Sharing stories and adventures about all things coffee, stories, and stoke
Last week I ran into one of our loyal customers. He periodically orders 1-2 bags at a time and has done so over the past year. In the course of our conversation he paused and said, "My favorite cup of Loam Coffee ever was the Boondocker I had last May." Last May? I thought. What was different about the Boondocker back then versus the Boondocker now? Everything.
Everything around us in life reflects value systems. As I mentioned in a previous article I also moonlight as a professor. The common theme of what I teach revolves around cities whether gentrification, bikeability, community development, urban history, and so on. That might be odd admission particularly in the mountain biking world, but I love cities. I love BIG cities. But I also love the wilderness.
Drinking coffee is odd at times. No, not the actual process of drinking coffee itself but the stigmas attached to it. On one end of the spectrum you have blue collar miners packing a thermos full of (probably bad grocery store) black coffee in their lunch pails for the day. Gritty, hard-working, tough as nails and their coffee smells (and tastes) as bad their clothes at the end of their shift (or worse). At the other end of the spectrum you have bearded skinny jeans-wearing city-dwelling hipsters who're faux-gritty also drinking black coffee. The difference though is not about who's drinking coffee but the actual quality of coffee itself.
Equity and sustainability are two topics that come up in my world on a regular basis. A big part of the reason why is that I live in Portland. We're a city passionate about equity despite our checkered past of inequity. Much of the tenor of protests are for better and more inclusive rights among other things. We're also a city known for and marked by sustainability. Even our slogan is "The City That Works." To many we're a model city when it comes to transportation infrastructure, green infrastructure, and engaged citizens.
I like pizza. I also like (and love) sushi, peanut butter, pears, asparagus, and breakfast burritos. That's the easy part. The difficult question to answer is why? Why do I love what I do? I'm afraid that would would take years on the couch of a psychologist to plumb the depths of that question. Or maybe it really isn't that complicated after all. Maybe the answer is simply, "I just do."
We all know that coffee and mountain bike racing go together like ... well, coffee and mountain bike racing. We caught up with Loam Coffee Ambassador and Yeti mechanic Shaun Hughes who came off another successful Enduro World Series season wrenching for EWS champion Richie Rude as well as Cody Kelley. The questions we were dying to ask was what life was like on the road this past race season and of course where and how coffee was part of Shaun's routine. Ready? Let's start this ...
