Well Coffee: Fair Wage, Community Partnership
and a Good Cup of Coffee

By Brooke Bown

Well Coffee is the culmination of a long-time dream of owner, Brooke Bowen, and the many people along the way who helped her make that a reality. Brooke fell in love with coffee when she discovered the positive side-effects it had on her studies at Baylor University and from that point on, the near-campus coffee shop, Common Grounds (www.commongroundswaco.com), became a regular home away from home for her to “study,” among other things. After graduation in 2003, Brooke began working in the retail coffee world and gained further knowledge of the product she loved so much. Her simultaneous involvement in the non-profit sector and time spent traveling overseas—Africa, Indonesia and Central America—experiencing other cultures, peaked her interest in the origins of coffee. She poured herself into independent study of “fair trade” and finally at the end of 2008 got to travel to Rwanda and Honduras to meet with farmers, talk to coffee exporters and experience the whole production side of coffee face to face.

Her time overseas fueled her passion when she saw how dependent entire economies are on this commodity and recognized the necessity for directly traded coffee at fair wages. Returning to the U.S., Brooke began learning about coffee roasting and formulating a business plan for a direct trade micro-roasting concept to be founded in Dallas. November 2009 marked Well Coffee Roasters inception. Since then, Well Coffee has a growing portfolio that includes Common Grounds Coffeehouse, Roots Coffeehouse, The Corner Market, Smoke Restaurant. he Belmont Hotel, and individual buyers.

The vision of Well Coffee can be summed up in a quote that has become a theme of the business: “Love until it hurts…what I do, you cannot do, but what you do, I cannot do. The needs are great and none of us, including me, ever do great things. But we can all do small things with great love and together we can do something wonderful.” Mother Teresa.

The heart of Well Coffee is to create small change with great love. On a global level that looks like direct relationships with farmers. Well Coffee is a part of a co-op of roasters from around the U.S. that has been developed to establish traceability between coffee farmers overseas and coffee drinkers in the West.

All of Well Coffee’s purchasing decisions are based on

• Fair Wage. Farmers should be paid a wage that consistently exceeds the Fair Trade and Commodity prices for coffee.
  
  
• Partnership. Beyond just buying power, Well Coffee cooperates with the work of humanitarian organizations already on the ground in communities. Partnership with these organizations can be anything from short-term medical mission trips to clean water projects to micro-loans.

On a local level, Well Coffee seeks to create brand recognition that is fun, engaging, relevant, and purposeful. Through quarterly events called B.Y.O.M. (Bring Your Own Mug) and other philanthropic involvement, Well Coffee is a catalyst that brings people together around coffee for a greater good.

Visit www.wellcoffee.com

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