffee

Kyle: My name is Kyle Graham and I’ve been the General Manager here at Blackboard Coffee for close to two years now.

Luke: And my name is Luke and I do all our roasting and green bean buying here at the roastery. I've been working with Blackboard for nearly four years now.

Kyle, what does your role entail?

Yeah, so primarily my role is customer management and relationship management. It's something that I'm truly passionate about, ensuring that our customers get the best out of our coffee and the best possible service.

Luke, how has your pursuit of good coffee led you to this point in your career?

Luke: I wouldn't be here in this point, if it wasn't for my pursuit of good coffee. Back when I was fresh out of school and laying carpets, I was going to the all the cafes that I could find and making coffee at home too. I then transitioning to being a barista and now to the roastery. I wouldn't be here without that pursuit of good coffee.

And do you think that the good coffee has the power to summon good people?

Luke: It's got the power to summon good people, create them and everything in between?

Is there anything that continues to surprise you about the process of roasting coffee?

Luke: Yeah, constantly, I’m always blown away by how the roasting process can manipulate different flavours out of the coffee. It’s a mind-blowing process every day of the week.

Kyle, how important is machinery maintenance when it comes to ensuring your coffee is being prepared to the highest quality?

Kyle: For any of our cafe partners, coffee is primarily the biggest thing that they're selling in their cafes, so it’s important for us to provide them with good quality coffee, service and education. They’re trying to produce the best coffee for their customers and it's up to us to educate them. The same goes for the machinery that they're using. So, if the machinery need servicing or any sort of repairs, we utilise Brewtech for their services. They keep things ticking along nicely.

How important is trust and building relationships with your wholesale and retail partners?

Kyle: Our industry is very fast paced. There aren’t too many sit-down meeting and things like that, so our word is our bond. If we say we’re going to show up at a certain time, we show up and things are just done. Our customers’ businesses are their livelihood, and we just want to make sure that they're feeling supported and things are done when we say that they're going to be done.

Why don't you choose Brewtech to be your service partner initially and how long have you been with Brewtech?

Kyle: We've been with Brewtech for close to a year and a half now. Back in the day, we had an in-house technician that had left Blackboard to pursue other things. We had a bit of a gap there in terms of having someone do our services. We tried a few different techs around the area and the thing that we liked the most about Brewtech was their reliability of service. We also love their expertise in terms of the machinery and the professionalism turning up on time and best of all, treating our customers as if they are their own. That was a big thing for us, you know.

That's such a wonderful compliment! How was your experience taking up residency and Collab?

Kyle: Yeah, it was a great experience. We don't have any customers down in Melbourne, so we were delighted to hear that they were wanting to use our coffee in their café… and then even more delighted to hear that their customers were raving about our coffee. We look forward to doing it again one day.

What would you say to a roaster considering choosing Brewtech as their service partner?

Kyle: I can't recommend them more highly to be honest. Our word is our bond in this industry and a lot of our customers, including ourselves, just need things done at the time that they said it was going to be done. There are a lot of emergencies that happen within our industry, and just knowing that they have our back and things are just fixed and that nothing's ever a big issue.

And to round it all out… what makes Blackboard so special?

Luke: Because we use high quality ingredients, treat them well, quality control meticulously and ensuring that we partner up with the best people that share our views.

Kyle: Definitely, our motto is good coffee, good people. That encapsulates everything that we're about. From the coffee that Luke sources for us to the people that he's working with. We strive for excellence in that respect, and we don't take ourselves too seriously. We're not the best of the best, we know that. But what we do take seriously is providing our customers with the best possible coffee. SO that the good coffee part, the good people are our farmers, our staff, the people we partner with, it's people like Brewtech. We only want to deal with good people and support good people. So, I guess what makes us so special is that we form great partnerships, and we have a love and a passion for great coffee.

Well said! Thanks for your time today!

Luke: No, thank you.

Kyle: Cheers!