Just coffee

Just Coffee Cooperative is a worker-owned coffee roaster dedicated to creating and expanding a model of trade based on transparency, human dignity, and environmental sustainability. We build long-term relationships with small-scale coffee growers to bring you a truly incredible cup of coffee. Our farmer-partners work incredibly hard to produce the finest coffee, and it is our passion to bring out its best and to make it available to you, honoring their expertise and hard work.

We started Just Coffee Cooperative to work with Zapatista coffee farmers in Chiapas, MX when coffee prices were at an all-time low. After meeting and getting close to some radical farm families, we saw that the coffee market was doing them wrong. Returning to Madison, we thought that it would be easy to get local roasters and regional importers to partner up with these folks. It turns out it was not.

When we went back to Chiapas, we walked to a fiesta nestled in a tiny hamlet in the mountains of Southern Mexico. We had no good news for the farmers there. “It’s alright because YOU can buy our beans, then you can roast and sell it” the president of their new co-op said. And we agreed due to positive peer pressure and an intense desire to make a difference.

Back in Madison, we became “reluctant entrepreneurs” trying to organize Just Coffee as people who had absolutely no business training. We thumbed our noses at anything that smelled of standard business practices. The approach did not always work well, but it sometimes worked brilliantly.

We became known in Madison as the people who showed up on bizarre bikes to farmer’s markets, protests, and other events doling out coffee and talking about better ways to do trade. We honed our roasting skills, rolled forward over our missteps, and succeeded due to our energy, momentum, and community support.

Over the years, we have grown and are now available from Portland to San Francisco to Austin to NOLA to Lexington, KY and places in between. We have over 30 people in our organization and we continue to move forward. Our coffee is second to none, and our relationships with the small farmers we partner with are strong. We are small players in the coffee industry with excellent beans and a loud voice—the people who won’t shut up. We love it.

Every time we buy something, we support the system that was used to get it to us. We want to get you the best tasting cup of coffee imaginable and to transparently show you where it came from, who grew it, and how your choice affects them in a real way. Through a total commitment to complete quality—from the farmer to the final cup—we continue to redefine how the coffee industry can work.

Thanks for supporting all of us. Now let’s drink some coffee.