A Passion for Coffee

3 Mba Graduates Market Patented Machine For Creating A Cold Brew They Say Makes Java Lovers Jump For Joy

Samuel Stein, MBA ’25, fell in love with coffee in Italy during 2015 while downing cups of espresso. During the summer of that year, he learned about coffee without the heat and turned to making cold brew at home.

But making cold brew is a messy process that can take up to 48 hours, so Stein, a mechanical engineer, set to work building a quick brewer. The result is Cold Cycle Coffee’s patented machine, which can make up to 2 gallons of cold brew in just 30 minutes with the company’s patented technology.

“Our machine is so special because the coffee tastes fantastic — fresher and more unique than anything on the market,” Stein says. Working prototypes have been piloted at Trianon Coffee and the Far Horizon Coffee Co. food truck in the Austin area, at a café in Los Angeles, and at three company offices in Houston. A seventh machine is planned for the Shevet Café in the Dell Jewish Community Center in Austin.

Since January, Stein, the company’s CEO, has been joined by co-founder and COO Bruce Boville, MBA ’25, and co-founder and CMO Monika Rao, MBA ’25. Both were classmates with Stein and heard about his machine while pursuing their degrees. “Monika and Bruce have helped take this company from a kitchen side project into a real product,” Stein said. “Without their help getting market approval, this project may have been scrapped,” he says.

Boville, who is head of sales, says: “I met Sam during orientation for our MBA. He has a kind of mad scientist energy that is simply magnetic. It didn’t hurt that the coffee he made for everyone was the best cold coffee I’d ever had.

“Sam and I split work on business operations, and I do our sales and fundraising work. I secure and run demos for potential customers, as well as getting on stage for pitching events, on top of tables for networking events, and on Zoom meetings to actually pitch investors.” Boville’s work experience includes running operations and business development for the biomanufacturing startup Aralez Bio and teaching classes while earning a doctorate. He has a B.A. in Middle Eastern studies and an M.A. and Ph.D. in Islamic studies from UT.

Rao’s background is in marketing, leading growth at agencies, startups, and tech companies, including the food and beverage sector with DoorDash and OpenTable.

“I’ll never fully understand how Sam’s brain works, but his creativity and obsession with cold brew blew me away,” she says. “He literally re-engineered a brewing machine in his garage to make cold coffee faster, better, and more efficient — and it worked. As a fellow coffee addict and lover, I was hooked.

“Today I’m focused on educating people on what cold brew actually is — it’s not iced coffee — how it’s made, and how our machine is changing the game.” Stein, who was previously an engineer with Samsung Austin Semiconductor, says Cold Cycle Coffee is still a few steps from a final product. “While we achieved a utility patent for the method in 2021, a production version is still in the works. 

“To get here, it took a lot of engineering and design work, including solving how to make the filter just right so that the coffee comes out crystal clear. Feedback from our customers has been key.” Cold Cycle Coffee is raising capital to start design on a full-fledged manufactured machine by the fall, he says. “We aim to have a final version in coffee shops near you in time for spring next year.”