Problem Solving
This was originally published to our substack account.
Business solve problems, otherwise they don’t make money.
I had a personal problem on Thursday this summer: I had the morning off and I wanted to buy a bag of light roast coffee.
We’ve got two great coffee roasters in the Methow Valley. Lariat - famously featured at the Rocking Horse Bakery - is in Winthrop. Blue Star - with their brand new facility - is in Twisp. They both tend to roast on the dark side.
And that’s fine. They coffee is good. Now, Cowboy Mud - a French roast - is a little too dark for me, but 16 hands is fine. It’s great even! Well crafted, smooth. Blue Star’s roaster’s choice is often my go to when at the Mothership or the Mazama Store. But sometimes you want something a little different.
You won’t easily find light roast coffee in the Methow Valley. You can go to Mela in Wenatchee, but that’s two hours away!
The Coffee Palette
Coffee is like wine. When you start out, there’s good coffee and bad coffee. You have very pointed preferences. As you taste more of it, your palette expands and eventually you just become curious. You stop searching for an ideal “best” kind of coffee and start to appreciate the nuances of each variety.
Broadly speaking, we are living in a golden age for coffee in the Mountain West. Lots of roasters and finding lots of really great beans and roasting them really well.
From Bozeman’s Treeline, to Boise’s Neckar, to the quirky Pine Coffee Supply in Pinedale, to Single Speed in Flagstaff, to the very industrious Snake River Roasting in Jackson Hole, it’s just plain fun to explore those diverse offerings.
But that’s hard to do on your own. How long does it take you to get through a 12oz bag of beans? What if you want to compare different coffees at the same time?
You need some kind of scale. You need someone to order those beans and serve them to enough people that you can open two or three different bags of coffee at once.
You need a business.
So I started this business. And that’s what we’re doing. That and some other things.
Chewuch Coffee Traders
Some folks just want cheap coffee, and a lot of it. We’re here for you. Some folks really care about how their coffee tastes, and others are super curious. We’re here for you, too! Our aim is to serve anyone who wants coffee.
Unless you want espresso. Then you’re on your own that’s not what we do. At least not yet.
Our values are simple.
Open Early
Keep it Clean
Keep it Simple
Offer on the Spectrum
If you want milk with espresso, we’ll set you up with an aerated, aeropress au last and you won’t even know the difference. If you want a sugar free melona mocha… or a peppermint red bull infusion with an extra shot of espresso mmmm. Maybe we’re not for you.
We’ll serve Cheap Coffee to Fancy Coffee. Drip to pour over. We’ll serve Light Roast to Dark Roast. Tea? Sure, why not? Cold brew? Of course. Decaf? Yeah okay. Probably. But… Simple.
Part of our mission is to help people develop their palette for coffee. To understand nuances in the beans. And to share coffees from near and far. We’ll host tastings / cuppings, and are always happy to chat.
I’d also really like to use the company as a platform to share the Methow and it’s Coffee with the outside world. Get folks to come and visit. Spend more money here. And have a great time.
Anyway. Thanks for checking us out. We can’t wait to serve you!
