Kevin Costner Wants to Help You Have a Better Cup of Coffee in the Morning

Here's how the actor prefers in his morning cup of Joe.

When people think of Kevin Costner, a few themes commonly come to mind. Baseball, the American West, and "Dryland" are among the top candidates. Coffee, however, is nowhere on that list. Until today. In an exclusive interview with Food and Wine, the Academy Award-winning director — and Emmy Award-winning actor — announces a partnership with Green Mountain Coffee Roasters. And it's kind of a big deal.

Throughout a legendary career spanning more than four decades, Costner has rarely used his significant star power to hawk commercial products. And this one is more than mere endorsement. The partnership has him developing an entire series of coffee releases, beginning with his Horizon Blend, which will be available on Keurig.com starting December 18. It boasts a robust flavor profile, reflecting the earthy, smoky tonalities that the actor prefers in his morning cup of Joe.

But the question remains: Why coffee, Kevin Costner? Aside from the fact that he perhaps has a penchant for alliteration.

Related: We Tested 13 Grocery Store Coffees and Here's the Best One

"I have the job I do, and it's given me a lot of notoriety," he explains, "But when we get down to core issues, I feel like I can relate to people and create stories that people relate to. And for a lot of people, the day starts with coffee. Certainly, mine does."

For years, it was merely a function of practicality, however. The caffeine boost would shift him into gear. He never elevated his interest in the beverage to the level of geekdom. Even in this age where fanatics have ritualized the act of its preparation, Costner was still content with drip-brewed gas station iterations, so long as they sped him to set swiftly.

"Because I wasn't that specific, I would run into a lot of bad coffees," he laments. "When I was really craving it, and it didn't taste right, it was a bummer for me."

The habitual disappointment at convenience stores and craft service tables across the country indirectly helped spawn a love for Caffè Mocha. The cocoa powder-infused liquid is — even by his own admission — not the most high-minded of renderings.

"But it had a tendency to 'disguise' bad coffee, so to speak," Costner says. "I love a really good cup of black coffee. If it's really bad, though, you can just hide behind the mocha. It was really a defense mechanism for me a lot of times."

Then, he genuinely developed a hankering for those sweeter, chocolatey flavors. And when the "mad scientists" at Green Mountain approached him to work together, they promised they could arrive at a base coffee that would demonstrate these notes without the addition of actual sugar or chocolate. Costner was instantly intrigued.

"We began to talk about if this is possible — to come up with a flavor that I liked; to make sure the coffee came shooting through," adds the Yellowstone star. "They didn't rush me. They came to me when I was on location doing the work I do, and they didn't even flinch at the idea of getting something that I like before we had an actual arrangement."

Those so-called mad scientists included several Q-graders: professionals certified in the sensory evaluation of coffee. They met up with Costner multiple times over the course of a year, providing him with countless samples and dialing in the profile to increasingly narrower parameters.

"There was this smell that was really gratifying and grounding," he says of what ultimately became the Horizon Blend. "They started referring to it as smoky. And I kept coming back to their word, 'smoky.' Then I gauged it up again, where it was just another notch up on smoke level. Then they asked, 'Are we done?' And I said, 'We are.'"

In honor of the newly formed partnership, Green Mountain Coffee Roasters is donating $100,000 to Root Capital, a non-profit organization investing in agricultural enterprises within rural communities. The two companies have enjoyed a relationship for over 20 years. And during that time, significant inroads have been made to foster coffee cooperatives across the globe. It's one of the reasons why Costner was encouraged to lend his likeness to this new line of blends.

"I like their politics," he admits. "I can tell you that Horizon Blend is a combination of Colombian and Indonesian — weighted more toward their Indonesian beans. I didn't even care, though, to be honest. I just wanted to make sure that there was a healthy, respectful relationship with the farmers."

The fact that there'll be far less gas station drip-brew in his near future is just a happy side perk.

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