Areli Barrera Grodski

Areli Barrera Grodski is co-owner of Cocoa Cinnamon and Little Waves Coffee Roasters in Durham, North Carolina. Areli's journey in coffee began 15 years ago in the Great Smoky Mountains of North Carolina. This beginning put into perspective the power that coffee provides to create space and support local and global communities. Drawing from her lived experience of the immigrant hustle, passion for coffee, and community,

Areli and her husband, Leon, started Cocoa Cinnamon from a bicycle cart. It grew to three coffee shop locations and a coffee roastery. Areli oversees the roastery– a proud, majority women team. Their mission is twofold: to share beautiful coffees that shine for a wide spectrum of coffee enthusiasts, and to support small communities and women producers around the world. Their goal is to have a positive impact through their purchasing patterns, how they treat and pay their employees, how they treat the land, and how they give back to their communities. In 2022 Little Waves Coffee was awarded Roaster of the Year by Roast Magazine and in 2024 was featured in the Apple TV+ docuseries, Omnivore, created by René Redzepi and Matt Goulding.

Areli enjoys making meaningful connections throughout the coffee supply stream. When she's not making coffee things, she's DJing or dancing to the sounds of the DJ collective she founded, Mamis & the Papis. She also loves wine, clouds, being cozy, and solitude beach trips to ground and re-energize.