Cxffeeblack is a community-oriented, multi-disciplinary, education-based coffee company. Founded in 2019 by husband-and-wife team, Bartholomew Jones and Renata Henderson, this social enterprise is on a mission to return coffee to its African roots and, in the process, create an equitable Black future. Cxffeeblack became a trailblazer in the coffee industry by creating an entirely all-Black coffee supply chain from Ethiopia to Memphis, TN — the first of its kind.
Currently, Cxffeeblack carries out its educational mission via three primary avenues:
Anti-Gentrification Cxffee Club, a coffee educational center and cultural hub located in Memphis, TN;
The Barista Exchange Program, which in 2023 took four Black American baristas to Ethiopia and Rwanda and in 2024 will bring four African baristas to Memphis for a cultural and coffee educational exchange; and
The Specialist-in-Training program, which teaches coffee specialty skills and provides career development to local community members.
In 2023, Cxffeeblack won the Sprudge Media Networks’ 14th Annual Sprudgie Award for Best Film in Coffee for its documentary Cxffeeblack to Africa, which follows its inaugural sojourn to Ethiopia. Cxffeeblack was honored in the 15th Annual Sprudgie Awards as Global Notable Roaster of the Year, was the inaugural recipient of the Coffee Coalition for Racial Equity’s 2024 Innovator of the Year award, and in 2025 was named Best Coffee Roaster in Memphis.
Cxffeeblack has been featured in Vice, NPR, The Hill, and Black Enterprise, among other outlets, and has collaborated with partners including Miir, Oatly, La Marzocco, NBA Player Jae’Sean Tate of the Houston Rockets, and West African coffee entrepreneurs at the Black Star Line Festival. After a successful launch of its public equity investment campaign, Cxffeeblack is positioned to open its global roasting headquarters in Memphis, TN in late 2024, followed by the highly anticipated opening of the new Cxffeeblack Cxffee Club in Fall 2025.

Cxffeeblack

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