A Tucson Adventure

“Only Irish coffee provides in a single glass all four essential food groups: alcohol, caffeine, sugar, and fat.”
– Alex Levine

I stole that quote from the homepage of Adventure Coffee Roasting, of Tucson. They were featured in the newspaper recently, and here is an excerpt from that article.

The Gillilands buy and roast only certified organic coffee beans, roasting 3,000 pounds of coffee each month.
They anticipate a recently acquired, state-of-the-art roaster will enable them to roast 15,000-18,000 pounds of coffee per month once it’s up and running.

Since they launched the business in the fall of 2004, sales have doubled each year, Scott Gilliland said. He expects the same this year, though he declined to cite exact figures.

At least 95 percent of that is certified as “fair trade,” which means more of the money goes to the grower and the workers receive better treatment than at most farms that are not so certified.

“I knew it would cost me more, but it just feels right,” Scott said. “If we’ll buy it, then producers will grow it.”

Adventure sells whole and ground coffees from Africa, South and Central America, the Far East and the Mexican state of Chiapas. The company also sells special blends and decaffeinated coffees.

The company sells its coffee online for $11.50 to $13.50 a pound, with slightly lower prices at markets.