I mean, it is a pretty fair question. It takes a while to discover things you really like or even love. It takes even longer to decide it might be a good idea to make that thing the basis of your living. In our case, coffee became the facilitator of everything. Need to get some work done? Let’s head to the coffee shop. Fancy a catch up? Let’s go grab a brew. Its then, and only then that you begin to notice. The aromas. The flavours. The subtle differences in specialty brews. The need to try more. Then the sudden need to brew, where you can get lost in a maze of methods. This opens up an entirely new can of worms…
We made the decision that we liked getting lost in this maze, and we found the hunt for the perfect brews an everyday must. We were going to create our own coffee brand. Now, we didn’t just want to sell any old coffee – we wanted to build a brand that people could get behind – more importantly that we could get behind. What problems did we have that actively needed solutions too? Ultimately, what were we looking for?
Well, as any small business owner or startup will tell you, problems are not hard to find. One half of us is a passionate Venezuelan, and so specialty Venezuelan coffee was a must. Instantaneous problem discovered. Immediately, we couldn’t find any at all within the UK to use as a basis for importing. Only after much research which I will cover on another blog; The Maracaibos Chronicles, any attempt at sourcing beans was either ignored or met with hostility. Despite being a former goliath in the coffee world, second only to their neighbours Colombia for global imports at one time, sourcing legitimate and traceable Venezuelan green beans was impossible without at least an already established coffee enterprise. Right there, the Andes Project was born!
We took a deeper dive into the history of coffee, the types of coffee and the science of brewing. Then more importantly we began tasting and sourcing different coffees trying to discover the flavours we were looking for. All alongside ensuring these align with our values and just as importantly, are roasted locally as buying an enormous Giesen although tempting, would have taken away from the bean budget.
But what was this ‘type’ of coffee we were even looking for? To what else were we searching for a solution to? Here comes the other half of us who is passionate about the great outdoors. Mountains. Rivers. Rolling hills and the sleeping under the stars. And there it was. Closing your eyes after a campfire is never a letdown – its waking up in your tent, or car or cabin to a dark mug of instant coffee that certainly brings down the atmosphere. And for no reason. We were looking for specialty coffee that tastes just as good from an Aeropress, or a cafetiere, or as cowboy coffee, as it does from an espresso machine. We were looking for coffees that can turn a good morning outdoors into a great day on a trail. And believe me we have found some….