Within minutes of your feet clashing along the pavements of Auburn Avenue, the resonance of melanated excellence engulfs you. It’s a place where the heritage of Black ancestry, both the good, the bad, and the ugly, is embedded within its bricks, the air, and the soul of the avenue. The “richest Negro street in the world,” a title that history has tried to burn away, the Sweet Auburn Historic District still stands as the north star of what Black entrepreneurship is nearly a century later.
Along the street, the sound of a repetitive whisk and Black eclectic jazz creeps from the doors of the iconic Haugabrooks Funeral Home, clashing with the culturally impending noise of highways 85/75. With green matcha dusted over his hands and his white spectacles popping against the melanin on his skin, Malcolm Voltaire moves with precision and accuracy, like that of a chemist or a state-of-the-art seamstress. The purple and green colors of the drinks fuse, creating a work of art with each drop.
On any given day, the room fills with a cross-section of Atlanta, from photographers, painters, and fashion designers to students, absorbing more than caffeine. There’s no rush to leave. Discussions in the room foster a unique synergy and ease the spirit, as paintings by local artists line the walls in an Afrocentric and artistic conclave. To the untrained eye, this is just a coffee shop. To those who know the soil, Coffee Was Black is a living extension of a history the textbooks often leave out.
In 1929, Mrs. Geneva Morton Haugabrooks occupied and transformed this same room, doing what the world deemed impossible. She became a successful Black female multimillion-dollar business owner in the heart of Jim Crow. In an era when society, both intentionally and unintentionally, sought to make her a footnote in history, she instead created the blueprint. She was an architect of Black dignity, a titan of an industry who handled the souls of both those in legacy and in the present.
Today, Voltaire operates in that same place, pioneering in his own way. As a steward of her million-dollar blueprint, Voltaire and Coffee Was Black take a century-old drink and create a new generational twist, from its consumption to the energy and vibe it elicits. “Coffee Was Black is like the coffee for creatives,” is how Voltaire puts it best.
Born and raised in Atlanta, Voltaire carries the flavors of his Jamaican father and Haitian mother into every creation. In his early adulthood, his father transformed his view of coffee. “I thought coffee was nasty growing up,” Voltaire admits. “But my dad drank Bustelo every day. It connected us, and it changed how I saw coffee.” Signature drinks like Wah Gwan, Lion of Judah, and Yardie aren’t just names. They’re echoes of his lineage. Ingredients like ginger, hibiscus, and sorrel aren’t just flavors in the drinks he creates; they’re threads of heritage woven into each cup. The first drink he made, The Joy, was named after his mom.
“I named that after her because sorrel is one of those drinks that, when you talk to a Caribbean person, it doesn’t matter which island they’re from. Everybody’s got their own perspective on sorrel. For me, if I can take all of that and people just love the drink, I’m like, okay.”
A fashion designer by trade, Voltaire’s transition from textiles to the portafilter was a shift toward creating something easily affordable and universally appreciated. Prior to opening the tea and coffee club in 2022, he ran a fashion brand called Jesus Was Black, a concept Voltaire titles as more of an art project than anything. After gaining attention across the Southeast, a friend approached him at the end of a collection drop in Nashville and asked, “What’s next?”
“So on a drive back to Atlanta, a four-hour drive, his question just kept ringing in my ear,” Voltaire recalls. After pondering how to build upon the Black dollar, he thought, “Okay, what’s a $5 product that is easy? That’s a daily thing. Oh, coffee.” The concept of Coffee Was Black became another chapter of his fashion roots rather than the end of them. Voltaire explained that although Jesus was Black was spiritually rooted, “You can’t necessarily expect people to get behind religious stuff. But something like coffee is universal. It’s a lot more palatable to digest.”
Building something like Coffee Was Black comes with quiet resistance. The brand’s name alone challenges comfort. Its presence on Auburn Avenue resists displacement narratives that suggest Black history should be commemorated but not continued. The name pays homage to the Ethiopian ancestors who discovered the coffee bean in the 9th century in the Kaffa region. In a world where traditional café beverages like lattes and cappuccinos are credited to an Italian, Eurocentric upbringing, Coffee Was Black aims to rewire the way coffee is seen and experienced.
“Italy currently controls how the world views coffee through the espresso machine. But if you go hundreds of years back, it was found in Ethiopia. So when do we as Black people get to claim what was found by our ancestors or us? That’s what Coffee Was Black is doing,” Voltaire said in a fervent tone.
Photo by Tabius H. McCoy/The Atlanta Voice
For Voltaire, the brand is less about trend and more about permanence. “What if we stopped drinking Arizona tea?” he asks. “We need to be drinking something that’s made for us, by us—for real. That’s the real play for Coffee Was Black. That’s where my vision really sees everything.”
Coffee Was Black exists to offer a nonconventional blueprint, particularly for what success looks like in the Black community. “Where is the world where we are feeding into things that end with us?” Voltaire says. “And then it becomes a cycle, feeding back into us.”
At its core, Coffee Was Black is less about a beverage and more about resistance. Built inside a space with deep Black history, the brand shows what it looks like to create something sustainable, culturally rooted, and owned from start to finish. Voltaire’s work doesn’t ask for permission or validation. It simply exists, visible and intentional, offering a living example of how creativity, heritage, and business can coexist.