the future is brewing

You've just stumbled upon something you didn't even know you were looking for...

Or, you're family or friend, and I appreciate you reading beyond the headline. Whether familiar or stranger, I humbly ask you continuing reading and indulge my short soliloquy on the state of coffee affairs, and hence, the very bedrock of the world order...

Coffee is the second-most consumed beverage in the entire world, behind water. If water is life, then coffee is culture. Coffee is civilization. Coffee is communion. Coffee is raw life itself–water, soil, sunlight, plants, time–meets human ingenuity, agricultural tradition, and social ritual.

Its origins are also a mystery lost to history. There's no official record of who first discovered coffee trees. Nor do we have any solid idea who first thought to harvest the seeds of coffee fruit (i.e. the coffee bean), roast them, and then boil them into the beverage we now call coffee.

But according to legend, coffee was discovered around the 9th century on the Ethiopian plateau when a goat herder named Kaldi wandered into the forest with his herd, who ravenously ate the cherries off of one particular set of trees, and later wouldn't shut up as Kaldi was trying to sleep. He then reported his findings to an abbot of a local monastery, who made a drink with the coffee fruit, and finally found a way to stop dozing off during evening prayer.

Even if that's more legend than fact, it's a pretty great (and even somewhat plausible) origin story.

While coffee's origin story is shrouded in mystery, its future doesn't have to be. The global coffee industry is worth approximately $176 billion. To put that in perspective, the wine industry is estimated at roughly $130-150 billion. By 2030, the coffee industry is expected to grow to $228 billion dollars.

It's no surprise that the beverage that many historians credit for sparking the Enlightenment is, today, more widely consumed than wine, tea, soda, and beer. The demand for our coffee is ever growing, but is it growing in the right direction?

In some ways, yes. In others, no. But I didn't start a coffee company to become a critic. Or a salesman. Or a drug dealer.

I started a coffee company because I wanted to re-imagine what coffee is and what coffee could be–from the farm to the cup to the cafe.

And from that re-imagining, a vision was born. A vision for a coffee company that was pro-social and climate-positive, that is, one that encourages the flourishing of both humans and nature, together.

It's a vision where coffee is grown regeneratively, sans pesticides and heavy resource-intensive. It's organic, biodynamic, and natural coffee beans. It's drinking a cup of coffee you can feel good about, because you know the farmers who produced it are well supported and the land it's grown on is stewarded responsibly. It's coffee as an art and a science. It's coffee as a ritual, best paired with your favorite record.

That's my why. And once you know your why, the only question left is...

Why the hell not?