“Since witches make brews and potions, I thought it would be a fun play on words,” she said.
In 2017, Warner’s Nursery launched a project that was near and dear to our hearts: a coffee shop to honor our grandmother, Dorothy Warner, who founded Warner’s Nursery in Page back in the 1960s.
Dottie’s Garden Coffee Shoppe is right in the middle of our nursery, a relaxing place to enjoy coffee drinks, Italian sodas, and other refreshments is right in the middle of our nursery, a relaxing place to enjoy coffee drinks, Italian sodas, and other refreshments.
Now, one of our employees has developed a line of beauty products called Dottie’s Bru by recycling the grounds generated by our coffee shop.
Kelli Remley began in our landscape division almost two years ago, but quickly became interested in the retail side of our business, primarily so she could better answer questions for customers in our gardening center and help out as needed.
One of her added assignments was working behind the counter at Dottie’s and becoming a barista, which was a little ironic as Kelli doesn’t drink coffee. (She loves the smell, but not the taste.)
“I didn’t even know how to make espresso, and had only made drip coffee twice for a client in a past job – that was the extent of my coffee-making experience,” she said. “As you can imagine, the task was quite daunting at first. And since I don’t drink coffee, I had to learn to make it by smelling it.”
On a long road trip to visit family, Kelli started thinking about her future and how she might be able to grow at Warner’s. Her thoughts turned to the coffee grounds, which were thrown out each day.
Coffee grounds are shown to be rich not only in caffeine, but also in antioxidants, such as hydroxycinnamic acids and polyphenols, which make them powerful ingredients in numerous beauty products.
The fine grains of coffee grounds have been shown to make excellent exfoliants, while the caffeine and antioxidants can help reduce the appearance of aging, reduce puffiness, and stimulate skin cell production.
Kelli wondered if she could create a beauty line based on the grounds from Dottie’s coffee shop.
“I didn’t want to just have a generic, bland coffee scrub,” she said. “I wanted it to be something of high quality, something that was worthy to bear their grandma’s name.”
After a lot of research and testing, Kelli launched her product. She decided the name for her business would be Dottie’s Bru, a shortening of the Brazilian Portuguese word bruxinha, which means “little witch.”
“Since witches make brews and potions, I thought it would be a fun play on words,” she said. The logo for the products shows a hand holding a wand with coffee beans and a green leaf coming from it and uses the font and colors of the coffee shop’s logo.
You can find Kelli’s body scrubs at Warner’s Nursery. She is continuing her research into the nutrient components of the Dottie’s coffee grounds and exploring other possible products that could be made with them.
“Coffee ground uses are so versatile and their benefits for the body and environment are amazing,” said Kelli.
We are so excited for Kelli, her new line, and the opportunity to make Warner’s Nursery even more “green” with this upcycling initiative.
Happy gardening! FBN
By Misti Warner-Andersen
Misti Warner-Andersen is the manager of Warner’s Nursery & Landscape Co., located at 1101 E. Butler Ave. in Flagstaff. To contact Warner’s Nursery, call 928-774-1983.