Then about 6 years later, I was sitting in our offices and brainstorming with Jonathan about where we wanted to go as a business. He told me we were putting the cart before the horse and asked what our mission was. I let my rebellion against corporate jargon rule me and said, “We don’t have a mission, I just want to get out of the way of the producers and showcase their amazing coffee.” So, he wrote on the whiteboard, “Mission: Put on display the hard work of the producers in our coffee” and then said, “great, we can do that in a coffee shop.” Without really thinking about it I built my roasting practices to not focus on what I can add to the coffee, but to focus on what we can showcase that is already there. That is honestly why most of our roasts seem so similar. We’ve found a series of roasting curves that can apply to many coffees. We then cup them, tweak them a little, and run with them. When we opened the coffee shop, we wanted to focus on the same thing that made our online business what it is today. We’re committed to making some of the best-brewed coffee available to our customers, but we want to take that a step further and showcase the producers wherever we can.
And yet this mission keeps evolving. We’re making more origin trips as time goes on and are able to get better coffees with better connections to the origins. In fact, I sent an email to a producer this week telling him about how his coffees cupped against some incredible auction lots that we had. It was great to have that connection and he was excited to hear about how his hard work was showcasing itself in the U.S. This has gone from a seasonal occurrence to a common one.
Part of the evolution of our mission is our vision as well. I’ve listed it out below, but over the next month I’ll be writing a couple of more blogs and will publish a video. Our goal with this series is to help you see what we’re trying to do as a business and to jump on board with our ever expanding educational blog and producer interactions.
Sagebrush Coffee’s Mission and Vision:
Sagebrush Coffee exists to put on display the hard work of coffee producers by:
- Demonstrating diligence in the coffee industry
- Completing every task with diligence
- Roasting & brewing coffee that showcases its truest form
- Building relationships to engage our community and grow coffee knowledge
- Striving to be intentional in our interactions and relationships with guests of our shop and websites
- Educating guests on the why behind the quality of our coffee
- Elevating our community’s knowledge and love of coffee
- Actively supporting every link of the coffee supply chain
- Understanding our vendor relationships are more important than our customers
- Giving freely of our expertise to help enable their success and growth
