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85 www.baristamagazine.com Jason downplays the insightfulness of his career trajectory "I wanted to be a traveling monk, learning martial arts and just wander- ing the world, honestly," he says of youthful aspirations. He ended up graduating from Indiana University in Bloomington, double-majoring in economics and East Asian studies (and could have declared in his- tory and political science, too, having completed the coursework, but quadruple majors weren't possible). Thinking he'd "go to graduate school or something, somewhere, sometime," Jason first fed his newly tapped wanderlust and found an internship that allowed him to live in London. Once it was over, however, and he was back in Indiana with his future wife, Kirsten, he fell out of love with the idea of graduate school. "My wife was getting her Ph.D., and I realized after I wrote a 52-page honors thesis that I did not have the stamina to go to grad- uate school and write a dissertation. Plus, two people in grad school at the same time just seemed too crazy. So I decided that I wanted to trade foreign exchange." More on that later. Coffee came into play for Jason not in high school, not even right away when he got to college. His first encounter with coffee came hand in hand with a job in a foundry that poured engine blocks, graveyard shift. "To stay awake and not die with all the equipment, I started drinking a concoction of half instant coffee and half hot- chocolate mix during the breaks," he remembers. "Not the tastiest concoction, but it was my 'gateway' coffee. The rest of the coffee story develops later." That whimsy Jason drifted on as an elementary school kid was pretty similar to his roundabout route to foreign exchange. Sure, Jason loved the paradigms of finances—the history, politics, inter- national economics—but he was also just fascinated by money as an intellectual construct, a captivation born from his interest in the artist J.S.G Boggs, who got famous for hand-drawing U.S. currency bills. The theoretical appeal of money, however, wasn't present in his day- to-day work as an option trader, he quickly found out. He worked for a French bank for a while, then a U.S. bank, then a commodity com- pany, where he was the head derivative trader. Then, he says, he "got tired of traders, more than trading, per se, and quit." Meanwhile, Jason had developed a love for home coffee roasting. When his then-2-year-old son gave him a cupping spoon for Father's Day, Jason had an epiphany. "Now gainfully unemployed, I walked into Café Imports and met Andrew," who was, Jason says, "kind enough to not throw me out the door and even so kind as to give me 10 samples of coffee to take home to roast. I kind of was like a stray dog who was given a treat, and came back again to cup, and then said, 'This is fun—can I work here?'" Fourteen years later, Jason's still understating his natural coffee competence. Luckily, our interview revealed not only his reflec- tions on how the company has grown so successful, much in part to its interest in selling to microroasters and celebrating barista excellence, but also its innovative trade and public education model. Jason, whose impressive volunteer resumé includes being past chair of the Alliance for Coffee Excellence board, as well as past chair of the Specialty Coffee Association of America's Sustainability Council, also shared some pretty cool ideas he has about coffee—Café Imports coffee, but also our coffee industry. So let's hear it. Sarah Allen: What was Café Imports like back when you start- ed there? What niche did Café Imports fill that wasn't being filled in 2001? Jason Long: Café Imports was buying and selling to an under- served, or almost completely ignored, small market in the Midwest. I wandered in the door and Andrew and I are both interested in CHECKOUTTONSOFPHOTOSOFBARISTASAND CAFÉSFROMAROUNDTHEWORLDANDSENDUS PHOTOSANDNEWSFROMYOUROWNCAFÉ! FINDOUTABOUTCOFFEEEVENTSINYOUR AREANEWCAFEOPENINGSANDINDUSTRY UPDATESONOURFACEBOOKTWITTER ANDINSTAGRAM! follow us on Facebook at Barista magazine follow us on twitter! @BARISTAMAGAZINE follow us on Instagram @baristamagazine