Kelly
I joined Josephine for the opportunity to be creative…
“I make a blend of coffee, yerba mate, green tea, hickory root, and guarana called Levity Brew. All the ingredients are organic or wild harvested. The effect is smoother, longer lasting energy so you don’t get the jittery, high energy, crash feeling you get with coffee. It has a milder taste but still really rich. I describe it as coffee forward but with a tea like finish. You get more of the floral notes of tea.”
“I started working on this in 2014 because I was drinking 7 cups of coffee a day. I tried to switch to yerba mate and while I love the way it feels I don’t love the grassy flavor. I started my blend here in my kitchen, and then I started sharing it with friends, and then I got connected with startups here and that’s when my business really started taking off.”
“How’d you decide what to put in the blend and what proportions to use?”
“Well I knew I wanted that coffee taste but also with with other natural stimulants that your body metabolizes more slowly like theobromine. I was my own guinea pig and I had some wild days where I was bouncing off the wall.”
“I joined Josephine for the opportunity to be creative and design meals. And meeting people, that’s been the most amazing and surprising thing to me. Seeing the same people every week when they come and get your meals is great.”
“The first night I cooked for Josephine I made 3 recipes from the Ottolenghi cookbook. Yotam Ottolenghi is an Israeli chef based out of London and I’m obsessed with him. It’s really fresh mediterranean and Israeli inspired flavored. I made meatballs with slow roasted oven roasted tomatoes with couscous and a salad. I sold out super fast and it went really well!”
“I’m from Louisville, KY. The derby is this weekend..it’s the most exciting 2 minutes in sports! They run races all day long and the last race is the derby. The horses have these incredible names, and the jockeys have been doing this for years, everyone places their bets, and then all the sudden it’s over.”
“I moved out here about 10 years ago for school. I came out here and visited and knew this was the place for me.”
“My vision for Levity is to keep making products that pursue a better energetic experience and help people to engage more with their daily rituals. And for Josephine, it’s always been a fun creative outlet, and an opportunity to engage with food in a different way. My goal for that is to keep pushing myself to try new things and keep in interesting. Just continuing to build the community around food.”
“What’s your dream for your life over the next 10 years?”
“I can’t wait to find out. I think I’ll still be in San Francisco. My day to day may be a little different but hopefully I’ll still be surrounded by the people I love.”
Find out what your neighbors are cooking at https://josephine.com/
Originally published at www.soulsofsociety.com on July 13, 2016.
