Queer Wave Coffee: The New Queer, Indigenous, & Socially Conscious Brew

Queer Wave Coffee has awesome branding!

By Kristen Pizzo

When you think of social justice, I doubt coffee is the first thing that comes to mind.

But like so many heavily consumed products, there are so many people, resources, and processes behind the scenes that it’s almost impossible to keep social justice out of the coffee conversation.

Do you know just what goes into the making of your daily cup of coffee?

Do you know who harvested the coffee cherries and where?

Do you know how that land is treated?

Do you know whether or not that farm has fair labor practices?

I don’t know about you, but all of these questions are making me feel like I’m in that chicken episode of Portlandia.

Big chains like Starbucks showcase their coffee bean journeys on vibrant canvases lining the walls of their many, many cafes, and yet the coffee world doesn’t seem much smaller or more connected. Coffee’s farm-to-cup journey is often marred by exploitation of people, land, and resources, and is still widely managed by men.

Cheyenne Xochítl Love of Oakland is looking to change that. She’s an Indigenous, Two-Spirit, non-binary, trans woman who spent the last 28 years in the industry making “a lot of money for other people.” She’s been a barista, coffee roaster, green coffee buyer, Director of production, Director of Operations, salesperson, marketing specialist, Director of Coffee, and Brand Development Director. A Barista Magazine writer called her a “Bay Area coffee legend.”

While she’s still serving as a consultant to other local coffee shops, Cheyenne is going her own way. Back in August of 2020, she founded Queer Wave Coffee and roasted the first batch of beans on October 5th. Since then she’s made T-shirts and canned cold brew boldly labeled with the statement  “F*ck the police.”

Cheyenne Xochítl Love with Queer Wave Coffee in Dolores Park

Her next move is to build a brick-and-mortar cafe for her socially conscious coffee company. Her goal is not to go big and rival the likes of Philz or Blue Bottle, but to simply create a space for her community the best way she knows how. “If I can pay my rent with this, great, but I’m doing this for the community.” She has a Kickstarter for it right here.

All of the coffee is supplied by one farm. Catracha Coffee is a women-led social enterprise dedicated to giving coffee farmers in Santa Elena, La Paz, Honduras access to the specialty coffee market.

The Queer Wave cafe will serve minimal coffee offerings in order to remain sustainable.

In all her marketing, she reminds supporters that Queer Wave will be located not just in Oakland, but on Chochenyo Ohlone land, something Bay Area locals–myself included–might not realize.

That detail is a key component of her mission to decolonize coffee and business. Cheyenne aims to “transform the colonized U.S. dollar into one that liberates, not limits.”

Cheyenne is not only crowdsourcing funds, but also marketing assistance, business expertise, sales help, legal advice, and sustainability consultants to make it all happen. She hopes to avoid taking out loans to fund the cafe. She is doing things her own way in every aspect of this business journey, and that’s what makes Queer Wave Coffee undeniably queer. As with gender and sexuality, there are no blueprints for Cheyenne’s entrepreneurship.

Queer Wave Coffee–and other ventures like it–introduce solutions for more than one issue. They provide a social service by serving as a queer-specific space, localize our consumption as much as possible, and pave the way for other marginalized founders to pursue their business dreams.

You can help Cheyenne bring socially conscious coffee to the Bay Area by supporting her on Venmo @Cheyenne XochítlLove, asking your favorite stores to carry Queer Wave, donating to the Kickstarter, or simply sharing this story with your network.

Grab your own bag of Queer Wave beans at Pinhole Coffee, Rainbow Grocery, or online from the Queer Wave store.

If you would like to follow their journey, Queer Wave Coffee is active on Instagram.