June 24th, 2011: New York becomes the 6th state in the USA to allow same-sex couples the right to marry. At 11:55PM, Brown Coffee Company, a San Antonio-based coffee roaster with accounts across North America, posts this message to Twitter.

RBC NYC, a New York City cafe serving Brown Coffee Company announced to its customers via Tumblr that they have pulled BCC off the shelf.

Although we won’t tell you what RBC stands for, we’ll let you know it doesn’t stand for intolerance and bigotry, therefore we will not be doing business with The Brown Coffee Co. anymore.

advert but first coffee cookbook now available

 

In the days following, Brown has locked its Twitter account and deactivated its Facebook page. Brown can be reached for contact here and they run a WordPress here.

A corporate Twitter account is a terrible place to sound off knee-jerk reactions, no matter what they are, and this case is particularly egregious. One should use a pretty thick filter when representing an entire company. A public apology from Brown Coffee Co is in order.

Bay Area barista Tom Baker nails it:


Developing…

New Rules of Coffee banner advertising an illustrated guide to the essential rules for enjoying coffee