Country music legend Willie Nelson is known for having two things within reach at all times on his tour bus: something to smoke and a hot cup of coffee. So it came as no surprise when Nelson decided to launch his own weed-focused brand in 2016. Willie’s Reserve became the embodiment of Nelson’s beliefs about citizens’ rights and responsibilities when it comes to weed in the United States, offering various THC-laden products, from prerolled joints to vape oils.

As Nelson expanded his interests from weed to hemp (a member of the cannabis family grown with less than 0.3 percent THC, the compound that gets you high), it was only natural that a new business venture followed. Through his newest company, Willie’s Remedy, Nelson’s passion for cannabis bears fruit in the form of an “everyday hemp” brand that uses the full range of nonintoxicating cannabinoids derived from hemp in a diverse array of products, most notably a first-of-its-kind whole-bean coffee infused with CBD that marries Nelson’s love for cannabis and coffee.

Prepared according to the brewing instructions, a typical cup of Willie’s Remedy coffee serves 15 mg of CBD, comfortably within the dosing range many canna-brands recommend for typical recreational use. The goal is to join the calming, anxiety-reducing properties of CBD with the natural energy boost of caffeine. The result is a more balanced, longer-lasting lift, as opposed to the crash-and-burn effect of caffeine that can bring on jitters and anxiety.

That balance is what keeps Elizabeth Hogan, vice president of brands at Willie’s Remedy’s parent company, GCH Inc., drinking the coffee throughout the day. “You get all the uplifting energy and extroversion that people look for from coffee, but the edginess or anxiety that sometimes comes up with too much caffeine is totally taken down,” she says.

Before Willie’s Remedy officially launched at Nelson’s annual Fourth of July Picnic in 2018, many of the performers that hung out backstage or visited Honeysuckle Rose, Nelson’s famous tour bus, became informal taste testers. “A lot of guys come back to say, ‘Wow, that’s the pre-show drink I need!’” recalls Hogan. The idea of CBD-infused coffee as an alternative to the liquid courage of tequila shots, for example, points to the everyday hemp lifestyle the brand espouses.

When Nelson announced he’d stopped smoking in 2019, word spread that he had quit pot. It made a juicy headline, but the idea was ridiculous. Nelson told San Antonio’s KSAT at the time: “I have abused my lungs quite a bit in the past, so breathing is a little more difficult these days and I have to be careful.” Lung health is a serious concern for any singer, and certainly for an 87-year-old one who has talked openly about putting his body through the ringer. But quitting smoking doesn’t have to mean quitting cannabis.

“Eating, drinking, adding it to your daily routine—it’s another way to get the endocannabinoid system firing,” Hogan says. Having nonsmoking options—whether a dose of CBD in your morning brew or munching on THC edibles—facilitates that range of choices. Nelson never quit pot, and smoking has never been the only way to consume weed or hemp. Today, in a world ravaged by a virus that attacks the lungs, alternative methods for cannabis consumption are more appealing than ever.

Nelson’s goal is to introduce various avenues of consumption that will help people implement hemp as part of a daily wellness routine. Scientists increasingly accept the endocannabinoid system’s role in regulating homeostasis in a number of major organs and biochemical processes, from the brain to the endocrine system to the immune response to energy levels. Why wouldn’t you want to support the system that balances out the body? The brand imagines everyday hemp as another item on the list of things we already do to take care of ourselves, such as drinking water, sleeping well and getting exercise.

Although this isn’t the only CBD coffee product on the market, it was the first fully infused whole-bean coffee (compared to preground coffee coated in oil). During the traditional coffee roasting process, each bean’s natural oils travel to its surface. Then as the beans cool, they reabsorb those freshly released oils. Hemp oil is introduced directly into the roasting drum while the raw beans are being heated, so it can then be absorbed back into the roasted coffee beans along with all their natural oils.

A now-discontinued decaffeinated option never took off, but consumer demand inspired the team’s turn to tea. They have launched six caffeinated and caffeine-free varieties brewed from leaves infused with full-spectrum hemp oil, in a similar process to the coffee bean infusion. Beyond brews, they also offer tinctures in four strengths and a topical CBD balm.

As the brand’s official chief tasting officer, Nelson is deeply involved in the process of bringing every product to market. “But do you know who decides what makes it to Willie Nelson?” Hogan asks. The answer is Annie Nelson, Willie’s wife. It was Annie who brought the idea of hemp-infused coffee to the table in the first place, and she still curates the hemp applications the team tries, tastes and experiments with.

Yes, Annie is married to Willie, and yes, cannabis is a part of her daily life. But while Willie takes a no-holds-barred approach to weed, Annie actually isn’t a big fan of getting high. It’s not that she has anything against smoking weed, she just prefers to commune with cannabis in other ways. Before Willie’s eponymous brands existed, Annie had spent years experimenting at home, cooking up all kinds of cannabis concoctions from both weed and hemp.

In addition to being highly involved in product development, the Nelsons also take an active role in destigmatizing the use of the plant. Willie has been vocal about his support of cannabis from the start and has paid the price at times—he has been arrested for possession and pulled over various times for searches of his tour bus. After decades spent touting the benefits of weed and championing legalization, breaking into the business with his own brands was personally meaningful for Nelson. His advocacy is part and parcel of his legacy, and his justice-minded priorities are baked into both the Reserve and Remedy brands.

Nelson and his team refuse to lose sight of the sheer number of people who are imprisoned for selling a commodity that cannabis companies now trade in legally. That fact drives their push for legalization, which could reverse decades of unjust incarceration while also opening the door to funded research into cannabis as medicine. Meanwhile, because cannabis and coffee are both plants grown in the ground, they are both impacted by the global realities that farmers face, from issues of racial justice to the threat of climate chaos.

That’s how sourcing became one of the ways the company turns ethics into action. Their beans come from coffee farm cooperatives in Colombia and Nicaragua that are dedicated to serving their local communities, creating opportunities for farmers and supporting women entrepreneurs. On the CBD side, they use carbon-dioxide-extracted full-spectrum hemp oil sourced from independent Colorado farms that employ organic farming methods.

It’s a mouthful, but hyper-precise labeling also feeds into the brand’s mission. They believe in building a safe environment for consumers, and in the wild west of CBD, that starts with education. They want transparent and honest labeling to become standard practice so consumers can know how much of each active ingredient they’re getting and see exactly how each product was made. It comes at a cost, but they see empowering consumers as a necessary step toward reframing hemp as an element of wellness instead of as a ploy for corporate wealth.

It’s easy to be skeptical of yet another CBD brand with a celebrity name on the tin, but decades of advocacy and enjoyment have made Nelson a reputable and respected leader in the industry. Nelson has also spent his life modeling a kind of consumption that centers on a celebration of each new day.

“The idea behind Willie’s Remedy is to demonstrate to the world how hemp can be a daily part of a legendary life well lived,” Hogan says. “When you sit in a room with Willie and talk with him about cannabis and all of its potential, he just glows. Willie is an expert in how to enjoy this plant.”