Testimony of a Coffee Convert

The roast date for the Sumatran coffee is only a couple of weeks away!  We are excited to share this tropical, smooth, intense coffee with you, but we are overjoyed to be able to introduce you to someone who works alongside the National partners in Sumatra. Be on the lookout for several posts from Curtis Brink.

Hello, my name is Curtis Brink, and I like coffee.  I never knew that I did until just three years ago.  My whole life I knew people who religiously drank coffee.  I saw it as an unnecessary thinking that people put into their already busy schedules.  I have always been a task driven person.  I didn’t want to add something else that needed to get done.  Or get a caffeine headache when I didn’t have access to it.  Four years ago it all changed.  I began working directly with coffee farmers.  I saw the time and effort put into producing coffee.  From planting, nurturing, maintaining, and harvesting there is a lot put into each crop of red cherries.Four years ago I came face to face with a group of farmers that were giving up on the coffee trade.  I was shocked and saw an opportunity to connect this farmer group to people that cared personally about them as people and about the coffee that they could produce.  In a steep learning curve I began contacting coffee buyers, coffee shops, and roasters.  Along the way I got to know coffee a lot better.  There are many steps involved in protecting each crop to ensure great quality all the way to the cup.  One day I realized I had to begin drinking coffee if I was going to represent the farmer’s coffee to the market.  In short I caved.  All the years of relenting were gone.  I became an everyday 100% Arabica coffee drinker.I soon realized that drinking coffee has many benefits.  Of all the benefits the greatest one for me is that it makes me Slow…. Down….  I have always been someone that wrongly over-stuffs my life with too many things.  However, the addition of coffee allows me to stew on the important matters in my life as I wait for the boiling hot coffee to cool down to the optimum taste.  I like it just a touch beyond hot.  Because I drink it at relatively the same times each day I have this built in respite to my schedule.   Looking back I never realized how I would like coffee.  Through coffee I have met so many people both regionally and internationally.Curtis Brink