How a Bushwick roastery went from 3.1k to 19k followers in eight months, and started selling beans from its Reels.
Kaldera roasts about 900 pounds of coffee a week in a Bushwick warehouse and runs two cafés, one next to the roastery and one in Greenpoint.
Their Instagram was run by whoever had a spare minute behind the bar. Posts went out in bursts, mostly latte art, and nothing pointed to the online shop, which is where the margin is. Dana and her co-founder wanted people to buy the beans, not just the flat white.
We set one goal: make people want to brew Kaldera at home. That meant teaching, not posting pretty cups.
We built three recurring series. Monday Grind busts one brewing myth a week. Lot Notes tells the story of each new coffee, in the roaster’s own words. Bar Questions answers real customer questions on camera. One half-day shoot a month at the roastery covers all three.
Every Lot Notes post links to that coffee in the shop with a tracked link, so the monthly report shows what sold, not just what was liked.
Reels brought the reach and carousels brought the saves. The grinder test reached 212,000 accounts in its first week. The carousel on why a flat white tastes different on Mondays became the most-saved post Kaldera has ever had.
By October, 41% of online orders started on Instagram or TikTok, and the Guji lot sold out in nine days. Kaldera now plans its roasting schedule around the content calendar, not the other way round.
From their feed
Three series, one shoot a month at the roastery, twelve posts a month. Dana approves the whole month from one link, usually on a Sunday night.
“We used to post when someone remembered. Now there’s a calendar, a shoot every month and a feed people actually save. The online shop noticed before we did.”
Results
Figures from Instagram Insights and Kaldera’s Shopify reports, compared month to month. TikTok started in June, so it isn’t in the table.
How we run content production| Measure | March | October |
|---|---|---|
| Instagram followers | 3,100 | 19,000 |
| Average reach per Reel | 2,400 | 31,000 |
| Saves per post | 38 | 87 |
| Online orders that start on social | 9% | 41% |
| Posts a month | 5 | 12 |
