Serving People Serving Coffee Since 2005
Issue link: http://baristamagazine.epubxp.com/i/686001
"You really need to get people to connect with the reality of coffee farming, even if they don't speak the same language. Just to have a moment to sit around the table in the dirt-floor home of a small family farmer, and try to just be in that reality," she says. "I felt like that was a really important opportunity to try to help shift people's awareness about how the industry works, and, ideally, go back with new ideas for how they might do something meaningful." Even a short while spent with Kimberly inspires scads of those new ideas—who knows what sorts of meaningful work you'll be inspired to pursue after reading our Q+A with her here. Erin Meister: Tell us a little about your background, and what your earliest coffee life was like. Kimberly Easson: I was incorporated in Wilmington, Del. You know how most corporations are "Delaware corporations" with Wilmington addresses? [Laughs] We lived there until I was in seventh grade, and then we moved to South Carolina, which was almost like moving to a different planet in the late '70s. I know for sure my mom used to have one of those big percolators. She liked to entertain, so she'd have the ladies over and they'd have this percolator on—the big no-no, right? That I can recall for sure, but I don't know about their daily coffee habits. Isn't that funny that I don't remember that? A lot of people remember having the Folgers can. EM: If you didn't grow up around coffee, what drove you to get involved with the industry? KE: I'm really passionate about making a difference in the world, to find people and connections and ways to do things that are really meaningful, and make a difference at a global level. That's really what drives me. I love people, and it breaks my heart when you see people who aren't doing well. Especially with something like coffee, [which] we tend to pay a lot for…here in the United States: How is that not translating back to coffee communities, and the people in those communities? EM: When did you first realize that you wanted to spend your life trying to make a difference in other people's lives? KE: The first part of my coffee career, I had no idea about kind of the reality of the world, I have to say. I'm from a very typical middle- class American family; we weren't rich, but my needs were met. I knew about poverty, but kind of theoretically. It was eye-opening to me to start to travel a little bit around Central America. One of the most life-changing experiences of my life was to visit Guatemala in 1992. My friend invited me to go, and I'm thinking, "Oh, great, spring break in Guatemala!" You know, party in Antigua. [Laughs] It turned out that we were hosting a group that wanted to provide this experience to people from the United States that would be kind of a wake-up. The trip was all about trying to show in a very visceral way what the reality of Guatemala was after the civil war there. It was a rude awakening, and I think for the next three years or so I just tried to put away and ignore it. I suffered a little bit in the first weeks, was crying, and upset [by these new realizations about the world]. Thankfully, I was in a coffee company at the time, so that's when I got my start in the business. That was kind of like this convergence of coffee and the state of the world, and who I am is trying to help do something about it. Over time I began to figure out how I could actually do something meaningful. EM: What was the inspiration for your entry into coffee? KE: [My first coffee job] was with Café Britt. They roast coffee just outside of San José, Costa Rica. They sell a lot of coffee 83 www.baristamagazine.com