You should. You’ve got a great cup of coffee in front of you while you tap into all the information in the world on your phone.
We at Equator feel lucky too. In spite of being astonishingly unaggressive in our sales efforts, we continue to receive more and more orders for coffee. After twenty five years of growing this business, it is nice to relax and enjoy life a little without having to scramble to pay for that curtain trailer full of coffee coming up from Frisco.
Like all coffee roasters in the United States, we have seen very reasonable green coffee prices in recent years. This translates into good deals for the cafes and grocery stores we serve, who in turn can put that pound of fine coffee in your shopping cart at a price that doesn’t force you to put anything else back on the shelf. Good times for all.
Other companies are far more imaginative than we are. They go for the grand gesture: sponsoring electronic music festivals and buying radio time on university stations—you know, just like the Italian artisans of yore—and their customers foot the bill, often at twice the price any reputable business should charge.
As for us, we’ll keep serving the whole community: the starving student ; the millionaire software developer; the symphony cellist; the weird neighbor who people say “kinda keeps to himself.” And we thank all of you for supporting our enterprise for the past two-and-a-half decades—from the super-successful cafes who buy a hundred pounds a week, right down to the fishing pals and music cronies who stop in from time to time for a pound of joe and a chat.
These easy times won’t last forever. Recently we have seen some startling changes in the coffee business. The price of coffee has risen more than 20 percent in recent weeks, and in the future coffee may cost a bit more for all of us. But there is another side to that prospect: a large chunk of that increase will go to the farmers who actually make this wonderful drink possible. As their customers from day one, we’ve always been willing to pay a little more for top quality, and you’ve proven us right by coming back year after year.
In short, we’ll maintain that difficult balancing act which allows everyone—farmers, brokers, roasters and baristas—to make a buck, and still deliver a great cup to you without sending you to the ATM every time you get a craving. We even entertain the crazy idea that we can keep doing this another twenty five years. We’re feelin’ lucky. Thanks to all.
Greg.