Recently, a lot of people have been saying something along the line of, "Josh, I don't get it. What does the coffee have to do with nature?"
"Why so many pictures of mountains and trees? Are you a coffee company or an outdoors brand?"
"What does hiking have to do with coffee?"
In so many words, the overall theme has been general confusion as to who we are and what we do, outside of making good coffee and chasing sick views like this:


Or even this one:

The confusion around Foretold Coffee Co. is strictly on us and we take full responsibility, so we look to alleviate that confusion first with a question.
How Did These Pictures Make You Feel?
All answers are welcome. For us, when we look at these beautiful visuals the result is a sense of longing. The questions that come to mind are,
"Where is that? How did they get there? What's on the other side?"
A stirring of the heart makes itself known and this is the call to adventure. It's the questions and ideas that come to your spirit, that push you to act, even in times of hesitation and fear.
A gentle curiosity with a soft nudge towards the unknown.
The activity of hiking is symbolic to life in a lot of ways. This uphill battle in an unknown area, sometimes with friends and a lot of the time, alone. Eventually, the legs start to get sore, your waters running low and the sun is going down. What keeps you going? What pushes you, to push? As we all know, stubbornness, grit, and willpower are powerful motivators. We believe they will get you 75%-80% of the way, even in the worst conditions, but what about that last 20%-25%? Where does the strength to crush one more switchback come from, when all of your energy is all but used up? The answer, ironically enough, isn't in the moment when the challenge is at its highest. The answer is found in how you started.
In the U.S. alone, 62% which is approx. 160 million people, have one beverage everyday without fail, many of them in the morning. That beverage is...
COFFEE

Outside of the many health and performance benefits of coffee and caffeine (that we'll go over in a later blog), coffee has a unique place in our culture. We're seeing a revolution in the coffee industry which is called the FIFTH WAVE.
For reference, the Third Wave coffee experience was centered around specialty coffee shops focusing on sustainability, relationships with the coffee farmers and quality of roasting as a respectable craft. The difficulty for the average consumer though, was access. For a time, specialty coffee shops were the only holders of these coffees and, through no intent of their own, were responsible for the major themes of "snobbery"found in coffee culture today. Consumers soon learned how to access these coffees, with the help of these shops of course, but the uprise of social media can't be underestimated. Coffee influencers and hobbyist alike brought the Third Wave from the shops to their homes starting the FOURTH WAVE, where the major focus was using technology and science to bring the best out of whatever coffee a roaster can gain access to.
Still centered around home brewing, it goes without saying that the FIFTH WAVE of coffee is a beautiful accumulation of all lessons learned throughout the years of focused coffee industry growth. These advances, not just in technology but sustainability and ethical sourcing are obvious steps in the right direction towards a more ethical consumer experience, especially in an industry with such a complicated history as coffee, going back as far as the early 16th century.
Outside....OUTSIDE...of better sustainable practices and ethical sourcing, we at Foretold Coffee Co. believe we know a deep, dark secret that the coffee industry as a whole doesn't seem to want to come to terms with.
That when it comes to growing coffee technologies and sciences, whether your coffee is a blend or single origin, or it was brewed at 197 degrees or 200, most of the 62% of coffee drinkers in America...
DO NOT CARE
and that is okay.
Most people just want a coffee that tastes good and for it to be something they like as opposed to what they are supposed to want. Coffee has always been, not just a beverage, but an energy source, for the body, mind and spirit. Think about the last time you were really dragging. Did you wonder if the coffee you had was rated 80+ points by the SCA or if the brewing ratio was 1:16 or 1:17, probably not? The only thing you were concerned with was, "How did this coffee make me feel?"
Foretold Coffee Co. believes most Americans truly want their coffee experience to feel more like this:

Or this:

As opposed to this:

We want to take coffee back to the place when it was just good coffee.
WHEN COFFEE WAS FUEL FOR YOUR NEXT ADVENTURE
This doesn't mean sacrificing everything we've learned as coffee professionals. Brewing ratios, coffee origins and certifications have their place, but it allows us to focus on what's important and that's you. We will go into it more in later blogs, but we believe you can have it all. You can have a coffee that is specialty graded, ethically sourced, and artisanally roasted with the spirit of the adventurer in mind.
Adventure isn't always a mountain (although a great symbol for it) sometimes it's a new job, city or mindset. How you approach that call doesn't start at the 'mountain', but starts with your morning coffee. You want, even that cup, to represent not just who you are on this side of the mountain, but who you want to be on the other. As Washingtonians we love hiking and getting outside, we have access to the great outdoors which is symbolic to the nature of life itself. Our goal is to not just share beautiful visuals and a great cup of coffee with you, but a mindset that whatever your mountain is, from the first sip of Foretold Coffee we are fueling that adventurous spirit.
So with that when you look at these pictures, how do they make you feel?



Comments