What's in a name?

It's been an eventful week. I spent about 4 days in Clearwater, Florida with the manufacturer of the Coffee roaster we are buying. I learned a ton - not only about how to use and maintain the machine, but about the business of buying, roasting, packaging, marketing, and selling coffee. It was a bit overwhelming.

Before my brother and I left for Florida, we made an offer on some commercial space that we are pretty excited about. It looks like it is going to happen. We have a few details to finalize and some discussions with the city about permitting before we sign the lease. We are hopeful though.

While we were gone we received all our paperwork from the state. We are official now. Our company's name is... are you ready?

Mark's Brothers BIG WORLD Coffee Roasters.

This company is a partnership between my brother Brian and myself. Our oldest brother Mark is not really part of the business. He doesn't even care that much about coffee. But, seeing as though Brian and I are both "Mark's brothers" we thought we would include him in our title.

The "Big World" part comes from our desire to expand people's view of the world. We want to do that in a few different ways. First, we want to expand people's world by introducing consumers to the individuals that grow their coffee. Coffee is grown by real people who harvest and process their crop by hand in some of the most beautiful yet poverty stricken places on the planet. Our view of the world needs to expand to include people like these - places like these. So often, our own personal world tends to get so small and closed in around us - my friends, my job, my house, my family, my stuff. But it is a big world filled with exotic places and wonderful people made in the image of God.

We also want to expand people's world by introducing coffee flavors that most people have never tasted. And, when I say "flavor" I am not talking about "hazelnut" or "vanilla" - I am talking about flavors of origin. Each country, each region, each species of coffee plant has it's own flavor profile that is apparent when the coffee is roasted properly. I have been roasting and drinking exotic specialty coffee for several years now. I continue to come across flavors I have never tasted before. If you had to, could you tell the difference between a coffee grown in Tanzania vs. one grown in Burundi? What about Papua New Guinea vs. East Timor? There are wonderful coffees being grown in places I have trouble finding on a globe. And each one is distinct. I think it is exciting.

To us - it's an adventure. It's an opportunity to be introduced to people we have never met before who live in places we know very little about - who are producing wonderfully distinct coffee.

We hope others are up for an adventure as well.