Exploring Life & Business with Areli Barrera Grodski of Little Waves Coffee Roasters

Today we’d like to introduce you to Areli Barrera Grodski. 

Alright, so thank you so much for sharing your story and insight with our readers. To kick things off, can you tell us a bit about how you got started?
I have been working in coffee since 2009. Our business, Cocoa Cinnamon, started in 2010. We moved to Durham in 2011 to open our brick and mortar. However, we started our business with $75 in the bank and no access to credit so we had to innovate to eventually get to our plan of opening our shop. We started off with bikeCOFFEE in 2011 and pedaled around Durham and the Farmer’s Market for about a year and a half. This start was a blessing in disguise as we were able to get to know the Durham community before opening the doors to our first location. With much determination, elbow grease, and community crowdsourced funding we were able to open the doors of our first location in 2013. We opened our second location in 2016 and shortly after our third location and our roastery, Little Waves Coffee Roasters in 2017. 

We have been roasting and supplying our own cafés since 2017 and have been growing our wholesale program ever since. Our roastery is unique in that it is Latina-led and women forward (in that we are predominantly a team of female-identifying folks). Our Head Roaster has been in the industry for 10+ years and is Q-Grade Certified (like a wine sommelier of coffee). 

This year we were named a top 3 finalist for the second year in a row AND WINNER by Roast Magazine for the 2022 Micro Roaster of the Year Award. We’re so humbled and excited by this recognition! 

Being a roaster and green coffee buyer in our industry is amazing as it is not as common to see immigrant women of color in these positions. It feels empowering to do my job and I take pride in doing my job well. Green Coffee Sourcing is a true honor as I get to decide how we purchase coffee and who we purchase coffee from. The reason why representation and diversity matter in the workplace is because when you have a diverse group of people in positions that can affect change they will and by nature they will gravitate to support folks who look like them or who they can empathize with. The more diversity you have in your leadership or positions that affect change, the more people you include in that change. I am humbled to buy coffees from so many women of color around the globe and from so many communities of color. It is important to us to pay a livable wage for our green coffee. Connecting quality with relationships and impact is our approach and who we are is how we do. Beyond sourcing, it is beautiful to look around me and see so many women of color working at our business. It happened with intention but also organically. 

Would you say it’s been a smooth road, and if not, what are some of the biggest challenges you’ve faced along the way?
It has not been a smooth road at all but it has been the right path all along. We never did anything if it didn’t feel right. From day one we started with so little that our hustle was and is non-stop. I have had to learn on the fly how to be a great leader in our business and how to best support our team. My husband and I have learned how to be on-the-fly plumbers, electricians, and technicians. We have learned to have a thick skin, take the best parts from customer reviews and critiques to learn and grow and anything else, let it slide off. Being a small business owner is not glamorous and we do not do it to get rich! You are on call 24/7. It’s hard to go home and leave work at work. Learning how to be a married couple and business partners has been about setting boundaries and we are still learning how to balance work and life. Another hard thing is that the more we grow, the further away we get from doing what we truly love, making and sharing coffee with others. That is also a learning curve that we are adjusting as we go so that we too can enjoy the passion we have and the joy we get from coffee. 

Great, so let’s talk business. Can you tell our readers more about what you do and what you think sets you apart from others?
Little Waves Coffee Roasters is an impact-driven group of thinkers, dreamers, and doers who delight in the enduring power of coffee as a shared experience. By making small, determined reverberations through sourcing, roasting, and brewing, we add our open-hearted energy to the tides that unconceal and uphold the beauty of coffee and life. Little Waves is the Coffee forward arm of our company, Cocoa Cinnamon, located at our Lakewood location in Durham, NC, shipping coffee worldwide! 

We are small and independently owned and operated, quality, service, and heart-driven, Latina majority-owned and led, women-forward, and our team is comprised of people of different cultures, genders, languages, faiths, and beliefs. ⁠ 

⁠With every decision we make, we work to honor people, places, cultures, and histories. We integrate personal narratives into our spaces and offerings in an effort to help our guests and clients feel more connected to us on a human level. We name our roasts and drinks after places that inspire wonder, have cultural significance, and after people and places that we love. Every act is an invitation to connect, and we are fueled by the joy we get from cultivating health and wonder with the world around us. 

I am so proud to infuse my Mexican heritage into our brand and to have worked with amazing xicana artist Michelle Durango Lopez (Instagram @baconbuttr) for our Little Waves Coffee Roasters’s logo. 

I am also so proud of our team for making it this far through the pandemic and so grateful to our customers and community for supporting us through it. I am humbled that Little Waves Coffee Roasters is 2022 Roaster of the Year! This is a rigorous application that looks at best business practices, sourcing practices, sustainability practices, employee practices, education practices as well as the quality of your coffee! This competition is international and we recommend all roasteries to apply. 

We hope that this win will help exemplify the rootedness in our approach and give customers a quick snippet of the quality in not just the coffee but our mission. We offer coffee subscriptions, wholesale partnerships, and online educational courses. We hope to connect! [email protected] 

Any advice for finding a mentor or networking in general?
I have found that being vulnerable and sharing your story will open doors and connections you would have never imagined. I feel like female conditioned folks tend to struggle with imposter syndrome more likely and you have to encourage us to go for it more times than non-female conditioned folks. I think it’s hard to find the courage when you don’t see yourself in your field and because we have it in our heads that there is one way of doing things just because that’s how it’s always been. To all of that, I say: “You are magic! Be bold in who you are. The world needs your perspective and your environment will benefit so much from it.” Find people you resonate with and hit them up! If they don’t respond try another person. Show up to events that align with your goals and if you’re a shy, awkward person like me who doesn’t know how to start a conversation with a stranger try being honest! Introduce yourself and tell them you appreciate their work. More times than not though, people you appreciate are so willing to help! 

Contact Info:

• Email: [email protected]
• Website: www.littlewaves.coffee
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/littlewaves.coffee
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/littlewavescoffee
• Twitter: https://twitter.com/LittleWavesCR

Image Credits
Lauren Vied
Allen David Solow