Coffee & Compassion in Tandem
With each small step, we have been blessed in all sorts of surprising ways to allow us to be where we are now. From people helping us buy our first coffee roaster and training us to roast for free to becoming friends with one of the top Nicaraguan coffee producers and having customers all over the USA, we could not have imagined a more amazing journey.
Our Mission
Our mission is to responsibly source exceptional coffee, roast it to perfection, and then do our part to help build more sustainable lives for people in the nations from which we source our coffee.
The primary way we do this is to create as much economic impact as we can by paying prices for our coffee that are well above market price. The price of 50% or more of our coffees is set through conversations with producers so that we know exactly how much money they received when it is all said and done.
Secondarily, we have endeavored to invest 20% of our net profit annually back into works of compassion. We partner primarily with The Mercy Kids who are helping children and families experiencing disability in Nicaragua. We also partner with Compassion International in Nicaragua and Rwanda as well as Kenya Kids Can in Kenya.
Through our partnership with Crossroads Church and Pastor Luis Alberto Balladarez, we have been blessed to help build a Compassion International Child Development Center in Ocotal, Nicaragua. Presently 250 children and their families are receiving sponsorship through that center.
We want to connect the people who are drinking our coffee with the people and communities who worked so hard to get that coffee into our coffee-loving hands.
The way we see it, spending money on specialty coffee is already in your budget—you reading this is proof of that! I invite you to be a part of the story. Why not turn those purchases into a way to both drink fantastic coffee AND also help someone else?
Some call it conscious consumerism, shopping your conscience, or just plain old giving back. We like to call it Coffee & Compassion in Tandem.
Wait, wait…So Why the Tandem Bike?
We often get asked, "Why is there a tandem bike in your logo?" Well, for Emily and I, riding a vintage tandem bike was something we enjoyed together from the earliest days of our relationship. So when we got the idea to start a coffee roasting company that would leverage people's love of coffee to fund works of compassion in coffee producing communities, Emily naturally saw the bike as an icon that symbolizes that idea.
With this in mind, we had our talented designer friend Daniel Armstrong illustrate a unique vintage tandem bike for use in our logo, and Coffee & Compassion in Tandem was born!