002: A THING FOR COFFEE
In case you haven’t read the first blog post, “001: Introductions,” I’ll summarize and say that I have a “thing” for coffee.
For most of my adult life, I’d be considered a “coffee enthusiast” who purchased whole beans from a local roaster, ground them each morning, and made a single-cup pour-over.
While traveling the country for over 5 years in an Airstream (long story), I even documented all the different coffees we tried throughout the United States.
Here are just a few:
However, over the past few years, coffee has become more of an integral part of my professional life.
In 2010, I met U.S. Navy veteran, Michael Hyacinthe, for coffee and realized the disconnect between our two worlds. Soon after, we founded a non-profit organization called [HAS HEART], which brings together veterans and creatives.
And guess what is the first thing that they do when they meet?
THEY GET TO KNOW ONE ANOTHER OVER A CUP OF COFFEE.
Recognizing the unifying power of coffee, which brings together people from diverse backgrounds and life experiences, we conceived the idea to establish the [HAS HEART] Coffee Shop in 2016.
We knew we couldn’t do this on our own, so Michael and I pitched the idea to the City of Grand Rapids and Madcap Coffee Company.
Fast forward to 2023, after years of planning, fundraising, building renovations, and designing the complete customer experience, we finally opened our [HAS HEART] Coffee Shop doors on Veterans Day 2023.
We were soon selected as the 2024 “Coffee Shop of the Year” by the West Michigan Food & Beverage Awards. Not a bad way to start!
Around this same time, I started working with Morningsong Coffee Roasters as a freelancer on redesigning their entire brand identity and product packaging.
While working closely with Morningsong’s owner, Andrew Grassmick, I gained an incredible amount of knowledge (and appreciation) about the science and art of sourcing, roasting, and producing coffee.
It’s an incredible feat for coffee to go from a fruit grown on the opposite side of the world into our cups at home. Alas, I digress.
Brewing great coffee at home became a struggle whenever I visited my family up north.
To this day, I measure out my 21g of beans, grind them, heat up a kettle of water, and make myself a 355g pour-over of coffee. This is my favorite part of each morning. It’s a moment of peace as I mentally and physically prepare for the day.
However, this meaningful ritual typically takes between 8 and 10 minutes from start to finish. Plus, it requires a bag of whole bean coffee, a measuring tin, scale, electric kettle, burr grinder, and a pour-over station.
anytime I’d go Up North, I’d have to lug all this expensive and delicate equipment.
But not only that, all my siblings and their spouses would soon “line up” for me to make them each a cup of coffee. All of a sudden, my peaceful ritual became an hour-long pour-over service, and by the end of it, I’d be ready for a nap, having gone through over half my bag of (not cheap) coffee.
During one of our touch-base meetings between Andrew and me at Morningsong on April 17th, the concept of ground coffee arose, with this “problem” of mine in mind. I also shared more about my nostalgic family history with coffee and summers spent Up North (as detailed in the “001: Introductions” post).
With all of that teed up, I mentioned to him a concept I’ve always wanted to explore, inspired by “The Cottage” and the depth of meaning, memories, and visuals it could evoke if it were a brand.
Andrew was intrigued enough to ask what that could look like. Which was all I needed to hit the ground running.
