The beginning of my coffee journey
I first fell in love with coffee when I was in college at UNO. There was a coffee roaster not too far away from UNO called Caffeine Dreams. Some days the smell of a fresh batch roasting would alter my schedule. Which worked out, because I was an English major and coffee and a couch were very important to the massive stack of books I always had to read.Â
I began traveling a lot while in college. I saw a lot of the lower 48. I followed Phish, then Widespread panic, did a bunch of backpacking, and was always up for a new journey.Â
Post-College to Now
After college, I moved to San Diego, where I did Americorps VISTA for my year of service and then made the jump into coffee. I was always drawn to the cafe, but San Diego led me to gain some experience in the business. I worked at Caffe Italia in Little Italy for 5 years.Â
In that time, I also began doing music for an art collective, started a non profit for legalizing cannabis (that just received SD county grant money to run a campaign that will help minorities and people affected by the drug war start their own cannabusinesses), and built a coffee shop called the World Beat Cafe in a reggae venue in Balboa Park called the World Beat Center.
After San Diego, I went to Colorado to be a part of the first legal cannabis market in the USA. I left my entrepreneur hat in San Diego, and put on an arborist hat. I love trees and I love taking care of them, but they just don't fill my entrepreneurial hunger.Â
So now I am back on the cafe journey. I have been roasting my own coffee for about five years now. It will be a long journey to full fledged cafe, but I am willing to take the steps. I hope you will come on my journey with me.Â
