WOC Reflection: Who planted this tree?

I’ve been thinking quite a bit about healthy forests.

Now, what in the pomelo am I talking about and what’s it got to do with World of Coffee (WOC)? Just hang with me and we’ll get somewhere together.

See, healthy forests have a diverse tapestry of flora and fauna. There’s a mix of tiny new shoots popping through the soil, saplings, yearlings, and trees older than the two of us combined and multiplied by 3. The point is, we often are distracted by shiny new things that spring up out of nowhere and capture our industry’s awareness in a moment. But did they really just spring up out of nowhere?

No. There were trees that grew there generations before the new growth of today. In fact, some trees, plants and other bits of nature died right where they stand to prime that very ground to host new life. See, we’re all sitting in the shade of trees other folks planted and it’s important we remember that in coffee. Moreover, for those of us who might be more “mature”, it’s important to invite the next generation of leaders and owners to sit in the shade of the trees we’ve planted too.

Now, let’s make our way back to what this has to do with WOC.

A few weeks before WOC, Ben Carlson from Long Miles Coffee approached me to collaborate on an event during WOC. Besides shared values alignment on things like, sourcing, and generally wanting to support each other’s work, Ben used to be a client of mine back in the Lev Co design days (a story for another time).

Before deciding to cohost this event together, I shared a story with Ben about a cupping I went to in 2018 during Expo (we called WOC “Expo” back then). At this cupping, there were 10+ coffees on the table, roughly 60 people attended and at the end of the cupping, the hosts asked one crucial question to the attendees: “Without sharing the producer’s cost of production, how much would you pay per pound for the coffees on this table?”

One brave green buyer said they’d pay $2.50/lb (2018 was a different time for green coffee prices) for the first coffee on the table. To this, the hosts of the cupping replied by saying,

“The cost of production alone for that coffee was a $3/lb”

We moved on to the next coffee on the table, and the next one, until this ping pong stopped at the third coffee on the table. Every offer was at least a $0.50/lb below the cost of production. The tension was thick and the host, seeking to resolve it said, “Thanks for coming! Let’s drink wine.”

I love wine as much as the next guy, but I left feeling a problem was surfaced with no solutions conceptualized.

This tension is EXACTLY where we must create discourse, which leads to ideas, which leads to opportunity, and it might just lead a few brave leaders to try something out of the ordinary. Something crazy. Something that will probably fail…but if it works, could change our industry forever.

So, when Ben and I were discussing what we might do together, I told him that, “I’m IN! But we can’t just surface challenges…we have to put our brains together and try to surface solutions.”

The night of our event…

I estimated the group of 60 owners, leaders, green buyers, and roasters held roughly 400+ years of coffee experience and 2-3x that in professional experience outside of coffee. So we split these hundreds of years worth of learnings into groups of 3-4 people and gave them prompts. We asked them to discuss what they’ve learned about green coffee recently, what kinds of challenges they’ve been facing and how they’re seeking to overcome them.

The group that I sat with was a display of what a healthy forest could be.

There was an individual who was in their 26th year in coffee, me…on my 10th year, and another individual who was in their first year in coffee. The ego was checked at the door. We each asked about the other’s experiences and found our unique experiences gave us perspectives that we could all learn from.

Our collective problems as an industry are pretty well known, but the solutions are where we shrivel into our cocoons.

This is where we find ourselves lacking the ability to listen to outsiders. To listen to those who might have less experience than us, or perhaps the “wrong kind” of experience. Where we shut down because “the old guard” doesn’t care, and the kids don’t have enough of an attention span to listen. This is a two way street, and it would behoove us as an industry to do a little more listening to each other…we might just learn something incredible.

I’m not so deluded to think that I or Ben would be the ones to solve the price crisis in one night…but I also know that the 200 year old oak tree in my backyard started as a single acorn…just like your wildest idea.

So here’s the question: How are you caring for the forest you’re planted in?