In the latest entry of our Coffee Design series, we take a closer look at the distinct design work of THREE Coffee, located in Al Quoz, Dubai. There’s so much to love! We love the “roasted for milk” designation and its complementary sticker. We love the visual flavor bar that illustrates the amount of each flavor note depicted. THREE Coffee’s inviting and inventive design extends beyond their whole-bean coffee packaging: it’s evident in their other products as well. Coffee and cascara flavored gummy bears, merch that extolls acids (yes, pease!), and their ready-to-drink offerings—to name a few—creating a branding approach that’s distinct and memorable.
To learn more, we spoke with the team at THREE.
Coffee Design is a feature series on Sprudge presented by TricorBraun Flex.
Tell us about THREE Coffee’s approach to coffee sourcing and preparation!
At THREE we believe keeping the entire coffee industry sustainable is key at the moment. We’re seeing new types of bacteria, fungi, and pests affecting coffee farms and forcing them to change the way producers farm coffee. If we don’t help farmers manage this (by paying premiums), they will slowly convert their farms to growing other, more stable crops like fruit, vegetables, and grain. Our Head of Coffee, Karthik Rajendran, has a lot of experience in making small changes to processing techniques that can help improve the quality of the coffees our partner farms produce. This helps them make small, inexpensive changes that result in higher returns for the coffees they sell, not only to us but to other roasteries around the world. We are currently sourcing our beans from Ethiopia, Burundi, Kenya, Rwanda, and Uganda in Africa, the Central American countries of El Salvador, Costa Rica, Panama, and Guatemala with Colombia and Brazil being the focus in South America, as well as Yemen and Indonesia in Asia-Pacific.
The design is really unique and inviting! Tell us about the thought that went into this design.
At the heart of the design system was a drive to simplify how coffee could be presented to the consumer. A simple three-colour tier system was created to define the coffee’s different sensory attributes to help customers discover the right coffee for them. We are dividing our coffee selection into 3 colors: green, purple, and brown. Green Coffees express a vibrant acidity with notes of stone fruit, citrus, and florals. Brown Coffees exhibit notes of chocolate, caramels and spices. And, finally, Purple Coffees are an aromatic and flavourful experience with notes of purple fruits, berries and florals.
Who designed it?
Our main team character, Drew Dennehy, in collaboration with the team designer, Abdullah Khalifa. Drew has the vision and ideas and Abdullah is collecting them to the final look.
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What’s next for Three Coffee?
We are exploring other markets starting first with Saudi Arabia. We’ve already participated in a few events there and are really excited to share our coffees with the Saudi Arabian coffee community. Saudi Arabia is a huge market and in somewhat of its infancy in terms of education at the moment. We want people to be able to walk in, touch and feel our brand and understand our approach to specialty coffee. We’ll be launching a cafe/experience-centre in Riyadh later this year. Education will be centre stage, from the way the space is decorated to the coffee menu and the way we interact with our guests.
Thank you!
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Coffee Design is a feature series on Sprudge presented by TricorBraun Flex.
