Brands – big or small – project a good feeling when there’s meaning behind them. They matter to us.

We drink a lot of coffee at the office. All sorts of different coffees have passed through the kitchen here at Matchstic. Our workhorse is usually something conventional – a Trader Joe’s Dark Roast or the strangely but aptly named “Black Silk” from Folgers.

Often we’ll get some good stuff to enjoy for an afternoon brew, when everyone’s awake enough to not want just rocket fuel. Counter Culture, Beaneology, Aurora, Stumptown, 1000 Faces, Dancing Goats have been some of the favorites.

Our good friend and client Jonathan Bolden roasts coffee. Last week he brought us a bag. After going through a pound of that stuff in two days, I’ll add Jonathan’s “Bold Brew” to the aforementioned list.

What’s cool about this little endeavor is how seriously he takes it, even though it’s mostly a hobby. Brands – big or small – project a good feeling when there’s meaning behind them. They matter to us.

Here are the “stakes” that the Bold Brew adheres to:

1. Direct: Beans will be procured through direct trade whenever possible. Direct trade differs from Fair Trade in that it generally implies a focused, long term relationship with a group of farmers versus transacting over what can often be an arbitrary price that does nothing more than create market distortions through price-fixing.
2. 10%: Ten percent of Profits will be reinvested into a farming community. While profits matter, giving back is a long term personal goal and reflection that life and legacy is bigger than money.
3. 48 hours: All coffee will be shipped or delivered within 48 hours of roasting. (And ideally within 4 – 12 hours). The coffee experience is highest 1 – 7 days after roasting, and your coffee roaster should deliver that experience to you.
4. Hand: All roasts will be sorted by hand before and after roasting. All beans are not equal and all roasts are not even. There’s nothing worse than crunching into a rotten or an under / over roasted bean. The benefit of small batch roasting is that quality can be pushed to the highest level.

What I gather from that is a sense of pride and commitment in your work. Typically when something is small-scale, people tend to make excuses for why this or that isn’t practical or financially viable or whatever. That faulty logic is what eventually leads to the demise of many trendy small companies that brand themselves to the public as “artisan” and “small” and “authentic.” Jonathan’s pledge is a good reminder that there are certain overheads for any start-up, and if it’s not worth doing well, it’s probably not worth doing.

All that warm and fuzziness would be worthless if not for the fact that it’s really good. So good, in fact, it has made Craig a black coffee convert. Or as Jonathan puts it, “Drink coffee naked.”

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