Rainbow spoons, femme-positive stickers, and bracelets made by artisans in Honduras are just some of the things you’ll find in Umeko Motoyoshi’s coffee-centered online store, Umeshiso.
BY ASHLEY RODRIGUEZ
BARISTA MAGAZINE ONLINE
Photos courtesy of Umeko Motoyoshi
A few months ago, Umeko Motoyoshi was making pins as a side job to pay bills. “Honestly, I was sick and broke,” they share, “and I started making pins to pay off my medical bills. But I ended up really loving it, and it felt good to connect with people. The pins were mostly coffee-related, because I’m a coffee person and a lot of my friends are too.”
Now Umeko is relaunching their website, umeshiso.com, featuring creative and fun coffee items that promote inclusivity and communicate a challenge to the status quo. “[The pins] were interwoven with messages about inclusivity and queerness and mental health. Basically, they were pins that I wish I had seen people wearing when I first started working in coffee—it would have signaled safety to me, and made me feel more at ease,” Umeko says.
Along with pins promoting queerness and inclusivity, Umeko also wanted to promote kindness and acceptance. Around the same time they started making and selling pins, they began sending folks rainbow-colored cupping spoons, used by pros to taste and evaluate coffee, for free as part of a movement they called The Rainbow Spoon Project. “When I first started cupping, I was so intimidated, I was afraid to actually say anything about the coffees. And I think a lot of people feel that way, even after working in coffee for a while—particularly folks who hold marginalized identities. So for me, the rainbow spoon disarms something (cupping) that used to really scare me, and still sometimes does. And hopefully it’s a reminder that everyone has a place at the cupping table,” Umeko shares.
Since those initial pins and spoons, the store has expanded to include stickers, a variety of different cupping spoons, and a continually changing project. “Umeshiso always carries at least one or two ‘solidarity items’; 100 percent of profits from these items benefit a nonprofit organization,” Umeko shares. “Our current solidarity items are a pin set supporting Texas Civil Rights Project, and some amazing crafts from Catracha Colectivo, an offshoot of Catracha Coffee in Honduras. And I’m launching a new solidarity item soon, in collaboration with Oodie Taliaferro. Sales will support Cherry Roast, a barista competition for womxn, genderqueer, nonbinary and trans folks.”
For those who say coffee and politics don’t belong together, Umeko’s products are a bold challenge. “Coffee is inextricable from politics, just as most things are. Specialty coffee’s mission comes from a place of wanting to improve wage equity, which is a very revolutionary thing. It’s pretty out there for an industry to commit itself to paying more for materials,” they share. “I know a pin that says ‘Abolish ICE’ might be seen as political and not coffee-related, but it’s both. There are so many refugees from coffee-growing countries, who are being deported or detained at our borders. We get our product from areas that people are fleeing, then we’re detaining them at the border while we drink coffee grown in their country.”
If you’re concerned about pricing, Umeko offers all the items on the website at a sliding scale. “I can tell that customers are being really thoughtful about pricing and truly considering what they’re able to comfortably pay. So revenue and margins actually remain pretty predictable from week to week—because the community is using the honor system really honestly,” Umeko says.
You’ll continue to see more pins and stickers because, to Umeko, they’re a tiny sign of protest. “It’s a reminder of who you are, of what you value, that you can carry with you. They also signal something about you to other people, and can create conversations and exchange of perspectives. I think they’re really powerful, and they can shape how other people look at the world.”
Umeshiso isn’t just a website selling coffee stuff, but a platform promoting inclusivity and challenging norms in coffee—and that’s just the beginning. Stay tuned for more information about upcoming products, blog posts, and keep your eyes peeled for Umeshiso spoons at an upcoming national coffee competition.
