In these interviews, I connect with people in different ways. Sometimes it’s immediate, sometimes it’s helped by a previous encounter or even a longtime friendship, and sometimes it never comes. I had never met Jiyoon Han before I asked her to be on the show, but her clarity and deep intentionality clicked for me instantly.

Jiyoon is the co-owner of Bean & Bean Coffee in New York City. Her parents opened Bean & Bean’s first location in 2008, a few years after immigrating to the United States from South Korea, amidst the year’s financial crisis. Since then, Jiyoon’s life has been wrapped up in coffee—it comes naturally to her, it’s embedded in her senses.

Jiyoon has a background in UX, or user experience, design, and uses that knowledge to help run aspects of Bean & Bean alongside her mother. On their website, Bean & Bean has a detailed and clear commitment laid out to promote gender equity—almost all the coffees they buy are from women-led farms and cooperatives, and they aim to have all their coffees powered by women by 2022. Their stores are reflective of their communities, including a flagship in the Little Neck neighborhood of Queens where Jiyoon grew up.

In this conversation, Jiyoon articulates so much of the potential in coffee—what responsibly run shops can look like, what being value-driven means, and how to actually grow. Growth for Jiyoon isn’t about expansion, but about depth and learning: honing your craft and getting better at what you do.

I can’t recommend this interview enough. Here’s Jiyoon.