I’ve long been interested in partnerships. The way two people interact is a pleasure to observe, and I think we learn the most about ourselves when there’s a person close by to reflect on and share our experiences with.
Bianka Alloyn and Sabreen Naimah are the co-founders of Cute Coffee, a small and decidedly joyful roasting company based in Northern California. The story of how Bianka and Sabreen met is nothing short of kismet—they lived parallel lives for years, finally crossing paths at a coffee shop in Venice Beach, California.
Since then, they’ve found delightful ways to express their love of coffee and art together, pulling the best out of one another as their partnership deepens. They’re always looking for the fun and excitement that sharing coffee brings—that value is expressed so effusively it literally jumps out of this conversation. An audio editor I sometimes work with, Jordan, said he was smiling ear-to-ear as he listened to Bianka and Sabreen speak.
Right at the top, this episode starts with some silliness and laughs. Bianka and Sabreen just moved to a farm in the country, so you might hear a few feathered friends in the background. We also talk a lot about snacks, secret singers, and how Boss Barista can incorporate Nickelodeon-style slime into our interviews. Here are Bianka and Sabreen.
Ashley: So Bianka and Sabreen, I was wondering if you could paint a picture for our listeners—paint a mental picture for them about where you are right now.
Bianka: Imagine thousands of really big trees, some sunlight peeping through those trees. And there's also some dirt roads. Lots of just vegetation everywhere.
And everybody seems to have animals. And I mean, farm animals. People have roosters, chickens, cats, dogs, cows, lambs, turkeys … you name it. They got all the things, horses…
Sabreen: And just lots of species of birds are here.
Bianka: Oh my god. There's so many birds.
Sabreen: So many birds.
Ashley: How long have you folks lived in the country?
Bianka: It's only been about … last summer?
Sabreen: July of last year.
Ashley: So if our listeners hear a friend or two in the background, who might they hear?
Bianka: They're going to hear some roosters, chickens.
Sabreen: Sam, the rooster.
Bianka: Sam's in the back.
Ashley: I'm glad that we have a name for the rooster that we're going to hear. That makes me feel more connected to him.
Sabreen: Good.
Ashley: I always like to start these conversations by asking people about their first memories of coffee. So I'm going to start with Sabreen. If you don't mind, could you tell me about any early experiences you had with coffee?
Sabreen: Yeah, I grew up with coffee. I would say my love for coffee started around 13, 14. It was mainly my best friend and I going to Coffee Bean at night. Oh—that's interesting. I drink coffee just at night.
But we would go to Coffee Bean and then take our drinks to—I usually got like, let's see, like a vanilla latte or a Frappuccino-type drink—and we would head over to Barnes & Noble and just spend hours in there looking at magazines, books, just until they closed. We were just in there. So I always associated coffee with just communing and good conversation and books and magazines and sharing and just getting creative juices flowing.
Ashley: There's something very teenager-y about drinking coffee at night. I don't know why that spoke to me as a 16-year-old.
Sabreen: Yeah. I felt like I was doing something like, adult, and just like yeah, drinking coffee and just, “I'm so grown-up. I'm so mature.”
Ashley: What about you?
Bianka: Let's see.
In the kitchen with my mom. My mom would be baking or cooking, and she's drinking coffee. And every now and then I walk up to the mug on the counter and sneak in a sip and she would always say, “Don't drink that coffee, it’ll stunt your growth!”
And I didn't drink it for a long time, but then I was allowed to have it every now and then in ice cream as a kid—because I have a big love for ice cream.
Every now and then I’d get that bite or two of coffee ice cream, and I was like, “This stuff is interesting. Hmm. Hmm.” And then it really started off me really drinking it in high school.
Like maybe towards the end of high school though? I think my, I think my sister worked at Barnes & Noble—no, no. Borders. My sister worked there first, and at first, it was hot chocolates. And then next thing you know, my brother worked there and his partner at the time, she worked there too.
The next thing you know, I'm there every day at Borders and I'm just drinking coffee, doing my homework, eating all the snacks, whatever I could get because they all worked there. So I was like, “Oh, what you got?” And then I would venture into the aisles, just listening to the music and looking at all the magazines and just having a good time.
Ashley: I'm sort of imagining you two almost living parallel lives.
Like, there's a movie and there's like a divider in the middle and you both are teenagers traveling through bookstores with your Frappuccinos or vanilla lattes, almost living the same life, but not together, like, in different places.
Sabreen: That's very accurate because I also have envisioned our lives like that. After we met and shared stories, I realized there are so many parallels between us. In college, we both played sports: Bianka was a Division I basketball player, I was on a Division I volleyball team.
You know, it was a good experience, but ultimately not for us, and just our frustrations and challenges with that and then eventually quitting. We didn't stay on the teams that we played for the whole time.
And then just having creative interests and endeavors and projects and auditioning and acting. And then, even when we lived in New York, we discovered that we lived there at the same time and knew—I dunno if we knew some of the same people, but some of the same circles. You [Bianka] worked at a cafe that I had wanted to go to, but I think I tried going twice and it was closed. And then later I learned that you worked there.
Then learning that we auditioned for some of the same roles and neither of us getting the job and just kind of—just laughing at life in New York.
Bianka: [Laughs] Life in New York.
Ashley: It's funny to me that you both have these almost parallel lives happening in tandem, because you didn’t meet in New York. Did you meet in New York?
Bianka: No, we did not.
Ashley: Tell me about how you met.
Bianka: We met in LA.
Sabreen: How many years after we lived in New York?
Bianka: Oh my gosh. It was probably 10, 12 years?
Sabreen: Maybe like six or seven years.
Bianka: I didn't meet you ’til 2015!
Sabreen: 2014.
Bianka: Correction.
Sabreen: And then I left.
(Pause)
You're right. It is more like 10 years.
Bianka: And we met at a cafe!
Sabreen: At a cafe.
Bianka: In Venice Beach, like on the beach.
Yeah, Sabreen, you came by because you were dropping off headbands and your friend was part of making the cafe actually come alive.
Sabreen: Yeah, so I was working in the production of headbands and jewelry and I was selling them at a boutique next door to the coffee shop that Bianka worked at.
And that's how we got acquainted. I was just getting into specialty coffee and I also had a friend that did help open the coffee shop and I ran into her and she said, “Hey, you should come by and check us out.”
Bianka: Novena!
Sabreen: Yeah. That's how it began.
Bianka: Yeah. And that shop, in particular, was like, the shop that everybody wanted to come to because Nicely [Abel], the three-time world champion latte artist, he was the main feature there.
He was the main feature there. He was the manager, running the shop and people from all over the world would come and have drinks made by us. I learned a lot with him. That was, that was a blessing.
Sabreen: Yeah. And it was the only shop in that area [that served] specialty coffee. I mean, there was Intelligentsia as well.
Bianka: Yeah, but the vibe was different.
Sabreen: Yeah.
Bianka: We got to do what we wanted to do, and create a more creative atmosphere. Like everyone involved was a musician, you know—Novena, Derek, myself, other people that work there, everybody was creative, even Nicely’s a singer. People don't know that. That man can sing! Oh my gosh.
Sabreen: Yeah. It's pretty—it was awesome. It was, it was like the golden era of this space.
Bianka: It was the golden era. Yes, it was. We played records the whole time. I used to host the cuppings and also do all these flower arrangements for the space because I had a little flower company that I started because I started buying all these flowers from a friend of mine who had a farm of pork and flowers.
I didn't buy the pork, but I bought the flowers and just started making arrangements for businesses in the Venice Beach area. And yeah, the cafe I worked at was one of them.
Sabreen: The coffee shop had this very strong, magnetic pull.
I would find myself just like, “Oh, what should I do today? I'm trying to get my day organized.” And I just knew that I had to go to Menotti's at some point. It was just like great energy to be around.
Bianka: You said “before I get organized” you’d have to go get a coffee?
Sabreen: I did! It was just like great energy to be around. I would invite a friend or see who's around to meet up—and if I could go by myself, with friends, it just was come one, come all. It was very low-key and inviting.
Bianka: Mmhmm.
Ashley: What solidified your connection with one another? Because I can see, like, you go to coffee shops all the time and you meet people, but what moment were you folks like, “We have something and we're going to do something together?”
Bianka: I feel like it was the day you came by the shop and you had a suitcase of your flower crowns. And I was like, “Oh, you—you need photographs of these?”
And I happened to have a degree in photography and that's another thing I'm blessed to be able to know how to capture and make people's things look beautiful or whatever it may be.
And Sabreen was like, “Yeah, I need some photographs.”
I was like, “All right, I'm going to get a new camera soon and a new computer. And I'll photograph your work.”
Then I didn't see you for weeks! I'm like, “Where is this girl? I'm trying to help her out, get her work done.”
I saw her walking past the cafe one day and I was in the middle of making a drink. I stopped making that drink. I said, “Hey, customer, I'll be right back.” I ran outside, ran down almost to the boardwalk in Venice was like, “Sabreen! Sabreen! I got my new computer!”
Sabreen: And that was something that struck me as like very unusual, because I had been an entrepreneur at this point for a few years and there's a lot of challenges and people say something and mean another, and you're not sure like, who really wants to help you.
It was like, “I'm not sure how I can pay you. So I don't know what you really mean by taking photographs.” And it just felt really genuine and she really wants to help me. I don't really know what I can do in exchange, but that doesn't really matter at this moment. For the first time in a while, [this interaction] just felt very sincere.
I was like, “Okay, let's do this, let’s make this happen. You told me your computer was getting fixed, and you're now following up with me.” A lot of people in LA don't really do that. So when it happens, it's special and I knew, I was like, “Okay, we were going to be friends.”
Bianka: And then we had an eight-hour photoshoot.
Sabreen: I learned immediately that day that we work very well together.
Bianka: It was a really smooth photoshoot, scene by scene. Just bam, everything about it lined up: the computer, the camera gear … I had a friend from Philly who was living in LA—I didn't even know, and they had all this gear, all this lighting gear in particular that I needed to be able to photograph Sabreen’s work.
So it was just like, “All right Sabreen, I have the new computer, I got my new camera. I got the lighting. If we're doing this, we need to do this and I'm ready to do it.”
I actually have a background in photographing a lot of work for artists when I lived on the East Coast. I really enjoy, you know, being able to provide that for people because sometimes that's really all it comes down to, is being able to showcase your work through a photograph in a way that really allows people to come into your work and enjoy it.
Because if you have photographs and they're like too dark or they're grainy or whatever it is, it will really dictate how someone feels about what you're presenting. So if you can make it really beautiful and make it pop, like bam, you're golden. Yeah.
Ashley: I feel like that's kind of the ethos of Cute Coffee in a way, not the ethos necessarily, but maybe the aesthetic?
Sabreen: Yep.
Ashley: I was wondering if you could talk a little bit about how—I guess let's go backward before we get into the branding. Let's talk a little bit about how you folks decided to start a coffee business in general, because that's a big step.
Bianka and Sabreen: Yes, it is.
Sabreen: Especially for someone that didn't have experience in coffee. I was just learning from a customer's point of view. Like, “Hey, I'm really drawn to specialty coffee—” that was another reason why I connected with Bianka. I felt comfortable asking her questions that I wouldn't have asked any other barista or coffee shop worker. I just felt comfortable.
My education just started very organically. Just started with an interest.
Bianka: And I feel like, yeah, coffee is the vessel, essentially, to bring all the things together and bring people together. So I was just like, “Yeah, let's do some coffee. And you're an artist, I'm an artist. Let's do all our things and drink this cup of coffee. And instead of just having these separate businesses of all these creative things, let's just have the coffee because it's the backbone.”
I think it's the thing that, for me, in particular, I had been traveling all around the country, working in different spaces—in particular coffee spaces—where I was like, “All right, how do I meet all the artists, musicians, producers, directors, photographers, anybody, all these artists, how do I meet all them? I become their barista.”
Ashley: I love that idea, of a coffee-roasting business almost being like a nexus for all these other creative endeavors, because you folks—I think probably more so than a lot of people, or I don't want to qualify that, like who knows—but it does seem like you really approach Cute Coffee as this really dynamic art project in a way.
There's so many different, like, aspects to the things that you create, and visually what they look like. And I've never really heard anybody articulate that coffee kind of brings all of those parts of them together.
Bianka: Yeah, that's totally what Cute Coffee is. It is just an art project and it's an art project that is the umbrella for all the creative things we do—and other people do too.
We love bringing in different friends and family who make amazing things and then [we] say, “All right, where can we put your art piece?” It's almost like it's a gallery.
Sabreen: A platform.
Ashley: When you first were thinking of starting this coffee business, how did you start thinking about like, what you wanted it to look like? Because I think, for me, when I see Cute Coffee, it's like immediately a smile comes to my face. Did you start with that as the idea—we want to make people happy—or how did you find inspiration for what you wanted the brand to look like?
Bianka: Well, first it was Sunny Side Up.
Sabreen: Yeah. First, it was Sunny Side Up and we had this warehouse space in Long Beach and that's the space where we were attempting to have a co-roasting facility along with people renting out space for their art projects or whatever they wanted to work on.
We—I don't want to say a rule or how would you phrase it?
Bianka: We pretty much let people know, “Hey, anybody can use this space, but whatever you create, please let it be something that brings joy to people.”
Sabreen: Yes, positive.
Bianka: Yeah, just make it so it's positive, so people can feel uplifted. There's enough negativity in the world. We don't want to contribute to that.
Sabreen: So that was kind of like the early-on inspiration of like, “Keep it cute or put it on mute,” and…
Bianka: Then that space, we had to close it. So we decided when we closed it, that was Sunny Side Up. That was that place. It didn't work out. The landlord, we discovered, was illegally leasing this building to us. So we were like, “Ooh, close the doors. This is not, it's not going to work.”
Sabreen: Time to move on and let's just focus on the coffee component.
Bianka: Because that's the one thing we do have now, that we don't have a space. And just to give you an idea, this space had an outdoor patio. We had a storefront. We had another loft in there where we had actually created an artist residency where people could stay in the loft there.
There was a whole other space for doing music. There was a huge space where people could dance, or a whole other space you could do woodworking or any kind of crafting. It was just kind of an everything space.
So since we didn't have that everything space, like Sabreen said, the only thing we still had was coffee. You know, we could still do something with coffee
Ashley: So that's kind of Round Two: The Evolution of Cute Coffee, in a way.
Bianka and Sabreen: Yes.
Bianka: Because after we left that space, we moved into an apartment that was 600 square feet. We definitely didn't have space to geek out in the same way. And we just would sit around and do a lot of drawing and just be like, “All right, what do we want this to look like? What are we thinking about?”
One of the concepts, actually, when I first met Sabreen that I had in my mind was doing something with a cup, with a mug. When you look at a mug and you look at it from the top, it looks like two C's put together or when you look at the handle, it looks like a C. All right. Let's play off of the idea of maybe some branding with some C’s.
I was actually going to do a coffee and conversations [idea] because I had this space that I set up, kind of like a “Tonight Show” where I was like, “All right, I'm going to sit over here in my living room and people are going to come in and I'm gonna sit over there and I'm gonna play a record and we're just gonna chat it up and drink coffee.”
That didn't happen either, but we came back to it and was like, “That was a good idea. Let's play with it.” And next thing you know, it turned into: “You know, what? We love cute things. Who doesn't like cute things? Cute things make everybody feel good. It’s gotta be Cute Coffee. Okay. Let's do that.”
Ashley: I love that it's alliterative.
Sabreen: Yeah! Very easy to remember.
Ashley: I, as a person who named their podcast mostly based on alliteration, really appreciate it.
Sabreen: Yeah, that's right.
Bianka: That's right.
Ashley: Boss Barista, Cute Coffee. They have the same kind of cadence, in a way.
Sabreen: Yes, exactly.
Bianka: We knew what we were doing.
Ashley: We thought about this.
Bianka: That's right.
(Everyone laughs)
Ashley: Something that strikes me as I'm talking to you is that it seems like something that you folks really embrace is having ideas and just going with it, or seeing where it takes you and being okay with it not working.
Bianka: I mean, that's the only way to learn.
Sabreen: Yeah.
Bianka: You just gotta test it out, test out the waters. You don't know if you don't try.
Ashley: Do you think that's because of your artistic background?
Bianka: Definitely. That's definitely an artist's mindset, you pick something up, you start making something and you might not finish that project, and then you move on to another one or you started a project and it's like, “Oh, I thought this was for this, but actually it's for this.”
Sabreen: Yeah, that happens a lot. Something else happens and you're like, “Oh yeah, I'm going to get back to you now. There's a place for you.”
Bianka: Totally. I mean, that's what happened with all the designing for Cute Coffee. We didn't know what we were going to use all these different illustrations for.
And next thing you know, it's like, “Oh, that's the whole background.” And it's like three years later!
Sabreen: Right. If you're feeling inspired by it, there's a reason for it. And it might not present itself at that moment, but it's coming soon.
Ashley: How would you describe the way that you folks approach coffee?
Bianka: We feel it's kinda like, “Yo, is this my friend? Are you my family?” first—
Sabreen: Before we even get to the coffee, who's the person behind it.
Bianka: Yeah. Who's the person behind it? I want to get to know you. I want to have this relationship with you, but if I'm having this relationship, do I want to be in it?
It's kind of like, we’ve got to go on some dates and see if we like each other.
Sabreen: Right.
Bianka: It's like you're dating someone…
Sabreen: …and you're going to want to be ordering regularly….
Bianka: …and I want to build, I want to have a lasting relationship.
Ashley: How do you facilitate that?
Bianka: We actually initially started it just by looking at maps and being like, “All right, let's look at this map and see what farms are in this area. Let's just start cold-calling some people.”
There's even different resources that we found, just doing some research online. And from being in coffee so long, just conversing with different people, new people. So it was like, “Oh, I'll talk to that person because you know that person, that knows that person and they seem like a cool person.”
I just want to work with cool, sweet people and people who want to really truly exchange with us and not just have a transaction, because I dunno, it just feels empty when it's just about a transaction.
Sabreen: Yeah. So learning about their background, hearing their stories—helps us go from there.
Bianka: Lots of phone conversations. Lots of emails with people and yes, lots of storytelling. I think that that's really, what did it is just storytelling with people…
Sabreen: Emails, on the phone….
Bianka: It's been great.
Sabreen: Instagram…
Ashley: Are you in pretty regular communication with all the people that you source coffee from?
Bianka: I would say there's like, a select few who are like, “Yo, these are the homies. This is the bread and butter.”
Sabreen: We're on the same page [of] understanding.
Bianka: Yeah. There's definitely an understanding of like, “Oh, you love God just as much as I do. That's my girl. Like, that's my other mom. Like I can talk to you and your son.” And it just feels like that is just straight-up family.
Sabreen: And then hearing how they appreciate how we’re sharing their coffee. Like they really see us and appreciate like, “Oh, you girls are really trying to sell some coffee.” Yes we are.
Bianka: Yeah. But we're also trying to give you shine. Like we try to tell your story the way that you want your story to be told, because at the end of the day, we wouldn't have this story to tell or this coffee to share with anyone if it wasn't for you. We got to put you on blast.
Sabreen: Absolutely. And they appreciate that the most.
Ashley: I feel like that's so special because for so many coffees that we consume, or so many of the coffees that we see in coffee shops, there is storytelling used, but it can be really confusing about whose story is actually being told. Is it the person who produced that coffee’s story, or is that story told through the lens of somebody else?
Like, you're part of that story, but I think it could be really easy to tell a story that serves a purpose that maybe is transactional. So it's really, really special to hear you talk about why storytelling is important to you.
Sabreen: We always like to run the story by them first, before we share it on our website or any of the social media platforms. We just like to say, “Hey, is this accurate? Is this all the details? All the facts?”
Bianka: “Is this what you want to say?” Yeah because you wrote this—a lot of times, some of the farmers’ stories that we have on our site, that's not written by us.
We just copied and pasted what they wanted us to say.
Ashley: I told you this before we started recording, but one of the big reasons that I really wanted to talk to you is that I know that I've gone on record saying this a lot recently, but Boss Barista can sometimes be a little bit of a bummer and—which is okay. A lot of people have really important things to say and there are a lot of big issues we should be thinking about in the coffee industry.
But there's something about the way that both of you approach coffee that seems so unapologetically joyful. And I wonder if that's something that you guys have to like, remind yourselves of daily—like this is a joyous occasion. This is a joyous moment for us. How do you incorporate joy daily, and in your coffee experience?
Bianka: Man, how do we incorporate joy…
Bianka and Sabreen: Daily?!?
Bianka: Well, the first thing I do before I even get out of my bed is I just thank God for another day. I feel like opening my eyes every day is a joy, and the fact that I can move my body and actually put my feet on the floor and then go downstairs and make myself a cup of coffee.
I'm like, “Yo, life is good.”
Sabreen: It's a gift.
Bianka: It's a gift! So it just, it just seems like we really appreciate—or no, doesn't seem like—but we do really appreciate the little things. And so when it comes to Cute Coffee, it just, it's just easy. I don't even feel like we have to think about it.
And, you know, we definitely just wanted to make people feel good. We don't want to raise anybody's ire and make them feel agitated. And, you know, we don't want to get political and take sides with anyone because we want this to really truly be for everybody. I don't care what you choose to call yourself or what your political background is. I don't care where you come from. Let's just enjoy this cup of coffee together.
Sabreen: We’re probably not going to agree on those things. So like let's not even go there. Let's just enjoy this cup of coffee.
Bianka: Isn't it delicious?
Ashley: Does that ever get difficult?
Bianka: I don't feel like it's difficult?
I mean, for me, it's just easy. That's just easy for me to do. I feel like my purpose in life is just to spread love. Like literally that's it. And when that doesn't happen in my life, and I feel like someone's rubbing me the wrong way, or they're feeling some type of way about me being sweet.
I'm like, you know, that don't have nothing to do with me. That's your stuff. I'm just gonna keep on keeping it cute and keep on giving you love, so…
Sabreen: I will say it is very easy for Bianka to be love and joy. It's just who she is. I will say for myself, it's now easy for me, but maybe it wasn't super easy a year or two ago. I had to grow into it, but it's definitely, I see the benefits of it.
Ashley: What I get from you, in this conversation, in everything that I consume that's about Cute Coffee, is that everything feels very genuinely reflective of you.
Bianka and Sabreen: Totally.
Ashley: And that doesn't require effort. I mean—maybe it requires effort sometimes.
Sabreen: No, it doesn't require effort when you've built—you've committed yourself to just living in full transparency and…
Bianka: Just living.
Sabreen: …and just living.
Bianka: I just want to live. So in order to just be living and not be like I just said, cleaning up all the time, let's just keep it real. Let's just be incredibly transparent.
Let's always tell the truth. Let's always move forward. Even when it's hard to hear the truth, at least you know the truth. And you can move forward from there.
You know, you can't ever hide the truth. We had a woman say to us recently: You know, you can go through the truth and like shove it down, but think of it like grass.
You can go cut all that grass and cut all these flowers and whatnot. And next thing you know, the truth is going to pop up like a bunch of weeds and you can't stop it. So it's just easier to keep it real.
Ashley: I feel like that's a secondary, like, “Keep it cute or put it on mute.” Like, “Keep it true …. true ….” I dunno, I need a rhyming dictionary for this. I used to have one as a kid.
Bianka: That's totally what it is. That's funny you say that because we were kind of explaining that to someone recently about Cute [Coffee], because they thought that “Keep it cute” was like, “Oh, you gotta be cute and pretty all the time.”
And it's like, no, it's not about anything like that.
Sabreen: It’s about your energy, your spirit. It's just put out goodness, just that.
Bianka: Exactly. Or like my mom would say to me as a kid, and I'm sure a lot of people's parents have said this to them. You know, if you ain't got nothing nice to say, don't say nothing at all.
Sabreen: It’s exactly that.
Bianka: And I really believe in the power of words. So the words that you put out, that's what it's going to be.
So if I'm going to speak something into existence, I better get ready for what's coming back to me for what I just said.
Sabreen: You’re narrating. So narrate a good story.
Ashley: A lot of the work that it seems like Cute Coffee is doing is very self-reflective. It is very much this almost pouring out of your—of your souls, in a way. That feels a little cheesy to say, but I'm going to go with that.
Sabreen: That's accurate.
Bianka: Pretty accurate.
Sabreen: I mean, we both have put our everything into this.
Bianka: Yeah. I mean, even every dollar. I'm like, “I ain't got no more money, but guess what? Look at Cute Coffee. Look at Cute Coffee! You’re so cute!”
Sabreen: We both just believe in it so much. So we're just in it to win it.
Bianka: Yup. And even when we're ordering coffee sometimes, I'm like, “We have to order coffee and we don't have the money, but we're going to figure it out.”
Sabreen: It's going to come.
Bianka: It's going to come.
Sabreen: It has to keep going.
Bianka: Yes. And we've actually had so much going on in this past year with having to move a lot and it's just been wild trying to balance Cute Coffee! Oh, look, I gotta move again! I gotta pack up all this stuff! Now I got to figure this out! Oh, snap. Oh my god. This landlord—you're out of line!
Sabreen: It’s constant.
Bianka: I’m going to have to actually get official. I need official help.
Sabreen: Yeah. And during all these jumps and crossovers and ducking and bobbing and weaving like, Cute Coffee has sustained, and it keeps going and people are still loving it.
And I'm like, “Oh, this is amazing.” Like just more ammo to keep pushing, keep doing no matter what life is throwing at you, like keep doing this love project. It's really incredible to see how far it's come.
Bianka: And it doesn't feel like work. My mom just said something to us the other day, about how you—
Sabreen: When you enjoy doing what you do…
Bianka: You've never worked a day in your life.
Sabreen: Yeah. We may have messed that up, but it's like that.
Ashley: Tell me about your television show.
Bianka: Ooh. Cute TV!
Sabreen: Cute TV was very inspired by a lot of things from the ’90s.
Bianka: ’80s, too!
Sabreen: ’80s too.
Bianka: And then our everyday life. We have a whole skit coming up soon that we cannot wait to tell the story about. I can't wait.
Sabreen: Stay tuned.
Bianka: Stay tuned. Okay. It has to do with a thousand-pound roaster that I'm looking for. I'm really looking for it because supposedly it's in my house.
Sabreen: Supposedly we’re hiding it in our house.
Bianka: We were hiding it in our house. According to these accusations…
Sabreen: Somebody saw us sneaking it in through the back. I'm like, what? Like, please tell me where it is. What about carrying a thousand-pound roaster?
Bianka: [crosstalk] I would love to know.
Ashley: Now I wish that I had the video on so I can inspect and be like, “Where is it?”
(Everyone laughs)
Bianka: Coming soon on Cute TV.
Ashley: Where can folks check out Cute TV?
Bianka: I think we're going to post it on our website, ilovecutecoffee.com. So coming soon.
Sabreen: And what about Instagram?
Bianka: Oh, Instagram! Yeah, we'll put some skits on Instagram and then maybe it'll be like short skits on Instagram and then maybe some kind of full episodes or something—I don't know yet, but something's coming.
Cute TV actually just dropped yesterday, unexpectedly. We said, “Yo, for this Suenos Coffee subscription, let's do a little episode of Cute TV.”
Sabreen: And so it was the debut.
Bianka: The debut of Cute TV.
Ashley: As a person whose nails are like, slime-green-colored right now, I really appreciate anything related to the ’90s. I’ve actually been thinking a lot about Boss Barista [as a brand], and I think I just want it to be like, Nickelodeon orange.
Bianka and Sabreen: Yes! Yes.
Bianka: You know, you've got to have slime. Slime everywhere.
Ashley: What if I started doing live shows and I just slimed the guests? Like, would that be insulting or would that be like, an honor?
Bianka: No, it’s an honor.
Sabreen: An honor. You can slime us anytime.
Bianka: If you didn’t get slimed, you didn’t come right. You have to come back—if you get to come back.
Ashley: That’s true. There has to be like, I think, the original slime would be if you said, “I don't know.” So there has to be something similar for Boss Barista. If you say like a certain phrase. I have to think…
Sabreen: Like a punishment. So we wouldn't have.
Ashley: Or maybe it's like the other way around where it's like, if you admonish yourself, like if you say something negative about yourself, then you get—you have to keep it, maybe I'm stealing from you a little bit. You have to keep it cute.
Sabreen: Yeah, that's a good one. I like that.
Bianka: It's not stealing. No, you can have it. That's why we put it out there.
Ashley: What would you want people listening to this to take away from hearing you folks speak?
Bianka: (bird noises) Listen to that bird. That bird is telling you exactly what we wanted to say.
Sabreen: That you are cute.
Bianka: I mean, to take away from this? Man, there’s so much…
Sabreen: There’s so much.
Bianka: Just keep on being true to you and know that what's for you is for you and keep it cute. Make life easy, just live.
Sabreen: Yeah.
Bianka: And don't worry. Don't worry about nothing.
Sabreen: Don’t feed into anything that's not serving you or making you feel good.
Just let it go.
Ashley: Sabreen, Bianka, it's such a delight to talk to you. Thank you for joining me.
Bianka: Thank you for having us.
Sabreen: Thank you so much for having us.
Bianka: Oh, my gosh. It's an honor to talk to you every time.
Sabreen: It really is.
Ashley: Oh, shucks.
That was Bianka Alloyn And Sabreen Naimah. You can learn more about Cute Coffee on Instagram and at their website. Also, here’s one more cute photo for you:
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