Street Roots • July 27-Aug. 2, 2018
Page 3
Opinion
A rich story lies behind every bean of Street Roast
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A È Ahere are many beginnings to the story of Street
D
Kaia Sand is the
executive director o f
Street Roots. You can
reach her at
kaia@streeiroots.org.
Follow her on
Twitter @mkaiasand
Roast coffee, but one story starts on a Central
JL Valley, Calif, farm in the 1980s where the
Gleason sisters, Joey and Cassy, would pile in with
seven cousins every summer.
“This is where the story gets deep,” said Cassy,
laughing. “It was a rite of passage for all the cousins.”
The farm was started by their great-grandfather, Opal
Fry«
The sisters began by plucking
dirt
clods and rocks from the belt
I R E C T O R 'S
on a tomato harvester. As they
D ESK
grew older, they drove the
By Kaia Sand
tractor.
“It was a lot of responsibility,” '
said Cassy. “It was hard work”
Joey added, to which Cassy said,
“Very hard work? That’s how they talk together:
layering sentences without interrupting each other,
populating the same paragraph.
“Cassy and I understand how hard the work on a
farm is. And the hardship of a farmer too. It’s
precarious.”
Which fast-forwards us to another possible beginning
to the story of Street Roast - that day several years ago
when a man walked in the door of a cafe where Joey
was working and told her about his family’s Salvadoran
coffee farm, explaining how direct trade helps the
grower. Joey became intrigued.by this relationship: she
could support ecologically sound farming conditions, get
more money into the hands of the farmer, and produce
high-quality, artisan coffee.
“When you go to purchase a bag of coffee, you just
see a shelf-full of coffee,” explains Joey. “But it makes
such a difference to the farmer who is thousandsof
Street Roots
211 NW Davis St.
Portland, O R 97 20 9
503-2 2 8 -5 6 5 7
Fax:503-227-3117
www.streetroots.org
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Andrew Hogan atandrew@streetroots.org
Staff
Executive D irector Kaia Sand
P H O T O C O U R T E S Y O F M A R IG O L D COFFEE
M arigold Coffee's Joey Gleason a t the B u ckm a n Coffee
Factory where Street Roast is roasted.
Executive Editor Joanne Zuhl
K
joanne@streetroots.org
Vender Program Director Cote Merkel
When several members of F m caC h u ru p am p a visited
miles away on anóffiéf part o? earth. If you T>uy this
Buclurian Coffee Factory laßt fall, tfigy expressed joy
coffee off the shelf, you are directly impacting this one
family who is trying to rock their heritage, and support
all their workers.”
This launched Joey - and soon, Cassy, who moved
back from New York to join her - on the. business of
buying coffee beans directly from farmers and
cooperatives to then roast and blend as Marigold
Coffee. Together they run Marigold Coffee and
Buckman Coffee Factory out of Southeast Portland^
where they roast Street Roast.
Marigold created Street Roast after they were
approached last fall by Seth Walker of Curate.org, and
Jeremy Ehn and Brenden Schild with Ideaville, who
focus their marketing and branding skills on creating
greater good in the community.
“We created a line of coffees that would benefit the
community but that would also be a delicious product
we are completely proud of on its own,” explained
Cassy. “Street Roast is every bit as good as our
Marigold line.”
Walker, Ehn, and Schild dreamed up the idea for
Street Roast as a way to bolster the Street Roots’
revenue stream, working with Oregon State University
design interns to design bags. Because Street Roots is
all about people - hundreds of Street Roots vendors
meeting thousands of customers - they based three
blends on lively drawings of characters, the Messenger,
the Artisan and the Poet.
And every one of these blends leads to more stories.
The Poet blend takes us to the Andes mountains of
Northern Peru where the coffee is harvested by Finca
Churupampa, a family business that began with four
family members and grew to 215 producers. In a region
where generations have farmed, Finca Churupampa is
sustaining the coffee tradition with ecologically minded
practices, creating an organic fertilizer with a
composted byproduct of the coffee fruit, and working
with a university in Lima to create a slow release
fertilizer. They don’t want coffee to just be a cash crop:
they are striving for healthy forests, healthy soil, and
th attheir beans ultimately support Portlanders
experiencing poverty and homeless.
“It is nice that we are helping producers in Peru and
Street Roots is helping people in the neighborhoods,”
said Lenin Tocto, general manager of Finca
Churupampa, holding a copy of Street Roots.
So when you buy Street Roast coffee, you are
connecting to all of this - two sisters who transformed
their family farming background into a local artisan
coffee enterprise that supports other coffee roasters in
their cooperative space. Generations of Peruvian
farmers who take care of their mountainous land - and
each other.
And you are connecting to all the Street Roots
vendors who are getting a hand-up from homelessness
and poverty by selling the newspaper.
Because this is how it breaks down: All the profits go
to Street Roots - $3.33 of every pound. And every
other cent? It goes to the farmers in Peru and Ethiopia
and Guatemala who grow the coffee for the three
blends; and to the workers at the woman-owned, local
Marigold, who roast and package the coffee.
So how do you support Street Roast? Buy it as your
daily coffee and as gifts when you travel. Order it as
your office coffee. It’s now in Powell’s Bookstore on
Burnside as well as on Hawthorne in the Home and
Garden store; in New Seasons all around the city; in
several Market of Choice locations; in Green Zebra
locations on SW Broadway and North Lombard; and at
Cherry Sprout Produce. Order it online at streetroast.
com. If you have more locations - or if your
organization would like to place a standing order - let
us know. Follow us on instagram at @StreetRoast for
the latest news - including, soon, a cold brew recipe
designed especially for Street Roast And watch for
another big announcement about Street Roast soon.
Buying Street Roast is one more way to sustain
Street Roots - as well as a local coffee company and
coffee farmers around the world. And it’s really, really
good coffee.
good jobs.
Write!»
coìe@sftéetroò<org '
'
Development Director Andrew ^ogan
andrew@streetroots.org
Senior S ta ff Reporter Emily Green
Program A ssistant Caelin Miltko, Je su it.
Volunteer
Vender A ssistant Scott Jackson, Alex
Gillow-Wiles
Development A ssistant Rosemary Wilson
Editoria) Producer Monica Kwasnik
Reporters Sarah Hansell, Leonora Ko, Emilly
Prado, Ellena Rosenthal, Amanda Waldroupe,
DeVon Pouncey, Helen Hill
Photographers Diego Diaz, Arkady Brown,
Celeste Noche
Canvasser Desmond Hardison
Board of Directors
C h a ir Rachel Langford
Vice-Chair Dan Jones
Treasu rer Heather Stadick
Secretary Alison Hallett
D irectors Michael Anderson, Sandra Hahn,
John Brown, Nels Johnson
Volunteers
John Barker, Stacey Heath, Anjali Rathore, Dennis
Hogan, Lucas Hawthorne, Thomas Buell Jr., Jason
Cohen, Doug Spangle, Susannah Kamala, Jon
Raymond, Diana Richardson, Paul and Madeline
Gefroh, Mary Anne Joyce, Brooke Anderson, Gillian
Horen, Mark Oldani, Bianca Butler, Camber Hansen-
Karr, Miranda Woods, Henry Brannan, Helen Hill,
Mary Emerson, Brooke Anderson, Kathleen McFall,
Robb Hengerer, Maile Yeats-Rowe, Erin Parsons, Faye
Powell, Jon Raymond, Danny Moran and Megan
Pickerel-Winer. If you're interested in volunteering
with Street Roots, please submit a volunteer
application at streetroots.org/volunteer. Or you can
call for more information at 503-228-5657.