Katherine Willis, founder of Cups Full, is making speciality coffee more portable, versatile and accessible for life on the move.
Speciality Coffee Made For Every Journey
Katherine Willis reveals how Cups Full combines speciality coffee, controlled caffeine, compostable bags and versatile brewing to deliver premium, portable cups for adventurers, commuters and modern coffee lovers everywhere today.
K atherine Willis is reshaping the way we enjoy speciality coffee, combining quality, convenience and thoughtful innovation through Cups Full. Drawing on her experience as a barista, entrepreneur and brand strategist, she has created an award-winning range of compostable coffee bags designed for modern life, whether brewed at home, at work or during an adventure.
Inspired by a discovery in Japan, Katherine transformed a simple idea into a versatile coffee experience that gives consumers greater control over flavour, brewing style and caffeine intake. The brand’s Peace, Pace and Power range demonstrates her commitment to making premium coffee more accessible without compromising on taste, sustainability or provenance.
Her ambition extends far beyond convenience. Katherine is building a spirited community around the idea of the “Full Cup Moment”, encouraging people to pursue meaningful experiences while taking the time to appreciate them. We speak with the founder about developing Cups Full, championing responsible sourcing and creating a coffee brand made to accompany life’s journeys.
Cups Full brilliantly transforms speciality coffee into a convenient, sustainable and genuinely versatile experience without sacrificing quality, flavour or ambition.
Cups Full was inspired by your experience in Japan, where you discovered individual pour-over coffee bags. What was it about that experience that made you think, “I could make this even better”?
I loved the pour over coffee bags, they solved a problem for me and the coffee was great quality inside. However, they still had wings on the side to hook over a cup/mug and the sizes of cups varied, so sometimes it was a bit fiddly – you also have to wait for the water to pour over and filter through, rather than just chucking the bag in the cup and getting on your way. It also meant you couldn’t brew them cold like you can with a cafetiere – people I know including myself have been known to leave a cafetiere in the fridge overnight to wake up to cold brew! I thought of a few things…
- Why can’t it just be sealed and sit in the cup? (It can! This means you can cold brew, too)
- Why can’t it be speciality coffee? (It can!)
- Why can’t we measure the caffeine content so I know which to have and when? (It can! If we optimise and lab test our blends)
I looked into the market and noticed some trends around all-day coffee indulgence, a rise in decaf driven by Gen Z, A and a real need for portability (and single-serve options) now people are remote working and hybrid living. Prices of coffee are soaring (up to 100% in the last year) and #coffeetok on TikTok shows how many modern coffee consumers want to make coffee their way. I also learnt how INSANELY good for you speciality coffee is because of its (natural) richness in polyphenols.
Highlights
- Katherine discovered individual pour-over coffee bags during a visit to Japan.
- Cups Full coffee bags can be brewed with either hot or cold water.
- The Peace, Pace and Power range offers different caffeine levels.
- The coffee is made using freshly ground, speciality-grade beans.
- Cups Full combines portability with flavour, convenience and caffeine control.
- The coffee bags are compostable, helping to reduce single-serve waste.
- Katherine works with a roaster and laboratory partner to optimise flavour, caffeine and polyphenol levels.
- The brand supports transparent and responsible coffee sourcing.
- Its “Full Cup Moment” encourages people to pause and appreciate an experience.
- Cups Full has developed a community of creators and brand affiliates.
- The products are stocked by retailers including Selfridges and Holland & Barrett.
- Katherine hopes to establish Cups Full as an internationally recognised lifestyle coffee brand.
I noticed other coffee bags are positioned differently in retail environments – a niche moment of laziness at home, and all content is just showing how they work like teabags… which anchors the price point to a teabag which isn’t right in my opinion. A speciality coffee can cost £3-6 when out and about, and I heard numerous times how people carry coffee bags with them in their bags, to enjoy when they arrive somewhere so they don’t have to compromise. This is where we’re positioned. A luxury, antioxidant-rich and caffeine controlled cup that you can brew anywhere.
This also means the market is bigger, not just made for take-home, but also to take with you and incremental to retail categories e.g. replacing coffees bought during work, service stations, airports and in hotels and on transport. That why I thought they haven’t been ‘done’ right yet.
How could I make it better?
- Positioning for the problem they solve and the untapped need state (increased penetration and incremental purchase in retail environments)
- Quality
- Format to enable customisation / versatility in brewing
- Caffeine control
- Functional benefits (38% pay more when a product has benefits, Ocado 26)
Before Cups Full, you were a barista and a coffee lover who understood the frustrations of making good coffee on the go. What problem were you determined to solve?
When I was a barista I had queues of people waiting for black coffees and thought this is mad how much work goes into just making this, so much mess too. I also resented the queues and faff at festivals or when away, I often couldn’t be bothered – especially when with a group of people.
Consumers
- Effort, faff, mess
- No sustainable single-serve option, difficult to make more than 1 without washing up and equipment is fiddly
- Time & cost
- Queues when out of home, rising cafe costs
Food service
Labour, prep, wastage
- Equipment needed, not scalable (can only serve 1 person at a time) brewed, wasted coffee in jugs landfilled creating CO2
Inconsistency
- Guests/consumer has inconsistent experience not to taste
Coffee bags are still unfamiliar to many speciality-coffee drinkers. What makes a Cups Full bag different from a traditional instant coffee or an ordinary coffee bag?
Instant is improving but it’s still freeze dried and doesn’t contain polyphenols that are so beneficial. Our speciality bags are optimised for these functional benefits and have a real depth of flavour because of the quality of the beans. They’re freshly ground and the freshness is preserved in the foil-lined pouch. This means you can really taste the difference and have a layered cup.
Tasting notes in Power for example (which has 4 origins) are “cashewnuts, caramel, milk chocolate, roasted peanut, fruity dried cherry with earthy and wild spice – with a touch of cedar. You’ll get the nutty smoothness of Brazil beans, the clean intensity of washed Indian Robusta, the wild fruity notes of Ethiopia Djimma and a touch of deep earthy strength.” You don’t get that from instant! That’s why most of our SKUs have won awards in the Great British Food awards. Proper coffee. Coffee snobs are making the most noise about them!
You have spent considerable time experimenting with roast and grind levels to get the extraction right. How difficult was it to achieve the flavour and strength you wanted in such a convenient format?
I won’t go into full detail here but what I can say is that we had a few things to balance at the same time, keeping the grade of coffee high, polyphenol content very high, with caffeine levels evenly ranked (Peace, Pace, Power)… then had a few iterations on the taste and profiles. Got there! I have a great roaster and lab partner.
Cups Full offers Peace, Pace and Power, giving customers different caffeine levels. Why was it important to give people control over how much energy they want from their coffee?
Yes, it amazes me that so many products have regulations and laws around stating the benefits and nutritionals of food and drink, but coffee remains mysterious. As much as I like the natural-ness of this, I thought people were missing out on knowing what they’re consuming (like me not knowing the amazing health benefits of speciality coffee 2 years ago!). There’s a huge variation of caffeine in takeaway drinks and people are looking to control or cut back on their intake – no brand is really featuring the caffeine levels in drinks – even Red Bull! I thought that needed to change: give the consumer a choice. That means they’re easy to share whilst being easy to tailor to yourself for any occasion and time of day.
Your coffee can be brewed both hot and cold. What inspired you to make the bags suitable for cold brewing, and who do you think will enjoy that experience most?
Cold brew is massive in the US and coming here (early days for the market but Nescafe, TrueStart, Little’s, Origin coffee and more are releasing their concentrates), and a lot of people either don’t know that they can make cold brew with a cafetiere overnight or willing to go to these lengths in order to! More and more people, especially the younger, modern coffee drinker want to have cold coffees easily accessible. Brewing hot coffee to cool it down is messy and often becomes watered-down by loading it up with icecubes. Brewing ground coffee cold in bags over a longer period of time means the output is smoother (less acidic), stronger and sweeter tasting that hot brew – and much easier and no mess. This also means you can make a premium cold coffee without any equipment. You just need cold water (could be a natural spring on a mountain or tap at a festival)
You describe Cups Full as coffee for adventurers, festival-goers, travellers and busy city people. You’ve coined the “Full Cup Moment” What does that moment looks like, where someone can say #mycupsfull!
A full cup moment is personal to the consumer. It’s a moment where you’re present, and enjoying the moment with a perfect coffee in your hand. The ease of the bags mean you don’t have to fuss, faff, or wash up any equipment – but still access a premium cup. There’s a lot of ritual tied to speciality, but our goal at Cups Full is to change the fiddling ritual to more time to enjoy surroundings, instead. Someone mentioned it was a mindful angle – which I loved! The brand is focused on “doing the thing!” and getting out there: Cups Full comes with you on the journey and means you can make “full cup moments” along the way. Life is about a journey not just the destination. Our affiliate program also is modelled around creators making full cup moments to promote the coffee and self-actualising/becoming a creator through our scheme. Our message is “don’t forget to stop and enjoy it!” Whether that’s before a presentation, on the top of a mountain, or waking up on a Sunday with your kids – whatever a full cup means for you.
Your coffee is speciality-grade, but you have also focused heavily on convenience and affordability. How do you balance premium coffee with your aim of making it accessible to more people?
We’re doing this through positioning and demos / sampling (as much as possible)! When coffee bags are with you in your bag when out and about, the price per cup is a lot better value. The gap is 3-400%! At home there’s not as much in it, you’re paying more for the convenience vs the coffee itself. That’s why we say our coffee is “made for bags, not just cupboards” – spanning more need states. There is some preconception around speciality and “proper” coffee coming from different formats and assumption that bags can’t be “proper” but that’s changing. The market is growing fast (doubling in size by 2030) and we do as much sampling as possible in our local retailers to drive trial and immediate sales. We’re out there collabing with other like-minded brands too, and sending gifts to affiliates to get the word out. It’s all organic though for now! Word of mouth, in-store sampling, social content, reviews, gifting and collabs. Slow, strategic and steady.
Sustainability is another important part of the brand, from compostable coffee bags to reusable or recyclable pouches. How important was sustainability when you were developing the product?
This was a non-negotiable. One problem I saw with capsules is that many end up in landfill because you have to separate the foil from the base and recycle them separately. This is a pain for both at-home consumers and hospitality/hotel staff. I also learnt from hospitality teams in offices about the mammoth amounts of wastage. They have to brew jugs of hot coffee (decaf and regular) for meetings and much of it goes down the sink. Doing the maths, it equates to around 200,000 cars worth of CO2 each year in the UK. Our coffee bags mean you only serve to meet demand, and then you can easily compost the bags after use. It’s also an easy win to wow people: like a great receptionist vs a rude one…
For consumers, our audience is “life lovers on adventures and hustles”: adventure is very outdoor focused (festivals, camping, hiking, travel etc) and hustle more corporate (gym-goers, offices, trips, events etc). The outdoor element would be a contradiction if they weren’t sustainable. Litter and landfill are not on brand!!
You work with farms and cooperatives in different parts of the world, including Peru, Brazil, Vietnam and other coffee-growing regions. How important is it for you to understand the journey of the coffee from farm to cup?
Very. For two reasons.
1) The whole brand is about journeys and the consumer’s journey from buying the coffee to getting out there and “doing the thing” – really empowering, fuelled by great coffee, so they can stop and make “full cup moments” along the way. It makes sense that the coffee itself has a transparent journey.
2) I didn’t want unethical coffee farming and wanted to support our growers, being connected to positive practice. We have a responsibility as business owners to bring something to market that adds value, has a real, positive impact and isn’t just the easiest route to make money. I also think the modern consumer is more discerning than ever, and sees through these things. They’re happy to support companies that are trying to do good / have a strong purpose. E.g. Tony’s Chocolonely
Cups Full has grown beyond simply selling coffee, with a community of creators and an affiliate programme built around people taking the product on their own journeys. Why was building a community important to you?
Community is important for us humans, for our physical and mental health – and our coffee bags are perfect for sharing. You rarely go on a trip alone or to work in an empty office. We’re all about collaboration. In terms of the creators, our model is built around leveraging social media and social commerce to drive awareness and DTC sales. The creator economy is booming and in an age of AI – authentic, honest and raw content is what really cuts through. We want to empower people to become creators, literally – digitally as well as in real life! It lends itself really well to the format and brand.
Finally, when you think about the future of Cups Full, what would you most like the brand to achieve, and what do you hope people feel when they think about the idea of “filling their cup”?
My vision for the business is that it’s an internationally-known brand, where people are taking their coffee everywhere with them and inspiring others with their full cup moments. We’re building an army of affiliates and a program to help them succeed. We want to be available DTC so people can get coffee delivered to wherever they are, on retail shelves so they can be grabbed en route, on transport so people can discover them when they’re on their way, and in places like hotels so people can enjoy them at the destination. We want to be available all along someone’s journey to somewhere exciting. We’re also keen to partner with likeminded adventure or hustle brands and be synonymous with courage, freedom, energy, presence and self-actualisation!
