Fresh Cup Magazine, providing specialty coffee and tea professionals with unique insight into the trends, ideas, products and people that shape their world.
Issue link: http://freshcup.epubxp.com/i/71652
OFF THE WIRE continued from page 21 change that we're worried about in coffee," Schilling says. Now that the plants have been located and genetic testing has commenced, a long process begins. After the trip this fall, an eval- uation plot will be set up in South Sudan and seeds will be sent to several research facilities for testing, as well as to origins like Ethiopia and Kenya to see how they fare under close watch. "Then it'll take us three, four, maybe five years until we get flowers so that we can assess the plants for their potential, their quality and other traits," says Schilling. From there, further tests will cross- check and evaluate the generations of plants the seeds produce. "It's going to take about five years just to confirm that we have something, and that something can and is being transferred over to cultivated species," says Schilling. "It'll probably take around 10 or 15 years before we actually have a variety to offer to a grower That's a lot of 'ifs.'" Though it may take more than a decade until the recent dis- coveries have a tangible effect on the industry, the potential for better coffee production in a climate-change world has the team excited. "We're one step closer to all the possibilities we've been daydreaming about," says Bladyka. "It's true that there's still a lot to learn about the coffee, but I feel that documenting its location and the genetic profiles of the plants is a great success in itself." —Chris Ryan 'HAPPY' ROASTER CREATES JOBS, SENSE OF IDENTITY In the 14 years that Rachel Bloom has been working with developmentally disabled adults, she has seen a recurring theme: the instability of jobs for a community she says has an unem- ployment rate near 80 percent. "There's just a lot of turnover in general," she says. "They'll be in a job for six months or a year, and then they'll be laid off and have to find another job … and this goes on for years." Bloom is now part of a project geared toward changing this pattern. Last November she founded Happy Cup Coffee, a Portland-based roaster aimed at providing employment for the developmentally disabled. Adorned with the slogan "coffee with a heart," Happy Cup employs between 10 and 15 developmentally disabled people—depending on workload —who perform jobs such as weighing beans and stamping and labeling bags. Happy Cup donates 100 percent of its profits after taxes to similarly focused charities. The coffee company's genesis lies in Full Life, a vocational program for adults with developmental disabilities that aims to place people from that community in the job market. "Because of the economy, we were having trouble with that," says Bloom. "As a result, we were just looking for more work." Full Life decided to step into the world of coffee after Bloom met Trevin Miller, owner of Portland's Mr. Green Beans, a shop specializing in coffee equip- ment and green coffee for the home-roasting market. Miller had recently purchased a roaster and was looking for a place to install it; Bloom offered to house the roaster if Miller joined forces with Full Life, and the concept developed from there. Though Happy Cup is focused on providing jobs to an under- 22 Fresh Cup Magazine freshcup.com Though Happy Cup only launched in November, Bray says the company hopes to build on its current month-to-month growth by eventually expanding to markets beyond the Portland area. "I would love if this could go national, whether that meant all the production coming out of this one facility or opening multiple facilities that are impacting multiple communities," he says. And by growing, he says, Happy Cup would be able to push its mission of job creation even further. "I want this to get as big as it possibly can," he says. "The larger we get, the more jobs we can provide." —Chris Ryan served community, its model also stresses the purchase of high- quality, ethically traded coffee, and Miller has helped the com- pany achieve the quality goal. "He's been roasting and sourcing for us, so he's been pretty critical," says Adam Bray, Happy Cup's operations director. But Happy Cup's employees are the heart of the business, and Bray says it's gratifying to see them flourish with the company. "Every one of them has found a niche that they like, and so that's really nice to be able to task out their favorite activities," he says. "They're pretty autonomous now, which is a really positive thing to see." Bray says that sense of independence has been exciting for the workers. "It's really nice to hear, 'I'm going to make x amount of dollars this month, I can't wait to buy something with that or go to see 'The Avengers.''" PHOTOS COURTESY OF HAPPY CUP