Can you use coffee to dye leather??

 

A few months ago I had an odd request…

 

A old friend of mine (who happens to be a barista) wanted to buy a keyring from me…. but the order came with a catch..

 

He wanted me to use coffee as the leather dye. 

 

(I guess he wanted to smell coffee on the drive to work as well as all day at work??)

 

Interesting…. Could it be done?

 

I figured ‘what the heck’, gave it a go - and, it worked!

 

A coffee stained keyring……not bad.

 

So I decided to test it on some of my other leathers, including a really nice vegetable tan yearling bovine leather that I use to make my Sliminalist wallets. 

 

(Yearling leather is super clean without bug bites, scratches and scars as the cow is only between 12 - 18 months old before harvesting)

 

It worked so well on the yearling leather that I decided to make a few “coffee wallets”, film the process and put it up on YouTube 

 

I ended up actually making 2 of the “coffee wallets” but going forward I don’t think I’m going to be able to keep using coffee as a dye - I think I’ll stick to professional leather dyes.

Anyway, an interesting experiment!

 

Aaron Welsh

Anvil Hide Leatherworks