One Line Coffee

it was the beginning of 2009. we (mark and dave, father and son, friends and partners) had been running two successful cafes for a few years, the first of which we opened in 2003 on a shoestring and a promise. but something was missing. catching a quick break one busy morning, i looked at our “today’s coffees” sign, and wondered: who grew these coffees? where did they come from? community had always been one of our core values. but we began to realize that community meant not only our customers, friends, and family, but our coffee community as well: farmers, importers, advocacy groups, other roasters and cafes, and more. we decided we’d been ignoring one particular member of this community for far too long. let me tell you, it was the beginning of a long journey. trying to figure out who grew our coffees lead to dead end after dead end. no one had the information we were looking for, or weren’t willing to share. for some coffees, we couldn’t figure out what country they were grown in, let alone the farmer or farmers responsible. after much searching and frustration, we decided to take matters into our own hands. we fired up our first roaster in July 2009. with that, we started one line coffee. better coffee means a lot of different things to different people. to us it means flavor and quality, sustainability, and traceability. it means doing everything we can to ensure farmers and workers are treated well, and earn a livable wage. it means telling the stories of our coffees, connecting you to our farmers. and it means matching the passion of our farmers with our own passion for roasting. every day, we work towards this transparent model of sourcing, traveling to origin as often as possible to find coffees, monitor farms and workers, and learn the stories of the people who grow our coffee. by buying and brewing our coffees, you help us move a little closer to that goal.