Creation of Those Coffee People
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In the summer of 2017 Those Coffee People Founders Jennifer and Andres met during a “bucket list” trip to Peru. In the south of the country sits a small desert oasis called Huacachina, a famous little village outside the town of Ica. One chilly morning, Jennifer went out to take breakfast in the boutique hotel she was staying in and found Andres on the hotel patio enjoying a coffee. The patio was crowded so Jennifer went and took a seat at the open chair next to Andres and conversation quickly started. Standard traveler’s questions like “where are you from?” and “where are you going?” lead them to realize their paths were going to be crossing for the following week as they had the same travel plans from Huacachina to Cusco.
When traveling on your own, you quickly find that it is easy to bond with other travelers, and for Jennifer and Andres that was no exception. They quickly found that even though they came from different cultures and spoke different native languages, they both had a similar love for adventure, discovery, travel, and coffee. They traveled together from Huacachina to Cusco and continued to build an unlikely friendship through a shared experience of discovering Peru.
One evening in Cusco they were speaking about their travel plans after Peru. Andres was headed back to Medellin, Colombia, and Jennifer had tentative plans to head south into Bolivia. Not restricted by any actual travel bookings or reservations, Andres saw this as a prime moment to share some of the enticing points of going to visit his city. As a proud Paisa (a person from Antioquia state in Colombia), he quickly started pitching to Jennifer on how wonderful Medellin and the surrounding areas was, how unique and interesting the local coffee culture is. Jennifer had only heard about Medellin from Narco’s and didn’t have any motivation to make the trip there on her own, but after hearing out a persuasive pitch by Andres she decided to swap her plans of going to Bolivia to head north and discover the city of Medellin.
Arriving into the airport in Rionegro, a town on the outskirts of the city, her perception of Medellin was instantly turned onto its head. Dramatic mountainous landscapes with lush green vegetation spanned as far as the eye could see. As they drove from the airport into the city, the green didn’t stop in the normal way it does when entering a main city, but on the contrary buildings seemed to naturally embed themselves into the landscape in a beautiful combination of modern day metropolis and pristine beauty. It was no contest- Medellin was everything a coffee loving young adventurer could ask for.
It was no contest- Medellin was everything a coffee loving adventurer could ask for.
The next week followed with many visits to Medellin’s huge variety of cafes. Andres shared stories on the production side of the coffee supply chain through his family’s experiences and Jennifer shared unique stories of how she discovered people are changing the way they drink coffee across the globe. They agreed there was a huge paradigm shift happening in coffee consumption, but less developments happening on the production and supply chain side. Customers are now undoubtedly interested in learning about the story behind their coffee, direct trade is being seen as highly valuable, and average customers are starting to be conscious about specialty coffee. In this exact moment, the idea for Those Coffee People was born- a company that focused on establishing direct trade Colombian coffee around the world to align with the third wave of specialty coffee consumption!
Long story short, what happened in the summer of 2017 was the perfect storm where serendipity and opportunity collided and the idea for Those Coffee People was born.
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Editor’s note: This post was originally posted on May 2018 and has been updated for freshness, accuracy, and comprehensiveness.