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Congratulations! As a brain injury researcher, it's great to see someone who has made excellent progress on their recovery. Too often have I had to look at the scans of patients who have had seemingly minor TBIs only to have major loss in functioning with no chance at recovery - I'm glad to know that, despite the odds, you've made it back to functioning daily. I've nothing much to ask, but would just like to say, "Cheers!"

Can you recount your recovery and rehabilitation? I'm focusing on new neurorehabilitation methods and I'd love to hear your story!

Hello! I hope you're still responding to questions as I'd love to know a bit more about what you do. I co-founded a roastery based in Southern California, and one of the big interests for me is sourcing. I'm fascinated by the work that goes into it and we're so fortunate to be able to buy coffee from our friends, and involve them in projects that we're excited about. So what I want to know from you, as an American producer is this:

What is the future of American coffee production? Where do you feel it will be headed, and how will you create a sustainable situation for yourself?

I ask because one of the big things stopping Hawaiian coffee (and a lot of coffee around the world) from getting big, in my opinion, is cost. We're fortunate to have some of the coffees that we have, that are (relatively) expensive but go a long way towards helping the people who produce it. But American coffee, due to labor and agriculture regulations, will never be that cheap. That makes it a challenge for you, as a producer, to get the attention of roasters, because the opportunity just isn't there (so many people I know roast Panama geisha lots and are very fortunate to barely break even on them).

So I'd love to hear the thoughts on that. Is it a huge goal for you to turn it into a massive growing operation? Or do you like where you are, and don't plan on making it bigger? And if so, how do you create a sustainable situation that allows you to maintain that with the creeping popularity of coffee elsewhere?

Thanks! Looking forward to (hopefully) hearing your thoughts!

Hello, and thank you for your thorough and insightful response! It's wonderful to know that you have a great understanding of your market, and your end goal.

So to clarify, by American coffee production, you mean American coffee growing right? Coffee is really only grown in Hawaii (although I did hear that UC Davis is trying to do some test trees) which makes it a little easier to sum-up.

There's actually a farm just north of us in Santa Barbara that is growing! It's also cool to know that UCD is trying to test as well. I think the hard part is that due to the climate here (neither Santa Barbara nor Davis are particularly humid relative to other coffee growing nations, and the frost point isn't low enough that the comparative altitude doesn't make for much of a similar growing situation as like...2000masl in Kenya), so the coffee...tastes like low altitude coffee. I'd love to try to roast some of their coffee though, to see what's up, only problem is that we can't afford it.

I have had roasters say to me "why do you think your coffee is worth 4x and much a ___ coffee when it isn't 4x as good?" And really that is a hard question to answer because it isn't "worth" more unless you place value on your coffee being produced with (more than) fair labor conditions and in compliance with real environmental laws. It's a hard road to convince someone to care about something they don't care about and it really comes off "preachy" which I hate.

This is tricky on our end too! The thing is...as we have the direct line to consumers and wholesale accounts, we have to explain to them why the coffee is expensive. And while we've been able to do that, we still get a bit of pushback (we spend a lot for our coffee, so our wholesale costs might not be easily as approachable). The thing is, if we are having trouble making an argument from a price perspective despite the fact that we source from dry mills in Africa that provide some of the only opportunities for employment for women in the area, it's going to be a lot harder for us to make the argument that even more expensive coffee is also worth it. So it's one thing that someone like me sees the value in paying a lot for coffees that really do a lot to bring opportunity to the people that grow and process it, but it's another for me to create a sustainable business plan off of it (because even if it just represents one part of our entire product offering, it's still money and effort). It's hard, for sure, but I totally empathize with where you're coming from!

However, what I would really like to see (and this is where roasters come in) is an overhaul in coffee consumer education. I want people to understand (especially roasters!!) that our coffee is expensive not because we just think it is worth more but because it costs more to produce.

I completely agree with you that a consumer education effort is huge, and absolutely necessary, because so many consumers are blasted with information and farm names just become farm names. One of the things we wanted to prioritize, and to educate on, is the story of our coffees, and the real people behind them, but consumers just aren't interested yet (though we're trying). Once consumers understand the effort that goes into producing the coffee, we hope that our prices will be more justifiable (because specialty coffee tends to be expensive, but what people don't see is the slim margins on both the producer and roaster end).

I want to be clear though that I don't see other origins as our competition because I feel like there is a ton of market share for all of the great coffee from around the world. Our competition is starbucks, dunkin, k cups, shit grocery store coffee etc. and I hope to eat away at a (admittedly very small) part of their customer base just through consumer education. Which is actually part of the reason I did this AMA.

What I mean is that for a roaster, we only have so much ability to take on so much coffee, and we want to have a well rounded selection of offerings but there are a lot of situations that make it difficult for us to pick up coffees from a lot of different locations that we'd otherwise love love LOVE to work with. You may get a roaster who looks at coffee and says, "At that price, I'd rather get something from PNG" because...(and I hesitate to say this but I feel like it might be true) some of them only care about rounding out their offerings. But I guess that's why it's up to you to vet your roasters and choose the ones who really want to focus on sharing your story and product at a price that is fair to you, and hopefully you can get a sustainable relationship from that!

I think the craft beer industry is a good example - for years and years there has been room in the market for more and more craft breweries and those craft breweries were barely competing with eachother. They were taking away business from bud light, but not from each other. Now days there is SO MUCH great beer that breweries are starting and failing all the time, and only the good ones are succeeding. But coffee isnt there yet. Third wave coffee is still on the rise, we haven't reached that over-saturation point (not even close I think). But I am not an economist or anything - that is just my opinion based on totally anecdotal evidence

I hope this is the case. I think a lot about coffee and then I meet people who are into specialty coffee but aren't as into it as I am, and I suddenly realize that it's a very deep pond with not a lot of people who are on the deepest end - we just feel that way here (cause there's a LOT of roasters and shops in Southern California) because we see each other and hang out so much that it just feels that specialty coffee is everywhere.

Out of curiosity, what is the total production / acre that you guys are at right now? And what varietals do you guys have going on?

I had no idea about that! Cool! I haven't tried the CA coffee and I don't think it is likely to be that good just based on climate. But I think more people doing coffee research (especially in the US) will only be good for me. So the more the merrier.

I haven't either, but I know I can buy 12oz roasted for $60. That's more expensive than Santa Teresa geisha! Some of my friends have tried it though. If you're ever around, check it out at Good Land Organics.

That said, the roasters we do work with have found that they can work our coffee into their business plan when they don't buy that much. We sell our green by the pound, not by the 100lb bag, so that roasters can buy the exact amount that will fit in their business.

That's a great model you have - we're buying 60kg bags and obviously at the price of Kona that would be through the roof, but I understand why a lot of importers will only sell in the full bag (or a super expensive broken bag per pound cost). I think for home roasters it's great, and maybe for the roaster shop, you could do small lots by the pound. The trouble is, I have a friend who bought some Perci Geisha from NinetyPlus and was only selling it through his shop and had to sell it at $8-10 a cup just to break even. And STILL didn't manage to do that. I think that's the hard thing is that people will pay that much for beer but not for coffee (personal preferences aside, I think it's kind of ridiculous that the market has determined that one is worth that much and the other isn't). It is what it is. I paid a lot for a pour over of some Elida honey process microlot the other day and I thought it was worth it.

So I guess what I am saying is that if a roaster wants a Hawaiian coffee, there is a way to sell it, but it doesn't fit in with every business model and that is okay.

100% agree - I think for me, since this is my first venture into the coffee industry (cofounder and I were/are in biotech/pharma/healthcare), it's great for me to see each corner of the coffee industry. For me, our goal is to get as big as we can - we started with the intention of buying from small farms because El Injerto doesn't need my help, but Finca Chichen et al just might benefit from us, so it's big for us to try to buy as much as we can as the farms benefit if they can move a greater amount of their coffee. I have a friend who is a producer in Thailand, and I'd love to buy his entire production, but he doesn't even produce enough to export a bag, let alone allow his whole production to come to the states. But I know that if we can, he'd get a LOT more per pound than he is getting keeping it all in Thailand, and it would go a long way towards bringing his people economic stability. But at the same time, it's not everybody's goal to get super huge and buy containers at a time - some people don't want to get that big, and some people can't (simply because of space restrictions), and that's all 100% fine. I'm learning that not everybody has the same aspirations that I do!

I think this leads me to an interesting point - given that in the States, we have to pay fair wages, so in terms of worker economic stability, you're more than able to provide it (people aren't working for a couple of bucks a day like they are in Guatemala) to a certain extent. So as a producer, what's the next step you'd love to provide for your workers? I know you keep a small team, so you run it like a small business. I look at farms like Finca Santa Felisa in Acatenango, Guatemala, and they do great things like providing schooling, daycare, and all that stuff that their city wouldn't normally provide, but in Hawaii, you can go to public schools and community oriented health facilities and all that and it works out okay. So as a business owner who wants to run a sustainable but well-meaning operation, what's the next step in terms of your growth and what you can provide to your pickers?

Haha I never feel like that living here. The line is sometimes around the block at starbucks and we have locally grown coffee in tons of independent coffee shops. I don't think we (my farm) needs to target the "deepest end of the pond" so to speak of coffee consumers.

Have you spoken to Miguel Meza (Paradise Coffee Roasters)? Super cool guy and a friend of mine. I think he probably represents a lot of the specialty coffee on the island, volume wise, and would be a SUPER cool person to chat with (PM me and I'll send you my email and make the intro if you'd like). Over here, we still have Starbucks with long lines, but I was just at Birdrock in San Diego on Saturday and they have FIVE group heads and NINE grinders that they fully utilize. It's very much alive and well on both ends, but there's definitely a lot more Starbucks with long lines than there are specialty roasters with five group heads!

I think most farms don't want to target that deepest end of the pond because to most people in the pond, there's a lot of whimsy about coffee farms, and that's cool, but the roasters definitely want to try to transition people towards that end. To me at least, that end is where you get people who are interested in the story, and I'm hoping that if we can get more people there, they'll really appreciate all the stuff you guys are doing on your farm.

Then when it is all graded out we will have about 3,400lbs of sale-able green (some of it is too low of a grade to sell and we either drink it ourselves or if it is really bad compost it). Of that our goal is to sell about half of that in green and the other half as roasted. We have sold about half of our green goal already for the season and we haven't even finished our last pick which is great!

So just about 20-25 of the 60kg bags then, that's pretty awesome. Some of the microlots we've purchased from are even smaller than that (hell, I tried to get my hands on a 1 bag lot but to no avail). Have you guys considered messing around with other varietals? I know Good Land is working with Caturra, but I'm wondering if your decision to work with Kona / Kona hybrids is just to make sure you can use the Kona label (I know you're rocking 100% Kona which is pretty cool) but I'm curious as to what a Kona-region Caturra or Catuai or Typica or Bourbon might taste like.

Though, I think that from an opportunity standpoint, those aren't nearly as marketable and wouldn't be worth your time, probably. It's all about balancing it out, isn't it?