Nema, the tour guide began by explaining that the founder of Campesino Coffee Co. had been a Habitat for Humanity volunteer in some South American country. He had wanted to chop down a coffee tree to build a house for this farmer, but the farmer had too much need for the income the tree provided for that. They had gotten to talking, and the guy had realized that the farmer was getting almost nothing for his cherries, despite doing an enormous amount of work and taking a lot of risk for the crop. He realized that something like 98% of the price of a cup of coffee went into the hands of middle men. He decided to found a coffee company that paid a fair price to the farmer and sold a good coffee. Many years later Campesino Coffee Co. buys, roasts, and sells several hundred thousand pounds of coffee a year. True to the mission, they pay a fair price for the organic fair trade beans they buy.

  

There were lots of big bags of green beans in the next room. She showed us what they look like when Campesino Coffee Co. buys them.

     

The thing on a  white framed cart vacuums green beans out of the bags and weighs the batch. It is then put into the roaster and cooked. They cook different roasts different amounts of time. Lighter roasts generally have more caffeine, whereas dark roasts tend to have more complex flavors.

     

After the coffee is roasted signature blends are made by mixing cooked beans according to recipes. Then it is bagged up and shipped out as orders dictate.

Once a week they stand around the table with the lazy susan trying new batches the buyers have bought and blends that the staff has come up with. Interesting new blends get on the menu in the coffee shop for customer testing. .852 .