Westport Coffee Importer Brews Plan To Aid
Costa Rican School
By DON CUDDY
Combine boundless energy with plenty of
youthful idealism, add a pinch of business
acumen and a dash of hope and what do you
get? If you are Kate Schneider you have a
hill of beans. Coffee beans, that is.
And that's just fine with this Westport
resident, who recently launched Buena Beans,
a coffee-importing business, out of the
Crosby and Baker facility on Main Road in
Westport.
Buena Beans sells gourmet coffee beans grown
in La Violeta, a rural village in the hills
of Costa Rica where Schneider spent 12
months teaching English to local
schoolchildren in 2008. Fifty percent of all
profits will be returned to La Violeta with
the funds earmarked for improvements to the
local elementary school.
Coffee drinkers have plenty of options when
it comes to their favorite brew, but
Schneider says Buena Beans can hold its own
with any other brand. The coffee grown in
the fertile soil of this highland region,
located about 20 miles south of the capital,
San Jose, enjoys a global reputation among
connoisseurs.
"This is micro lot, single-source coffee
that essentially comes from one farm,"
Schneider said. "La Violeta produces gourmet
coffee that is hand-picked and sun-dried."
For the cognoscenti, the coffee is described
as "medium-bodied with a bright acidity
characteristic of the altitude and region."
The green coffee beans are stored in
Westport and roasted in small batches, to
guarantee freshness, at Coastal Roasters in
Tiverton.
Schneider had no thought of starting a
business when she went to Costa Rica to do
service work for World Teach, a program run
out of Harvard University. She stayed with a
host family right across the street from the
school. But the head of the household also
belonged to a small cooperative, composed of
13 local families, seeking to grow, mill and
market their own coffee beans.
"Right from the beginning I was totally
immersed in the coffee business," she said.
"It was really a boutique operation. They
had a small mill and were doing just 150,000
pounds a year but it was all SHB estate
grade," Schneider said of the designation
reserved for 'strictly hard bean' specialty
coffee grown above an altitude of 1,200
meters.
Yet in spite of a steady demand for the
coffee they produce, Schneider saw that the
growers were not reaping much of the bounty.
The school building, for example, was just
too small to accommodate some donated
computers, depriving students of access to
the Internet.
Having raised $600 from family and friends
to build a tin roof over the school
playground, Schneider came home with a
mission. "I saw that even a small amount of
money can make a huge difference," she said.
"They have coffee and they need a building
so I wanted to harness the power of
traditional business to do good. I don't
think we're going to be able to do business
without thinking of others for much longer."
If successful, Schneider hopes to expand her
business to support more independent growers
in Costa Rica and beyond. |
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