Hey everybody!

Monthly newsletter coming in hot on the LAST day of the month :)‍

MARLEYI

We sent this coffee out in September subscriptions, so check back on that letter for a little refresher. For those who are new to the subscription program, we're working on hosting an archive of all the newsletters on our site for easy linking / sharing in the future!

The short story is that Marleyi is a small, espy-sized producer that we connected with through the Monkaaba group in San Agustin, Colombia. Her story is detailed really well in the attached packet, but to some up, she returned home to farm coffee after some pretty rough patches of economic insecurity, the death of her brother and her father's departure from operating the family farm. She has a great network of support through the Monkaaba group and is already expanding her farm and trialing new varieties.

GROWTH

As espy evolves, one of our biggest priorities is to grow in tandem with the producers we have committed to. This last year, Marleyi produced 4 bags of coffee and we purchased 2. It was (and is) our goal to match her production this year! With that in mind, we're actively exploring ways to get her coffee in more folk's hands (via our wholesale friends, etc.)

With that said, tell your friends! If you believe in these coffee projects and find they play a meaningful role in your life, pass it along to folks you think might be interested. Especially if you're a long term subscriber, we're happy to send a sample box to a friend on your behalf. If there's a cafe, market, or office that you want to see espy coffee in, let them know (and let us know too)! It's not very sexy, but this is really what turns the growth machine for small coffee roasters like us. ‍

"WHILE WE'RE AT IT"

You may have noticed that many of our recent newsletters have been explicitly political! Perhaps because it's so separate from electoral politics, we really believe in coffee's potential to be politically activating. Currently the industry is a mirror reflection of capitalist exploitation, but there's nothing inherently wrong with trading coffee! I don't know about y'all, but in our dreamiest visions of a socialist future, we see people still wanting to have an espresso at the cafe. How would the coffee industry function and what would our role as professionals be?

We certainly don't have all the answers, but if we're going to be roasting and brewing coffee anyway, we definitely want to do it in a way that challenges the status quo now! It's not that we think roasting coffee as ethically as possible is going to save the world, but if we believe a better world is possible (and we do), we want to be a part of building it right where we're at! A mantra I took away one of our recent convos, "while we're at it, we might as well..."

‍Q&A‍

We've loved getting your responses to these newsletters! Big shoutout to those of you that ordered the book we recommended and took some steps in your neighborhood to work on collective projects!! No clear qs to go through today, but keep hitting us up with thoughts about coffee, life, anything. That's what we're here for!

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❤ S+P