By Ayanda Dlamini
In the world of coffee, few individuals blend science, storytelling, and passion as seamlessly as Kyle Sinclair. Over the years, I’ve encountered Kyle on countless coffee occasions, and each interaction has reinforced one thing: he is a multifaceted force of nature. As a practicing doctor, a co-founder of Mylo Coffee Co., and an enthusiastic coffee storyteller. Kyle’s unique perspective is infused into every aspect of his business.
At its heart, Mylo Coffee Co. is an extension of Kyle’s essence, grounded in the values of “coffee, community, and science.” Kyle shares with us how the brand was inspired by his late father Myles, and how his influence shaped Mylo’s ethos: to celebrate slowing down, fostering community, and using evidence-based approaches to good coffee.
Mylo highlights “coffee, community, and science” - how do you intertwine these elements in your business?
We’ve always found the scientific method and evidence based data to be hugely helpful in how we engage in business and how we approach brewing coffee and thinking about the equipment we’d like to sell. The three of us who founded the company are all practicing medical doctors, so we’re pretty plugged in to the scientifically proven health benefits of coffee (which is great information to convey when trying to sell coffee equipment!). But community really would be the core value point for us, our business is an extension of our community and we really find coffee to be a wonderful tool to use in creating and facilitating community. We’d love to disseminate that idea through our business.
What inspired the name Mylo Coffee Co. and what influenced you and your co-founders to combine health, wholeness, and coffee in the creation of Mylo Coffee Co.?
The business is named after my late dad Myles - he was an incredibly influential and intentional man who was an avid coffee nerd before there really was a specialty industry in SA. He modelled how coffee can be used to facilitate human connection so well. As junior doctors struggling to fight the “hustle” culture we found ourselves in, Ben, Jeremy and I started using coffee as a way to slow down and connect with the people around us, just for a couple of minutes, a few times a day. This had a hugely positive impact on everyone involved. It's an incredibly disarming and positively disrupting experience when someone takes out all this strange looking paraphernalia and begins to systematically grind, brew and serve you a cup of delicious coffee in a very “time-inefficient” manner in the midst of your busy day - I love it!
Sustainability is a growing concern in the coffee industry. How does Mylo address this within your product development or business operations?
We apply the same values and beliefs that we live by to our business, and try to always have an awareness of the impact that each aspect of our business is having on both the environment and the people involved in our supply chain. Our long term goal is to move as much of our production into SA as possible.
If you could describe the Mylo Coffee Co. ethos in three words, what would they be?
Community, creativity and fun!
What is your vision for Mylo in the next few years, and how do you hope it will impact the coffee world?
One of our central goals has always been to make the specialty coffee experience more accessible to South Africans, so we’d like to keep supplying reliable and affordable equipment to the South African market. Our long term goal has always been to eventually link Mylo to our dreams of making quality healthcare more accessible to those who need it. For now, this looks like building the business and continuing to bring great quality premium equipment to the market at a reasonable price. We’ve got big plans for growth in the next year so we’re really excited! Our team is growing and we’re having tons of fun.
