Founder Feature: Greg Cahn of Tamar Date Coffee
So many of us drink coffee – whether it’s for the caffeine boost, the taste, the ritual, or maybe all three. But some of us recognize that traditional coffee might not do for us what it once did, so we seek out other options – maybe not knowing where to start.
Meet Greg Cahn, co-founder of Tamar Date Coffee – a coffee company making a blend that’s not just coffee, not just dates, but coffee blended with upcycled date seeds – so coffee lovers, fear not! Tamar is not a coffee impersonator, it’s the real deal (but better?!).
From Music to Coffee
Despite spending 20+ years in the music industry as a singer, songwriter, artist, and music supervisor, Greg was secretly searching for his next adventure in e-commerce after religiously listening to NPR’s How I Built This. Little did he know that adventure would be coffee – and that it would solve a problem he’d been silently suffering with for years: acid reflux, a total buzzkill for a dedicated coffee drinker and musician.
One day, Greg’s brother-in-law, Eyal Elhasid, called and told him he needed to make his way to the Bay Area to try something new. “We sat down and had our first cup of date coffee. And at that point, it was like this immediate light bulb of ‘wow, this is coffee I can enjoy’,” Greg remembers. “It was the most smooth balanced coffee that was going down my esophagus.” After that meeting, they leveled up and became co-founders of Tamar.
Greg’s transition from music to CPG was surprisingly seamless. “Whether it’s music or it’s food and bev CPG, the parallel is very much the same. It’s storytelling, it’s finding the right audience, it’s connecting to that audience,” he explains.
The Creative Vision
Greg’s creative background shaped every aspect of Tamar’s branding. Spending weeks in grocery stores studying packaging felt natural to him. “It’s just so ironic that I’m now in a grocery store doing the same thing that I used to do in a record shop.”
As creative director and co-founder, he landed on a minimalist design featuring a bold yellow circle representing the desert sun, where dates thrive. Looking at a shelf full of coffee – it surely stands out. Our team saw for ourselves when we visited Erewhon in Venice – the bright yellow circle drew us straight to the shelves!
The name Tamar, meaning “date palm” in Hebrew, Arabic, and Armenian, is also Eyal’s mother’s name, adding personal significance to the brand – and it just so happens to look simply beautiful on packaging.
Coffee That Hugs You
At the Brentwood Farmers Market, where Greg sells every Sunday, one customer commented that he liked when coffee kicks him. Greg’s response? “This coffee’s not gonna kick you, it’s gonna hug you.”
The experience is sustained energy without jitters or crashes. “I drink two cups of this every morning out of a French press and I don’t need to touch coffee past 9, 10 o’clock a.m. and I am productive and I’m not overly anxious and overly jittery,” he explains. The naturally sweet blend eliminates the need for added sweeteners, and the dates cut the acidity that triggered his acid reflux.
Having battled caffeine dependence in the music industry – where he felt pressure to stay overstimulated for peak creativity – Greg found balance with Tamar. “When you’re grounded and you feel really good and you find that one thing that just makes you just on a little bit more, but not all the way on – that’s where the magic happens.”
First to Market, Strategic Growth
Tamar made its Expo West debut at the Fresh Ideas Organic Marketplace in 2024. “There was no date coffee on the floor. We were the only ones,” Greg notes. The reaction exceeded expectations: “What they thought was going to be this substitute thing that tasted kind of funny ended up being ‘wow. This is coffee. This is totally familiar’.”
While other companies make date seed coffee as a pure coffee substitute, Tamar is pioneering the date coffee blend category. Their strategy is deliberate: focus on independent natural grocers in California where they can demo extensively and educate consumers – something that is truly a win-win-win for brands, retailers, and consumers.
Building on Trust and Partnership
The partnership between Greg and Eyal works because of complementary skills and mutual trust. “Eyal’s strength is he’s more product and ops, I’m more creative, sales, biz dev,” Greg explains. “We challenge each other, but there’s trust there. When you have a supportive partnership and you can just go with your gut, good things happen.”
For Greg, success isn’t about sales – it’s about impact. “I am a founder but I’m a use case. I drink this. I drink this every day and I know how good it makes me feel. And all I want to do is pass that on.”
As Tamar positions itself as a pioneering company with new products in R&D, Greg remains focused on the mission: “Serving really good stuff to the general public and helping people have a better day because they drink tomorrow.”
Let Tamar be your next…coffee date.
To learn more about Tamar Date Coffee, visit drinktamar.com or follow @drinktamar on social media.
LISTEN TO OUR EDITOR’S CONVERSATION WITH GREG ON THE PODCAST
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