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We're great admirers of Grounds for Health, whose mission to provide cervical cancer screening in developing countries—specifically in remote coffee-growing regions—has made a dramatic impact on women's lives. In honor of Cervical Cancer Awareness Month, we are excited to introduce you to the great work they are doing for women's reproductive health in the coffeelands.Our Director of Roasting and founder of the Women in Coffee Project, Amaris Gutierrez-Ray, had the opportunity to interview Ellen Starr MSN, WHNP, Grounds for Health's Executive Director. A Nurse Practitioner, Ellen started at the nonprofit as a clinical volunteer, while she practiced at Planned Parenthood of Northern New England. In 2018, she became Grounds for Health's Executive Director.A special thank you to Amaris and the Women in Coffee Project for allowing us to re-post this interview!But first, a short historyIn 1996, coffee executive Dan Cox and his friend the late Dr. Francis Fote were visiting coffee cooperatives in Mexico. They learned that cervical cancer rates there were some of the highest in the world. Dr. Fote, an OB/Gyn, knew quite well that cervical cancer is preventable and—when caught early—one of the most treatable forms of cancer. They took action, and Grounds for Health was born.These days, Grounds for Health focuses their work in Ethiopia and Kenya, where they reach women who live and farm in some of the world's finest, and most under-served, coffee growing regions. To date Grounds for Health programs have resulted in 114,833 women screened, 9,355 women treated, as well as providing clinical training for more than 400 healthcare providers.We are incredibly proud to support the work of Grounds for Health through our supply chain partner, Caravela Coffee. Through our purchasing, we have contributed funds which have helped train health workers and provide screenings to over 375 women in the Sidama zone of Ethiopia in the past two years (saving approximately 40 lives through early detection) and we look forward to growing this support more and more in the future.[caption id="attachment_29715" align="alignnone" width="640"] Ellen Starr (left) greeting Grounds for Health Clinical Specialist Aster Tilahun.[/caption]A: Let’s jump right in! Grounds for Health is currently operating in Ethiopia and Kenya, though in the past you all have worked in Mexico, Nicaragua, Peru, and Tanzania. What have you had to adapt to or change as you have grown? How do you manage that? E: Grounds for Health (GfH) has been around since 1996, and over these years our approach to how we do things has evolved, in step with changes in cervical cancer prevention and the areas we serve. But our focus has always been on reaching women in very remote, coffee growing regions. There is a real commonality no matter what country we are in, to meeting the needs of women and their communities. From an equity perspective—as we all know—even in our country, women don’t all have equal access to quality health care. Women are such key players in their families, communities, churches, and make up a large percentage of the workforce at the beginning of the coffee supply stream. They have long days! When women get sick or die, it has an outsized impact, and this is consistent everywhere. What we have found to be different, as we work in different places, is language, culture, and the support from Ministries of Health. But always the fundamental goal in any country is to reach the women at the end of the road. A: It is hard to be a nonprofit, as the organization needs so much structural support, not just financial? I’m interested in how that changes. How big of a difference do you see in how medical communities receive and support you in different countries? E: Very different! Our approach is to screen-and-treat for cervical pre-cancer in one visit, and we know that this works in low resourced areas. We have good relationships with Ministries of Health. A lot is culturally based and financial-based. The Ministries of Health play different roles in decision making about when and how cervical prevention training happens. If a country is interested in what we offer, and also really wants autonomy with medical protocols, we have said absolutely yes...and then make sure the partnerships are really strong. Over the years, we have received a high level of respect for our work, and out of this respectful relationship, we have been ultimately successful introducing new technologies and approaches to women’s care. But if they are stuck on one way of doing things—that we know will not result in an adequate number of women receiving treatment when needed—we can’t really go forward. For instance, a country might be really interested in a PAP based “western” system (that actually isn’t perfect even in a high income country). The country might be unwilling to acknowledge that Pap is not feasible without well-trained pathologists in significant numbers, and strong transportation and communication channels so women can get results and return for treatment. Without all of these elements in place the whole thing would fall apart. So this would actually require a great deal of additional investment, which they can’t do. We are very tuned into these nuances of community readiness, and our first step is always to form strong partnerships. This is another way GfH is unique; we work within the public health system. We develop programs that can be implemented in existing models. This means we can help women out in the middle of nowhere because there is almost always some dispensary or health center out there that we can reach. And the medical teams our staff train and support are salaried by their government, so there is a stable foundation for impact.[caption id="attachment_29710" align="alignnone" width="1280"] This is a typical scene at a clinic where women are registered and waiting for their screening.[/caption]A: Was it difficult to put together the single visit approach? Was it new? E: I’m not sure of the exact moment when the single visit approach came about, but it was a critical component of our work from the beginning. It did take some time for other health organizations to get on board. Some people were more interested in introducing new technologies; but if you don’t treat on the same day, why bother? Again, it’s often difficult for a woman to come back to receive her needed treatment, in these remote communities. It’s almost unethical to tell her she has a positive result then not be able to ensure treatment. Same-day screening and treatment are not always easy, but as long as we keep it as the highest priority when we implement programs, we can always make it happen. The method we focus on and stand by, are our “campaign” models. Our staff set up 2-3 day campaigns, and begin by connecting with Community Health Promoters we have already trained. These dedicated people engage in community sensitization and education as well as the recruitment of women for the campaigns. Then we bring in all our equipment, set up a space with privacy walls (sometimes hung curtains) and women come in. Sometimes the coffee coops will help with outreach and transportation. We have found that women love to get away from their world for the day. Seeing images of women hanging out on the lawn with their babies while waiting for their turn is kind of wonderful. While we focus on how many women we can see (before dark) we ensure that they are getting the best female-focused care. We prioritize privacy, informed consent, and respectful care. On our best day we can see 120 women! Over three days you are seeing a lot of women in a short time. Our women-centered models are incredibly important to our success, as long as the underpinning values are held high. But we are nimble so we can change up the model if/as needed.[caption id="attachment_29711" align="alignnone" width="1280"] An Ethiopian health center employee is explaining the screening and treating procedure. Multi-day "campaigns" are a way of reaching lots of women, and offer an immersion experience for clinicians Grounds for Health trains.[/caption]A: I’ve heard from others that a lack of child care can prohibit access to healthcare, training, etc. Do you find it is common for coops to give support for transportation? Is it part of your intentionality to bring children? E: Training clinicians and health workers through campaigns (and ongoing clinical support) is what we do. Barriers for women to access these campaigns are many: time (away from work); childcare; family expectations; permission from their husbands (which is probably one of the hardest things for us in the US to fathom); transportation. The coop can really help with all of these. The coop can support, for instance, informational meetings with the men. Some coops only have the resources to talk us up. So, it varies. The women’s responsibilities in their communities are vast. Taking time for their own care is difficult.[caption id="attachment_29714" align="alignnone" width="1280"] Grounds for Health often sees women from multi generations, and children are welcome. GfH staff will watch young children while their mothers are being seen so women feel safe and comfortable.[/caption]A: Do you notice any psychological shifts? Sometimes women feel like they can’t take care of themselves. Health care feels like it is luxury rather than a need. E: Women, when they come in for health care, experience a person focusing on them and their health. They learn that they are worth the effort to ensure that they don’t die from something they may have seen female relatives die from. They come in fearful. Then they walk away from their screen-and-treat feeling empowered by the opportunity to take care of themselves and being supported by their communities to do that. A: It is harder to make those impacts visible… E: Yes, a lot of nonprofits are interested in gender equity and empowerment, but how do you actually talk about those impacts of empowerment? It can seem “soft” and it is not especially measurable…and people like measurables, like how many women we are able to treat in a day. A: There can be misunderstandings, even between spouses. That empowering experience can really impact misinformation. E: We have seen some horrible things because of miscommunication or rumors. That is why we need this strong Community Health Promoters. Depending on the community, if you start with the village elders, shamans, the priest, then everyone starts to think that keeping women healthy matters. But there still will be rumors. HPV (the virus that causes cervical cancer) sounds like HIV. Our Community Health Promoters can correct misinformation in their own communities. For instance, since I am a clinician I periodically travel from Vermont and go to the field to do some assessment, evaluation, and refresher training. Several years ago we had started a program in the foothills of a country in East Africa. The coop had identified their most respected members and we trained them specifically as CHPs. It took many hours of slow driving on poor roads to get to this really remote region. And then when I finally arrived, there were no women to be seen! The Community Health Promoter who had been assigned to help with the campaign went out to ask around. And she found out that the women thought the health provider was going to reach in, pull out the uterus, cut it out, and then push it back in. Horrifying! But you can understand where this misinformation came from. These women have never had a speculum exam, and there is something going “in and out”...but it is a probe. We tell them we have “removed” the bad cells…so the language is there, but the story being told was totally skewed. What happened next is so indicative about how we work in partnership with the community. The village priest heard about this rumor and got right on it; he spent his next sermons talking about cervical cancer. And then the women came. It was a powerful man talking positively about cervical cancer care and women’s health. We all worked together.[caption id="attachment_29717" align="alignnone" width="1280"] Coffee co-ops partner with Grounds for Health to contribute to the wellbeing of women who work in their industry. Here, they are helping to transport women to a screening. The Ethiopian women are singing as they arrive at a clinic.[/caption]A: Are you noticing other kinds of disparity when it comes to health care? What else is lacking? E: There is a lot. We work with a specific focus, because cervical cancer is a preventable disease and also a horrible disease to die from. We aren’t distracted. What hasn’t happened, and it will take a considerable amount of time to solve for, is to reduce transportation barriers. This is connected to economic disparity and limited access to resources. In remote areas, one often needs to travel far to access treatment for cancer, and who has the money to take an airplane to get treatment? Our staff sends me images of cervixes for review, which is part of our supervision and support practices. Last week I looked at 50 images and three were frank cervical cancer, which made me want to cry. So that is why prevention, and catching this before it becomes cancer is so important! Prevention treatment can happen on site; cancer treatment is mostly unattainable for the women we see. A: Do you have educational materials? Is there anything you can offer a woman with cancer? E: When we work in remote communities we are sometimes talking with women who might not be literate. A big issue could be a tribal language. Sometimes our staff doesn’t know how to speak the local language. So when our staff in Ethiopia go out to talk to women, they will be challenged to get the information translated correctly; but they will! Even without language, though, we can express and communicate respect. It’s a high-stake medical situation, so we need to bring in the important element of humanism and go into a community with that fundamental attitude. We are so respectful of women we see. When it comes to training staff, people think we are training them about how to identify cervical pre-cancer. And our response is to say we are teaching you that ... but we are also showing you how to “treat” women, how to insert a speculum so she doesn’t experience pain, and how to be respectful of her dignity and privacy. These qualities matter! A: Without that there will never be equity. Something I have learned in gender equity—that value set has to be part of the vision, how you communicate and establish yourself. You are integrating with different types of people, and you can’t make that go away. But that respect connects it all together. E: It has been a challenge to find women to be on our in-country staff, because women generally don’t have the same education opportunities. The young male clinicians we train might have an attitude that they are more important than the women they see. And we help change that attitude. Watching how they change and adjust is promising. We also look at eliminating the idea that we are the “white savior from the West.” We work to show we are partners. For instance, it was really powerful when, as a white woman from the west, I stood up in a village meeting and said I have had HPV. It was so powerful for them to see and hear that; we have commonality and all are susceptible. ***Through your purchases at Joe Coffee, you help us support the good work Grounds for Health is doing for women in coffee. To donate directly, please visit the Grounds for Health donation page.

Wonder what the average day for a coffee farmer in Honduras is? Our partner Andrea Rubí, who grew up on her family's Fincas Ruland farms and now manages their specialty farm, Finca Ruland 2, transports us to the farm to share a day with us.[caption id="attachment_19337" align="alignnone" width="1024"] Andrea pictured with her mother, Suyapa and sisters Angie and Brenda[/caption]5:00 amWhen a new coffee harvest begins at Fincas Ruland, our obligations start very early morning, since the coffee pickers begin to arrive at the farms at 6:00 am. My day begins with a good cup of coffee because the harvest in Honduras takes much of our winter; they are very cold mornings. The good thing about living on the farm is that I'm never late for work! My mother, together with my sisters, will have already distributed the work of the day, and each one knows the area to cover. Usually I take care of the coffees on Finca Ruland 2, our specialty farm.6:00 amAt this hour there is a group of coffee pickers ready to be taken to Finca Ruland 2. It takes us 30 minutes to get to Finca Ruland 2, and the weather changes completely on the way up, since we go from being 950 meters above sea level where we meet at Finca Ruland 1 to 1400 meters above sea level on Finca Ruland 2. Once we arrive, the coffee pickers get ready with their baskets to start their day and head to the area where the coffee of the day will be hand picked. We are always reminding them of the importance of picking the ripe fruit, and being careful with coffee plants. At this time of the morning, the mountain of Santa Barbara is still covered in mist, you can still hear the singing of the birds, and a cold breeze that runs across our faces. 8:00 amUsually after making sure that everything and everyone is settled, I return to Finca Ruland 1 for breakfast and then continue with the work of the day. Finca Ruland 1 is the oldest farm where we have built all the infrastructure to process our coffee, after having my breakfast there is a full staff on our de-pulping machines, washing coffee, and managing coffee being dried on raised beds.9:00 am – MiddayDuring this time of the day, you will always find me in these areas above supervising the process of coffee, and once de-pulped, in the areas of fermentation, washing tanks, and drying. There is always a lot to do. It's at this stage where mistakes can be made and spoil the coffee harvested from the previous day, or it is where we can grow those magical flavors behind our coffees. We try to give leadership and decision-making input to our workers to examine the criteria they have when a situation arises. This is also how they learn from coffee and not only come and do the work, but because they know the importance to manage times, temperatures, and separate coffees by picked dates and varieties. 12:00 pmIt's our lunch break and I go home to eat something. There's not always time to sit down and grab a meal—there are days when a large volume of coffee is handled since there are two farms producing at the same time, so when we're caught up in so much work, one of us prepares food at home and takes it to wherever we are, or we enter the house for something quick and get back out.1:00 pm – 2:00 pmAlthough I am in charge of Finca Ruland 2 and the coffee process. I am always available to help my mother and my sisters with what comes from Finca Ruland 1. My mother has always liked to walk along the trails of the farm, closely supervising the coffee plantation that’s being hand-picked and always motivating the pickers. It is worth mentioning that our house is built in the middle of Finca Ruland 1, therefore we are surrounded by coffee! Living on the farm makes us more committed to people, because we look closely at their needs and daily concerns, It makes us see the reality that hits us as a country, and allows us to keep on top of everything. We become an octopus, as in full hands on, as my mother says: we are everywhere. 2:00 pmI prepare to return to Finca Ruland 2. My mother and my sisters are getting ready because at this time there are usually coffee pickers ready to measure how much coffee they’ve picked during the day in Finca Ruland 1 and we are in charge of receiving the coffee picked daily.Sometimes one of my sisters or a trusted collaborator comes with me to Finca Ruland 2. When I arrive, the coffee plantation is still being picked, which gives me time to take pictures of them or the farm, I supervise what they have done during the day, I talk with the supervisor of the farm, and we square up jobs or ideas for the next day. 4:00 pmThe pickers start to bring the coffee they’ve picked throughout the day for it to be measured. With their help, we measure and load the truck. Once we're ready, we head back to Finca Ruland 1, where we unload the coffee and it is put in the hoppers of the de-pulping machine to leave this coffee in the fermentation tanks to work on next day. 6:00 pmAt this time, since Finca Ruland 1 grows conventional coffee, therefore has more coffee volume, there are still pickers who take advantage of the last remaining rays of sunlight to continue picking, and we have to wait for them to receive the coffee. This coffee is taken to a coffee de-pulper in a village 15 minutes from the house, as our own wet mill is usually busy processing the specialty coffee from Finca Ruland 2. While some collaborators are waiting for the Finca Ruland 2 coffee to be ejected, others are loading the trucks with the Finca Ruland 1 coffee for it to be taken to pulp out.We don’t have a specific clock-out time since there are days that we have finished at 8:00 pm, and there are some other days that it's 10:00 pm and we are still at the wet mills. Usually work ends for us when the work area is clean and ready for the next day. The world of coffee can be very exhausting during the harvest—not only physically but also mentally. It takes long and heavy work days, which are made up for by the great work team that Fincas Ruland have which one way or another motivates us and helps us with our duties and underscore our commitment to offering excellent coffees for our customers.

Eleane Mierisch is the dry mill manager, head of quality control, and producer of our new release, Nicaragua La Escondida, from Fincas Mierisch. She's also a Cup of Excellence head judge, and served as a panelist at the inaugural Women in Coffee Project panel event, founded by our Director of Roasting, Amaris Gutierrez-Ray.Eleane was born into a coffee farming family in Nicaragua. Her father, “Doc” Mierisch, is a third generation coffee grower, and even though he pursued a career in gynecology he maintained a passion for the cultivation and innovation of his family’s coffee farms. During the political turmoil of the 1980s, however, the Mierisch coffeelands were seized by the government and they were forced to leave their home in search of a sustainable future elsewhere. This brought them to Tennessee. There, Eleane learned English, and after several years of living in the U.S., Mexico, and the U.S. again, she started studying nursing. She completed her bachelor's degree and went on to get her nurse practitioner's certification, all while paying her way through by working at her father's OB/GYN practice.When it was safe to return, her parents reverse emigrated to Nicaragua. A few years later, Eleane followed to care for her mother during the final stages of her battle with cancer. She describes this as the hardest time in her life. Staying there with close family, and spending a lot of time with her father who had a renewed vision to rebuild his coffee farms, took her on a slow journey to find peace, and, after a time, to find her future in coffee.[caption id="attachment_14436" align="alignnone" width="1280"] Photo by Tobin Polk[/caption]In 2010 she was asked to translate for the Cup of Excellence (CoE) in Nicaragua, and she began learning how to cup coffees. Her first experience cupping included 540+ coffee samples, at which point she knew she had found her passion. The following year, she took the calibration test, which she didn't pass, but she took it again the following year and her hard work paid off. She's now a Head Judge for CoE and has served on three international juries.She also stepped into a position of leadership at the Beneficio Don Esteban dry mill, which is owned by her family. She wanted to do it right, so she worked her way through every role in the organization, from raking and piling the coffee at different times of day to drying it on the patio, to rotating coffees on raised beds, to managing space and inventory of lots in the bodega throughout a harvest, to distinct lot separation, to cupping in the lab for quality control, to setting aside time to spend with visiting clients, to exporting lots in shipping containers after sales.[caption id="attachment_14429" align="alignnone" width="1280"] From left to right: Maria Macy (Reception), Maira Avilez (Exportation), Érica Blandino (Bodega), Haisell Beteta (General Manager of Personnel), Toñita Ruiz (Head of Patio), Eleane (center)[/caption]Management and creativity took over, and under her leadership, over 25% of the coffees yielded by Fincas Mierisch are now specialty. She works hard alongside her team to learn something new every day, values becoming more specialized, and prioritizes facing the future with a positive mentality. Her openness is reflected in all parts of her life. She is an openly gay woman working within a conservative culture, and her drive for professional growth—for herself and her whole team—in a male-dominated industry is inspirational.When asked if she would be interested in sharing her story with us, she was immediately enthusiastic.How did your relationship with Joe Coffee begin? We began a direct relationship by selling coffee to Joe in 2013 when they began roasting at Pulley Collective in Brooklyn. The team at Joe is engaging and reliable, super supportive of Fincas Mierisch, and practices conscientious purchasing. We've hosted them for a week every year at our farms ever since—Joe feels like family.What do you like about the friendship?We’ve built a solid working relationship that doesn’t feel like work at all! I believe our friendship now goes beyond that, it’s more like family. Thank you for inviting me to be a judge the Northeast Roaster Forum competition and also to be part of the Women in Coffee Project. I applaud Joe on how engaged you are in the roasting community and educating others—inspiring.You came out a few years ago. Can you share a little bit about your experience and how you have navigated your personal life in a relatively conservative county? Has it ever been an issue?During my youth, it was really difficult for me to accept myself. When I was growing up, being gay was not socially accepted, and gender roles were strict and narrow. I moved to the U.S. when I was 11. I went to middle school, high school, and college in Texas, and moved back to Nicaragua in my mid-thirties. Spending my formative years in the states helped me come out, even though I grew up in a conservative area.Still, I was worried how people would perceive me when I moved back to Nicaragua. But I remained strong, and firmly held to my thoughts, convictions, pride, and sense of self. You have to. Someone very important to me, very special in my life, motivated me to defend myself, and little by little things have changed.I can’t deny that when I first came out that I had doubts, and felt that people would not respect me. Personal acceptance is what gave me confidence and kept me going. I fully invested in myself and my career, grew professionally and personally doing what I love the most. Growing up in a conservative town, in a conservative culture was difficult, but also defining, and made me stronger. It’s what taught me resilience.Everything I have lived (the good and bad and in between) has shaped me and made me the person I am today. Cultural and social mentalities have evolved over the years, and each new generation is stronger and safer. Each new generation leans more towards a new society of free minds, without prejudice.Will you celebrate Pride in any way in Nicaragua or anywhere else?I celebrate myself everyday. I am always proud. In Nicaragua Pride is not customary, it’s a fairly small celebration in comparison to the U.S. Also, in these difficult times, freedom of expression is repressed and forbidden. It is risky to raise your voice, because the LGBTQ community does not agree with the current government, and has suffered persecution.***Read more about Eleane's career path in her full interview with our Director of Roasting for the Women in Coffee Project series on Daily Coffee News.To celebrate Eleane and La Escondida, Joe will distribute $1 from each bag sold to the Audre Lorde Project in New York, the Attic Youth Center in Philadelphia, and Colectivo de Mujeres in Nicaragua, an organization based in Matagalpa which supports the LGBTQ community, as well as the rights of women and children.

At Joe, we honor the achievements of women in coffee from all reaches of the supply chain—from the hands that farm your coffee to the hands that prepare the final cup. And as supporters of the Women in Coffee Project, we're thrilled to offer an exceptional coffee from Rwanda's Ejo Heza cooperative.The Women in Coffee Project, founded by some of the amazing women who work at Joe, is a multidisciplinary platform created to highlight the work of women in coffee—in producing countries and beyond—through everything from coffee tastings and a Rwandan book club to a panel of speakers from coffee origin sharing their experience and insight in the industry. The first such panel discussion will take place in New York City in April, 2019, and host producers from Guatemala and Nicaragua.In harmony with these events, and in celebration of Women's History Month, we're also proud to be able to showcase a new coffee from Rwanda's all-female Ejo Heza Cooperative beginning this month. It will appear on our regular single origin menu, and will also be featured as a seasonal single origin Specialty Instant Coffee offering. $1 of any Ejo Heza purchase will also be donated in support of the Women in Coffee Project. Ejo Heza (which means "bright tomorrow") is a 320-member group of women who work within the larger umbrella of the Kopakama Cooperative in Rwanda's Western Province. The women of Ejo Heza manage a communal plot of Bourbon coffee trees on a little over one hectare of land, as well as on their own family plots. Through the agronomy support of Kopakama, the farmers are constantly experimenting with and improving upon the quality and sustainability of their coffee farms, including planting beneficial shade trees. In 2016, with the premiums earned from the sales of their coffee, Ejo Heza was able to found a microcredit savings and lending group to help member farmers continue to thrive.We were introduced to this coffee by another amazing woman, Ruth Ann Church, founder of Artisan Coffee Imports and a founding member of the International Women's Coffee Alliance. Beyond merely acting as an importer, Ruth Ann maintains an intimate connection with her coffees' supply chains, ensuring traceability and promotion of quality and premiums paid for coffees.Ruth Ann "is an inspirational source of energy," says Joe Coffee's Director of Roasting, Amaris Gutierrez-Ray. "She combines an academic approach with business acumen, a passion for social justice, genuine human empathy, and also a great desire for higher coffee quality for everyone involved in the supply chain. She is an incredible example of how raising awareness of gender equity issues can affect larger communities for the better, and why it’s important to share this information in the name of growth for the whole supply chain."Our roasting team found notes of blackberry, honey, and chamomile in this coffee, full of classic sparkling Rwandan acidity and subtle but syrupy sweetness that represent some of our very favorite characteristics from this region. We're proud to offer it as a limited selection during Women's History Month and invite everyone to raise a cup to the women of Ejo Heza! All photos courtesy of Ruth Ann Church

Bestselling author A.J. Jacobs is no stranger to ambitious projects. In his 2008 book The Year of Living Biblically, Jacobs sought to live as closely to the rules of the bible as he could. This month he releases his sixth title, Thanks a Thousand, which chronicles his gratitude journey for a single cup of coffee—which we're happy to say, he purchased at Joe Coffee. We sat down with A.J. to learn how his project shaped how he thinks about both coffee and gratitude. A.J. at Joe Waverly Place. Photo by Christopher Lane Joe: What surprised you most about your coffee's journey to you, or what seemed the most incredible thing about it? A.J.: Before I answer, let me just say a huge, overflowing thanks to the folks at Joe. They were so helpful and open, I couldn’t have asked for a better partner on this journey. The most surprising part was just how many people it takes for me to produce my morning cup of coffee at Joe. I knew about the farmer and the barista, of course. But there are hundreds of people in between. The tasters, the the roasters, the inspectors, the importing company, the trucker—and the trucker couldn’t do his job without the road, so I felt I should thank the folks who pave the road. And the folks who paint yellow lines on the road so the trucker doesn’t veer into oncoming traffic. As I say in the book: It doesn’t take a village to make a cup of coffee. It takes the world. A.J. with some of the Guarnizo brothers. Were you aware of any difference between specialty coffee’s supply chain and that of, say, everyday diner coffee? Not nearly enough. I was delighted by the amount of thought and passion that goes into every step of Joe Coffee. For instance, visiting the roastery in Brooklyn was an eye-opener. I love that there are gadgets to measure the moisture level of the beans, and another to measure the bean’s stability. And of course, I loved visiting the small Colombian family farm where some of my beans are grown. I like that it wasn’t a big mega-corporate farm. It was eight brothers and one sister. Do you think you would have had this same experience if you’d written about shoelaces instead of coffee? I could have done a gratitude journey about shoelaces, but it wouldn’t have been nearly as delicious. My kids wanted me to thank everyone involved in making their s’mores, because they figured it would increase the number of s’mores around the house. But I chose coffee because it’s my version of s’mores: A huge treat. A.J. Jacobs and Joe's Director of Sourcing Ed Kaufmann You talked in your book a lot about how far to take the journey—and why you had to limit it to only 1000 thank-yous. Were there any people you felt were a stretch? My wife told me that thanking Beyonce was a stretch (I thanked her because her music kept the truck drivers awake as they drove the beans to the store). And maybe it was. But the point of the book is to embrace six degrees of gratitude. I wanted to show that thousands of people are involved in every little item in our lives, and we take those people for granted. Does it still feel like there are people you’ve omitted? Absolutely. I could have spent 50 years thanking all the people involved in the coffee chain. Plus, I sometimes put almond milk in my coffee (sorry Ed! I know you prefer it when I drink it straight up). So I could thank all the people on that chain too. I did get to thank the founder Jonathan Rubinstein, but I wish I’d had room to write a whole section on him. I love his passion for his customers and his coffee—not to mention all things Disney. Joe Coffee barista Chung Lee Was there any one moment of thanking somebody on this journey that you felt made the most impact or had the most meaning in the other party’s life? I don’t know if it had the most impact on her life, but I loved talking with barista Chung Lee. She said Joe Coffee clients are almost always friendly. But there are the occasional clients who place their orders without even looking up from their phones. They just hand over their credit card. They treat baristas like vending machines, not a humans. I realized I’ve been that jerk sometimes. So I’ve made a vow to always look people in the eye when dealing with them. It’s such a small thing, but it has such a huge impact on both parties. Humans were meant to connect face to face. I also remember calling the woman who does pest control for the warehouse where the coffee is stored. I said, "I know this sounds strange, but I want to thank you for keeping the bugs out of my coffee." She said, "That is strange, but thank YOU. We don't get a lot of appreciation around here." I felt like it was an anti-crank phone call. I felt like I was doing penance for my obnoxious calls in high school. If you get a bad coffee somewhere—are you still just as grateful? Ha! Well, it depends. If I haven’t had any coffee that day, I try to be grateful for, say, airplane coffee. But it’s a much milder gratitude. It’s like a decaf version of gratitude, to use a coffee metaphor. Has your gratitude journey rubbed off on the people around you? I’ve gotten wonderful feedback from readers. I spend much of my day thanking readers who send me thank you notes for writing the book. The danger is that they will thank me for thanking them for thanking me. It could be an infinite loop. A.J.'s book Thanks a Thousand is out now on TED Books.

Fifteen years ago, Joe was just a twinkle in the eye of our founder, Jonathan Rubinstein. We asked him to share some of his memories. Jonathan Rubinstein at Cadillac House. Back in early 2003, as I was wandering the streets and dreaming of opening a coffee shop, I passed by a storefront on Waverly Place that seemed like the perfect first location for a yet-unnamed coffee shop idea—the top contenders were LatteLand and Two Cups!. It had a front patio, exposed brick, lots of windows and a banjo player strumming out front. I quickly called the number on the window and made an offer. 24 hours later, I was told the space, recently a dry cleaner, was mine and I set off on the adventure of a lifetime. Joe opened with the help of my immediate family, who became my partners. My mother played barista, my sister helped to manage, and my father did the books. We knew almost nothing about coffee, but knew that it was near impossible to find a great cup in NY, even with its sophisticated residents and great culinary scene. We found a great roaster in Massachussets, threw ourselves into learning both how to make great coffee and how to run a business. We decided our competitive edge, which spoke to us as people, would be not just to serve delicious coffee but to make people feel good when they came in to our shop. I worked as a barista right up until my daughter was born at the beginning of 2009. Jonathan and Gabrielle Rubinstein visiting coffee farms in Costa Rica, 2003. We learned most of what we know about coffee from Amanda Byron, who worked with Joe for the first dozen years of the business before moving back to the West coast. Amanda was the only person for probably the first six weeks we were open who could pour latte art. For the first year, because nobody else was pouring latte art in the city, people thought it was the rainbow bagel or something that no one had ever seen. There were a lot of people with actual cameras (because there were no cell phone cameras), asking if there was "definitely a toothpick" involved etc. Our latte art was beginner latte art back then but everybody thought it was amazing. For the first few weeks we only opened our store when Amanda could work, because nobody else could pour latte art, including ourselves. And because there was nobody else to train us, except Amanda! Another one of our earliest employees was Miles Seaton, who went on to be successful with the band Akron/Family. Amanda Byron and Miles Seaton at Waverly Place. I think the first phenomenon of people talking about us was because Amy Sedaris used to bake our cupcakes. The week that we opened, Sarah Jessica Parker came into the store—I had known her a little bit in a previous life because I worked with Cynthia Nixon, and she was a neighbor, she lived in the Village. She said, "I have a friend, Amy Sedaris"—I had never heard of her—"Would you ever consider selling her cupcakes? Here's her home number, tell her you're a friend of mine. She likes to keep busy when she's not filming." So I called her, she came in, she lived a block or two away, and so she would basically bring in a tray of cupcakes, we'd hand her $12 cash, they always had some crazy decorative trinket that she used to collect. You'd never know if she'd come in seven days a week or if she'd disappear for three weeks, you didn't know. She had such a huge cult following that people would hang around the store just to catch a glimpse of her, and then the phone would start ringing from all over the country. Eventually she got super busy and realized she neither needed the $12 nor was it a profitable business. A typical Amy Sedaris cupcake purchased at Joe Coffee. Photo by k10_ on Flickr. I remember in the great power outage in August of 2003, we were only four weeks old. We didn't have power, so all of our food was expiring and we didn't know what to do. We were out in the streets handing out food, giving away gallons of milk, lending money to regulars because ATMs were out and you couldn't get money, taking money out of the cash register. This was a pretty risky thing to be doing on only day 25 of being in business, but like all of New York City, we survived it. Old school Joe shingle. Photo by Andrew Schecter. It's New York, so famous people have always come into the store—from David Schwimmer to Nancy Pelosi—and of course, Philip Seymour Hoffman was a longtime fixture at our Waverly Place location. Bill Hader's character Stefon on Saturday Night Live is based on one of our baristas at 23rd Street. And the only time Rachael Ray came in, I was on bar at 13th street and she ordered a bagel. I was so nervous that while I was using one of those bagel-slicing guillotines, I pressed down too hard and the guillotine went flying and landed on her table, and her. Gabrielle Rubinstein, Danny Meyer, Doug Satzman, and Jonathan Rubinstein There's validation when admirable chefs come in, food people, it always gives us reason to feel good about what we're doing. Danny Meyer is a good example because that's how he first found us—by coming in for a coffee at Waverly Place. Ed Kaufmann sample roasting coffee at Pulley Collective. Our biggest successes were starting to roast, of course, and bringing Ed Kaufmann on board when the whole idea of roasting came bout. Ed was a friend and one of the very few coffee professionals living in the city at the time and he said "I want to join your family." Now, when we take stock, we have 260 people whose jobs are Joe, which feels really good. If we look at our alumni of probably the couple thousand people who've worked here, so many have stayed in coffee, that feels really good too. Meister, Will Gross, Brendan Mullally—I could list a ton of really important industry people who've gone on to great careers in coffee or who won their own shops. To foster their beginnings in coffee, and to pioneer great coffee in new neighborhoods, that feels really good. That—and looking forward to everything yet to come.

What's it like to oversee a busy coffee company's lifeblood—the roasting of the actual beans? Amaris Gutierrez-Ray is Joe Coffee's Roasting Operations Manager, a job that calls upon everything from paperwork to palate to, of course, heavy lifting. Here's what a typical roasting day looks like for Amaris. 8:00am I start roasting coffee Mondays and Wednesdays beginning at 6:00am, but my Thursday shift is a small luxury in my week: it starts at 11am, so I can get in both a little extra sleep and also a morning yoga class before heading to our roasting space at the Pulley Collective in Red Hook. I have a beautifully easy downhill bike ride from where I live in Sunset Park to the yoga studio in South Slope, and after class I can coast down another hill straight to the Liberty Warehouse pier on the water in the sunshine. As I ride I think about the comment my yoga teacher made on how yoga, as a metaphor for life, involves directly engaging with facing or feeling discomfort, and that rings very true today as I take off my helmet and walk into the waterfront warehouse where we roast. On hot days, we maximize cooling by keeping our front doors and back bay open, and employ a strategic frenzy of fans to bring in breezes off the water. But that’s all we have in terms of climate control so summertime is one giant opportunity to learn from ourselves and engage with discomfort. 11:00am On a normal Thursday I jump straight into setting up our production cupping, but today is Production Roaster Roberta Duarte’s birthday so I sneakily sidle up to Jake Kirkpatrick, Production Operations Manager, to confirm he’s ordered birthday pizza, which we present to her with a not-very-stable candle. We work in a somewhat isolated part of Brooklyn, with the nearest lunch option being the Fairway across the mini-peninsula, so the whole team is pumped to have pizza today. Mid-day here is the beginning of our Thursday symphony: many moving parts weaving in and out, with Jake and Lee Harrison, our Director of Roasting, at hand in case tempo dies down and they can help step it up. The production closers haven’t started yet, but most of the team is here already and is packing retail on the two weigh-and-fill machines, and just getting started filling up 5lb bags with a massive automated bulk bagging machine. Greg, our Shipping and Receiving Lead, is knee-deep in packing the mail orders, and Roberta and Liam Berkowitz, our other production roaster, overlap for an hour during shift change on the Loring and start to fill 25lb bins of our Waverly espresso for stores and line them up so they’re ready to pack into vans later for tomorrow’s deliveries. After pizza shenanigans, I check in with the roasters because the logistics company we use didn’t bring our full delivery of green coffee yesterday from Continental Terminals, a special climate-controlled coffee warehouse in NJ. We have a light day today, not quite 3,000lbs ordered, so after checking our inventory and comparing with what we need, I let Ed Kaufmann, our Director of Sourcing, know we have enough Nicaragua Placeres to fulfill today’s orders for The Daily house blend, but we’ll need that other pallet and a half tomorrow so we can get through Monday. 12:00pm Production cupping is next, and with 23 samples on the table we have a lot to taste. We’re searching for ways to tweak the Daily's components to get more sweetness in the cup, so we have four samples each of experimental batches of the Guatemala El Morito and the Nicaragua Placeres. After lining up the table cheese-board style (least to most acidic), I weigh out 12.5 grams of each and set them aside, set two kettles to boil, and while the water starts to heat up I catch up with Lee to make sure we haven’t overlooked any daily to-do items. This past week we sampled a new coffee for cold brew kegs and bottles and we also need to make sure we all know the timeline of roasting and shipping samples to this year’s Good Food Awards. When Andrew Oberholzer, our Head Roaster, has finished his opening shift roasting on the Probat, he helps me grind individual samples and hit them with boiling water. After doing a couple passes to taste, Liam takes a quick break from roasting to join us, and we analyze our roast data to find out where we attained the targets we were hoping for and identify where we can improve. We update a couple profiles after discussing the cup qualities in the Daily samples, I clear the table, and then the roasting half of my day begins. 2:00pm Each roaster has a “home” machine, and mine is Pulley's vintage German Probat, although I can also operate the modern, energy-efficient Loring. I weigh out 40 green pounds of each coffee, pour into the well that vacuums the coffee up into the hopper above the roasting chamber, and then when the machine is at the right charging temperature, I pull the hatch and the coffee is released into the drum. This little ritual gets repeated many times over a few hours, and then finally once orders are fulfilled with some elbow room, I set the Probat to cool down. 6:00pm While it’s cooling, I clear the chaff, sweep the area, scoot the last coffee bins down to the production area so the closing PAs can weigh the surplus, and then do a full count of every last bag of green we have (including empties) so I can send our order for next week’s green coffee delivery to Ed. If I have any time left over before the machine finishes cooling down -- and I nearly always do in summertime because of the heat -- I can look ahead to next week and catch up with email. I make sure the samples we need for our QC session at HQ next Tuesday have made their way to Chelsea, I start reviewing and organizing the data from our tasting sessions so I can write this week’s QC report, I chip away at reading some coffee-related articles, I plan out some topics to discuss for our Roaster Staff meeting in a week and a half, and make sure the dishwasher is started so the cupping bowls will be clean for whoever roasts at Pulley tomorrow. Meanwhile, production assistants are playing some wind-down music, loading the vans strategically based on tomorrow's projected delivery route, and sweeping up the production floor. 7:00pm Before I know it the Probat is beeping at me to say it’s finally cooled down. Liam is wrapping up, too, we have a little end-of-day catch up, and then I spend a minute outside putting my helmet and biking gloves on, sharing a sunset moment with Lady Liberty out there in the fading light.

As a neighborhood-based, family owned business founded in 2003, hospitality, quality, and responsibility have always defined Joe Coffee Company. But when we took the leap to roasting our own coffee in 2012, that idea of responsibility became a bigger question. We had to ask ourselves how to maintain a focus on coffee quality while behaving not only as a step in the coffee supply chain, but as responsible actors on a path of sustainability. It was through these questions and their answers that we got to know to the Rainforest Alliance. An international nonprofit in operation for more than 30 years, the Rainforest Alliance works in nearly 80 countries worldwide to promote the development and promotion of sustainable standards in farming, forestry and tourism. These standards help protect the environment and promote the well-being of workers, their families, and their communities. As buyers of green coffee from diverse countries around the world, we at Joe examined numerous certifying organizations, and found the sustainability-focused values of Rainforest Alliance to be most in line with our own. Their work goes beyond the environment and into the lives of all who work on the land, including initiatives to improve children's access to education, promoting gender equity, and working to bring farm families up to a true living wage. In 2017, we announced a companywide goal to bring our blended coffees—the bulk of our roasting operation—fully in line with Rainforest Alliance certification (which most of our guests will recognize by the frog on our coffee bags.) Today, 100% of our Waverly, Daily, Nightcap Decaf, Overnighter Cold Brew, and Benchmark blends are fully Rainforest Alliance Certified™, as well as our bottled cold brew coffees and as some of our seasonal single origin offerings like La Familia Guarnizo. Bringing our blend program towards full certification was significant, says Joe Director of Sourcing Ed Kaufmann, not because we chose to purchase from new farms that were already Rainforest Alliance Certified, but because we worked together with our existing partner farms to help them obtain certification. Our partnership together has led us together to the iconic "Frog" seal which symbolizes a long-term investment in the quality and sustainability of each farm's supply chain. "The Rainforest Alliance and their comprehensive certification most closely matches our own values and what we would want to include in our own program if we were to build it from the ground up," says Kaufmann. "We believe that supporting the Rainforest Alliance and their three pillars of sustainability (social, economic and environmental) helps us achieve our goals for sustainability." In 2018, the Rainforest Alliance merged with UTZ, a leading certification program for coffee, tea, cocoa, and hazelnuts. We're now even prouder to have aligned our goals with those of the Rainforest Alliance for our coffees, and are honored to make their good work better known from our own small corner of the world. As part of this year's Rainforest Alliance "Follow the Frog" campaign, we encourage our friends and customers to take closer note of the Rainforest Alliance Certified seal on our packaging, and encourage them to #FollowTheFrog and look for this seal when they purchase agricultural and forestry products, such as coffee, tea, chocolate, flowers, household paper, and dozens more.

The friendship between coffee and beer is well known, whether they're being enjoyed one after the other—or in delicious combination. This fall, we're excited to announce a special collaboration with a groundbreaking brewery from our neighbo(u)rs to the north in Canada, Collective Arts Brewing. Founded in Ontario, the visual artists and brewing artisans at Collective Arts crossed the border to NYC this September with the launch a new beer featuring—you guessed it—our very own coffee. It's called the Percolated Haze IPA, and it stars La Familia Guarnizo, one of our very favorite relationship coffees from Colombia. Joe Coffee Head Roaster Andrew Oberholzer tells the story: "We knew we wanted to do something non-traditional for a coffee beer, so the team from Collective Arts came down to our NYC roastery with their entire portfolio. We tasted all of the beers with many different coffees in many different ratios. Once we settled on a coffee, we paid particular attention to its tasting notes to select hops that would pair well with and accentuate those notes. The citrus, brown sugar, and herbal notes of La Familia Guarnizo basically begged for an IPA pairing. Then I spent time perfecting roast profiles to find the perfect harmony of hops and coffee. I've never had a coffee IPA quite like this. Oftentimes in coffee beers you'll get a big rush of coffee flavor and then the beer, but they never really feel very put together. This one is very balanced, I'm very happy with the integration of the coffee and beer—it feels very cohesive." Collective Arts Brewing focuses on creativity both in their beers and their presentation. The brewer features limited-edition works of art on their beer cans and labels, part of a commitment to celebrating emerging artists and musicians that extends all the way into hosting art and music shows at their brewery. The artwork for Percolated Haze comes from Massachussetts graphic artist Jeff Bartel, and features just the kind of livey—and mindblowing—imagery this beer brings to mind. Here at Joe, we think all the pieces fit together perfectly. "Our first mission is to make creative, quality beer," says Collective Arts brewmaster Ryan Morrow. "Our second is to support the creative class and team up with business, artists, restaurants, or any like-minded people, for that matter. It's our way of exploring new opportunities and pushing the limits of what we can do. Joe Coffee does an incredible job of making quality coffee with a focus on innovation." Check out Collective Arts Brewing's NYC debut at the following launch events this week: 09.13.18 Greenwood Park | 6 – 9 PM 555 7th Ave, Brooklyn09.14.18 Gowanus Pub Crawl | 4PM – 8PM (Five bars, starting at The Gate, then moving on to Fourth Avenue Pub, St. Gambrinus, Lavender Lake, and BierWax.)