From an Amazon search to lifelong supporter: Meet Jamie Robinson

Jamie Robinson found Death Wish Coffee on Amazon in 2013. Since then, he's been hooked.

Without our supportive community, Death Wish Coffee wouldn't be where it is today. That's why we want to highlight our community members and introduce you to the people sipping on bold brews all day long.

Learn more about Jamie below. 

How’d you first hear about Death Wish Coffee?  

It was right around Christmas or New Years 2013. I looked around Amazon for coffee, and I found Death Wish by searching for strong coffee. After 20 years in the Navy, you need to have strong coffee or it just tastes like dirty water. I have always been leery of “strong coffee” in advertisements because it is always bitter. No one wants to pay $20 for a pound of coffee that’s going to be bitter and probably get thrown away.

The first pot I made was stronger than 3-day-old Navy coffee, but didn’t have that bitter, “make your face cringe” aftertaste to it. From that day on, I was hooked. I kept buying from Amazon, because that’s where I found it. It wasn’t until almost 2 years later that I started buying from the Death Wish website. I have never looked back. 

How you brewin'?  

I drink my coffee black. This isn’t because I am some sort of bad ass, or that I have issues with dairy, it is because I like the flavor of coffee. Also, (another Navy reference) when you are on a ship that is at sea for lengthy periods of time, the milk goes bad and you don’t have that luxury. You drink your coffee black, or you don’t drink coffee. If I am drinking a flavored coffee (Barrel Brands) I will add creamer, though — but never sugar.

"How you brewin,’" you ask? Chemex. Every time I make coffee it is in a Chemex (unless I am traveling, then it’s French press).

What do you like to do in your free time? 

Free time. I love that term. I have been retired since 2011, so you would think that all of my time is free. While I don’t actually leave my house and go to a job any more, I spend a lot of time working on my podcast, Mr. Throwback Thursday. When I am not networking, or researching for the show, I like to spend all the time that I can with my incredible wife of 24 years, Rye, my two sons Ian and Alex, and our beagle Chewie (yes, named for Chewbacca). I like movies, and LOVE music.

Talk a little more about your podcast. How’d you start it? What's it about?

The Mr. Throwback Thursday podcast was born out of both love and spite.  I love classic hip hop (1973-1998), and often had conversations with my best friend of 30-plus years, Bill, about “the good old days” of hip hop. We could sit and reminisce for hours on end, and wonder what happened to many of the artists we grew up listening to.

I had a friend that ran a podcast network, and I recommended to him that he do a classic hip hop podcast because there weren’t really any out there. He said that I should do it, since I knew more about the subject than he did. I wrote up a “proposal” explaining what the show would cover, and the basic format, and sent it to him. His response was, “One, you’ve got no radio experience, and two, after about six half-hour episodes once a month, you will run out of material.” Well, over 4 years and 223 episodes later, we are still here.

Every week, we cover current news about classic hip hop artists, an entire segment dedicated to news about the Wu Tang Clan, review two albums, and do interviews. We have interviewed legendary MCs like Chuck D from Public Enemy and DMC from, well, Run DMC. And not one single episode gets recorded without Death Wish in our mugs.

What’s your favorite community-related story?

I have met so many cool people through this community, and all because of our shared love for caffeine and clay. I would have to say that my favorite thing, though, is the way that everyone looks out for each other. Pre-Super Bowl commercial, we were a much smaller community — almost to the point where you could name the majority of the group members off the top of your head. Not that we were THAT small, but everyone knew everyone. If someone was having trouble, everyone bonded together to help them without being asked. When that person was back on their feet, they paid it forward. People would send Death Wish Coffee or mugs to each other just to see the other person’s week get better. It was like finding lost family, and Death Wish was the reason that we all found each other. Oh yeah, and that time Kane and Teah were rocking their Mr. Throwback Thursday shirts — that was a cool moment that I’ll always remember, too!

Related: Meet one of Death Wish Coffee's biggest supporters, Gail Dunmyer