Coffee Common is Dead, Long Live Coffee Common
Coffee Common was a reaction to confusion. We encountered struggles to decipher the sometimes noisy guidance on what coffee should, and could be. We struggled to reconcile those questions with our own advice and habits. At the same time, we recognized some common principles that we felt were core:
Sustainable practices at origin
Quality is established at origin
A duty to realize that coffee’s character in the roast
The importance of grinding and brewing fresh
The value of clean equipment
We wanted more discerning customers, and an industry more determined to serve them. We found ourselves saying the same thing, and thought it might be more powerful to say it together. A year and a half and five events later we feel like we’ve moved some of these discussions from back rooms to the public square. We’ve fostered a safe place to ask questions, and have seen the impact of better informed customers. We challenged people to look at coffee a little differently and have been inspired by their reactions. Coffee Common has grown to levels we never imagined at its inception, more successful than we’d ever hoped. It was never intended to be a full-time project for any of us, but it became that for all of us. That level of commitment produced some amazing results that we will always be proud of, but realistically isn’t sustainable for 7 already very busy people without changing the focus from education and experimentation to profitability and commercialization. That’s not the future we wanted for Coffee Common, and thus have decided to close this chapter of our collective coffee experience. It’s our sincere hope that the ideas that orbited Coffee Common continue to inspire others both inside and outside of the coffee industry and to encourage people to tap in and explore their own curiosity for coffee.
