TULSA – Coracle Coffee was established in 2019 by Cherokee Nation citizen Tyler Duncan who has a background in coffee research and development.
A retail location, opened in 2023, serves the Tulsa metropolitan area. Duncan’s idea was to create a coffee product that was accessible to anyone, anywhere.
“I pursued my own business in manufacturing instant coffee that had soluble packaging as well, and I’ve been doing that for about six years now,” he said.
Coracle Coffee, in Tulsa, is a Cherokee-owned business that is also Tribal Employment Rights Office (TERO) certified. They won a TERO award last year for Certified Indian Retail Business of the Year runner-up.
At the retail location, Duncan and his wife Lydia, sell roasted and instant coffee products as well as made-to-order drinks.
“We basically have coffee from each growing region throughout the world,” he said.
Most coffee growing regions fall within the “Bean Belt,” which are areas nearest to the equator that provide ideal conditions for growing coffee beans. Those areas lie within Africa, Asia/Pacific and Latin America.
“We’ve got a really good Pink Bourbon from Columbia. We have some coffees from Africa as well, which is where coffee is from in the first place,” Duncan said. “We have a really good coffee from Rwanda. And we just got some coffee from Burundi as well. Then we have some pretty crazy coffees from the Indonesian Islands.”
With those coffees, Duncan creates made to order drinks that are standard for any coffee shop as well as original creations of blended and flavored coffees.
“We have pretty traditional drinks that you can get anywhere just from regular coffee, selling each of these coffees as a single-origin offering,” he said. “Anything from Americanos, cold brew, iced coffees to I would say probably the most popular is an iced-oat-milk-vanilla latte.”
Coracle Coffee in downtown Tulsa has a menu of several items including espressos, macchiatos, cortados, cappuccinos, Americanos, cold brews, pour overs and as seen in the photo – lattes. Other items include teas, blended drinks, sparkling water and lemonades as well as food items such as breakfast burritos and pepperoni croissants.
Their blended drinks, dubbed as Blendythings, include the popular peanut butter mocha and other flavors.
In addition to coffee, Coracle Coffee also sells food items like breakfast burritos, sandwiches and croissants.
“We’ve got really good breakfast sandwiches. We have a brisket burrito that is phenomenal,” he said. “We’ve got croissants – strawberry, apple, apple cinnamon, chocolate, butter. We’ve got a bacon and four cheese croissants as well as a pepperoni pizza croissant.”
Coracle Coffee owner and Cherokee Nation citizen Tyler Duncan makes a pour over coffee, which is a manual coffee brewing method of pouring hot water over grounded coffee through a filter, allowing for better control of water to coffee ratio.
The name “coracle” come from Duncan’s favorite books series, “The Chronicles of Narnia,” specifically from the book titled “The Voyage of the Dawn Treader,” that mentions a character named Reepicheep floating in his coracle, which is a small boat. It’s about not giving up on your journey.
“Originally, when we started making instant coffee, it was this idea of providing a product to help people on their journey to get to wherever they’re going, to make it accessible,” Duncan said.
He said accessibility was important and that people didn’t need to know how to brew coffee, just to enjoy it.
“You just have to have water. That’s it. When we opened up our coffee shop not only do we have a product to meet people where they’re at and help them along their journeys, but we have a place to provide for people as well. So, the spirit of that character Reepicheep floating in his coracle is what really drives us and our mission for this company,” he said.
Coracle Coffee is at 314 S. Cincinnati Ave. in Tulsa. For more information, visit coracle.coffee or Coracle Coffee on Facebook and Instagram.
