Natural Dye Organic T-Shirt Drop: Collaboration with Caffe Inc.

Natural Dyeing is one of the core values at Solid State Clothing and creating dyes from waste materials gives us a deeper reasoning to prioritize this practice. This is why we are honored to release the R&D collaboration of the Caffe Inc. Natural Dye Organic Cotton T-Shirt. Using unique dyes they developed from spent coffee grounds, this collaboration is a perfect example of our mission at Solid State Clothing.

Around this time last year, Klaas Eleveld, CCO and Co-Founder of FyberX, introduced us to Caffe Inc., a business in the Netherlands that recovers resources from coffee by-products, such as spent coffee grounds, which falls perfectly in line with our goal to source dye from underutilized materials. As a big coffee lover, our Founder, Eric Henry, was immediately on-board. Years ago, we had done in-house natural dye trials with coffee grounds, but the results were weak compared to the strong colors found in the products we are launching today.

In 2019, Evaluna Marquez, the founder of Caffe Inc., jumped into her entrepreneur journey when discovering that it was possible to create inks and dyes from coffee waste. From there, Evaluna started her own research on creating different applications and ingredients from this underutilized resource. To her, Caffe Inc. is much more than developing a great idea. It is about becoming pioneers on waste valorization and demonstrating that nowadays waste equals value. 

The dyes are made in an environmentally friendly, proprietary process of Caffe Inc. in which they use coffee waste as feedstock. In a zero-waste system, once everything is extracted from the coffee waste, they are turned into bio-based material as a medium for mushroom farmers. Caffe Inc. envisions a world without coffee waste, their ambition is to sustainably process 10% of centralized used coffee grounds in the Netherlands.

After working with Cotton Incorporated to validate our wash and light fastness testing, we decided to do the initial release through Solid State Clothing with a limited number of t-shirts. We are currently experiencing supply chain delays with our NC Cotton t-shirts, but we want to continue to do unique R&D work. This is why we are introducing our Organic Cotton T-Shirt, made in the USA with imported GOTS Certified Organic Cotton. While we prefer to source locally, we prioritize being completely transparent about where our materials come from, so you can track the supply chain here.

The Caffe Inc. Natural Dye Organic Cotton T-Shirts are available in three solid colors, Cream, Pistachio, and Dark Roast, and two tie-dye colors, Macchiato and Mocha Swirl, in Unisex and Women’s. There are less than 50 available t-shirts throughout all styles and sizes, so act FAST! 

*If we are sold out of the shirt you want, be sure to sign up for back in stock notifications so we know you’re interested!*