Sometimes you have to ask yourself why you do certain things. Is it habit? Pride? Staying in the cool crowd?

Organic: What is the right way to do something? Recently Kelly Z and Terry Z had the opportunity to see coffee farming first hand for the first time in their almost twenty years in the coffee business. Over the few days in Costa Rica, we talked about the struggles that organic coffee growers face compared to their conventional neighbors with very little reward for their practice. The average coffee farmer’s yield goes down 50% when they switch to organic practices. And, if they do absolutely everything right to rebuild their soil, it will take 15 years to get back to the levels of output produced before the switch. Are you willing to pay twice as much for organic coffee than conventional? Is it right to ask a producer to switch to organic practices when faced with this daunting outlook?
Being organic does not mean that the coffee tastes better; there are all levels of quality within organic production. Being a 100% organic coffee roaster has to be a passion for what is right over the long term, for the soil, animals, and most importantly, the people who grow, process, freight, roast, and drink the coffee. It’s a complex issue with many grey areas, but we feel deep in our heart of hearts that organic farming is the right method for farming in our community and among our producing partners in Latin America, Indonesia, and East Africa.

Direct Trade: We are a company with concepts of trade at the forefront of what we do, whether it’s fair or direct trade. Coffee quality is the focus of our small company. That said, when you look a little deeper into the issues of how to attain quality coffee you often find that working directly with a coffee producer is so much more rewarding and results in higher final cup quality. Why? Quality comes through people’s personal interest and dedication. Coffee quality still depends upon a personal human-to-human relationship. We work harder for our producers whom we know and with whom we are actively in contact and they do they same for us. A producer will pay greater attention to harvesting ripe cherries, processing, and resting the coffee when they know that they will get feedback from their customers and see prices based on the work they have done. To expand upon that idea, coffee farmers are business people too, they realize that the better we do in our business, the better they do and vice-versa.

Quality: We roast some of the best-tasting coffees in the world. Organic or not, our coffees are on par with some of the best roasters around. All of our decisions are based on retaining quality of the coffee experience for customers. Yes, we have room to improve too. It wouldn’t be any fun if we thought we knew everything or had no room to progress.

Our pledge to our customers is to source, roast, and prepare the best organic coffee we possibly can.

—Oliver