Hey, we’re famous. Andrew Ruben, founder of Blue State Coffee, has a piece over at HuffPo about doing business with coffee suppliers whose practices comport with the progressive values espoused by the company. He opens with a discussion of the potted coffee plant kept on the counter in the Thayer Street shop, a plant I have been known to water from time to time. (Disclosure: I am an employee at Blue State Coffee. The Alex mentioned in the story is our manager, Alex Payson. Benjamin runs the New Haven shop.)
In February, two Blue State Coffee managers traveled to Costa Rica and Colombia to meet the men and women who grow, pick, sort and ship the coffees that we serve to our customers every day. . . In Colombia, at the Mesa de los Santos Farm, Benjamin and Alex observed firsthand the intricate process of picking coffee cherries. In an hour of picking, they collected just one tenth of what a seasoned picker could.
Maybe they were just . . . pickier. It’s actually kind of nice working in a place where all this matters, even if they work me like a rented mule. Kidding! Plus, it’s really good coffee.