Long Beach (original HQ) · United States
Tayst Coffee
Tayst Coffee roasts in Long Beach (original HQ), New York.
Since 2016 · Craig Handleman, Greg Byrnes
Overview
Tayst Coffee was founded in 2016 by friends Craig Handleman and Greg Byrnes as the first US retailer to offer a full line of certified-compostable single-serve coffee pods designed to work in Keurig brewers. Rainforest Alliance-certified specialty coffee is packaged in pods whose lid is bio-paper with water-based ink, ring is compressed-corn-starch bio-resin, and mesh filter is designed for even water filtration — all of which break down in commercial composting facilities in as little as five weeks rather than spending 500 years in landfill as plastic K-Cups do.
Known for
- First US specialty coffee company with full compostable pod line
- Pods designed for Keurig brewers, BPI-certified compostable
- Rainforest Alliance Certified™ sourcing across the line
- Subscription-only direct-to-consumer model (no retail)
- Curator Hotel Collection vendor partner (hospitality channel)
- Founded to address the 15B+ plastic K-Cups annually entering landfills
Why it matters
Single-serve pods are the third-largest segment of US coffee consumption — and almost universally treated as the antithesis of specialty. Tayst was the first US operation to argue that pod coffee could be both genuinely specialty-grade AND environmentally responsible, building the entire business around closing the gap. Their position is structurally unusual in day9's directory: the only roaster whose primary product is pods, the only one explicitly engineered around the K-Cup-waste problem, and one of the few US specialty operations to operate as a subscription-native brand from day one.
Production
- filter equipment
- proprietary compostable mesh filter (bio-paper lid + compressed-corn-starch ring + mesh)
Recognitions
- BPI-certified compostable pods (commercial composting)
- Rainforest Alliance Certified™ sourcing
- Curator Hotel Collection vendor member (hospitality channel)