Dear coffee lovers
To be honest, coffee and I, it wasn't love at first sight. It wasn't until I was 30 that I started drinking it (but not enjoying it). I only drank coffee to stay awake during night shifts. That changed when I moved to Warsaw and discovered specialty coffees for the first time. These coffees are among the best coffees in the world and are characterized by the highest quality. The distinct flavors, sweetness and mouthfeel blew me away when I tried my first Colombian Geisha. This was the beginning of a journey where I got to know different types of coffee from different parts of the world.
Finally, I dreamed of having my own coffee brand to get the most out of the best coffees. I traveled to Ethiopia, the motherland of coffee, and visited coffee producers along the entire value chain. It was an eye-opening experience and it was great to see the positive impact direct trade can have on the lives of farmers and pickers. Through direct relationships, more money reaches the farmers and that is what we all want.
But what happens after cultivation? Virtually all coffee in the world leaves the producing country as raw material and is roasted in the consuming countries. The value of coffee increases unevenly or in short: money is made where we drink coffee and not where coffee is produced. As a result, 90% of coffee producing countries still rely on financial support, even though coffee is one of the most traded agricultural products in the world.
I started to ask myself: Do we really need another micro roastery? I doubted this would have a measurable impact. But I was sure there was a need for another coffee brand that focused on the coffee chain's fundamental problems: colonialism and inequality.
In my opinion, the coffee should be roasted in the countries of origin because trading real products instead of raw materials leaves more money in the poorest countries like Ethiopia. In a further step, new jobs and even new industries would be created along the entire value chain. This is our theory of change: combat extreme poverty by giving work to people who sometimes don't even have the chance to work as farmers.
That's why I founded Coffee Annan. I wanted to give consumers the opportunity to buy selected coffee specialties directly from producers and thus help developing countries to finally be self-sufficient with their own natural resources.
Be part of the “Roasted-at-Origin” movement. Be Annan.
