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A Just Cup? Our Story As A B Corp
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What Is In Your Cup?
When you drink your coffee, you might want to know what goes into your cup, and if it is Thanksgiving Coffee, you might want to know why we became a certified B Corp. So let me tell you a little story about our coffee company and why we went through this rigorous process of certification.
When Thanksgiving Coffee Company began (now over 50 years ago) it was based on the co-owner Paul Katzeff's history as a social worker. The function of the coffee became a vehicle for social, environmental and economic justice in the world. In the 80's, during Paul's first momentus visit to the coffee farms of the war-torn country of Nicaragua, he created our motto "Not Just A Cup, But A Just Cup". This has been the intention behind every aspect of Thanksgiving Coffee's work. (If you ever get a chance, ask Paul to tell you the story of this first visit, it is quite something!) In the meantime you can read more on the revolution at Liberation News.
Coffee is one of the most widely consumed beverages the world over. It is an economic mainstay for dozens of countries and produced by 25 million small share holders. As a pioneer Thanksgiving Coffee Company has gone to these coffee-growing origins around the world to meet with the farmers, to support their organic farming cooperatives, to pay a living wage for the beans, and provide meaningful employment along the entire supply chain to help innovate and create sustainable ecology for over 5 decades.
Can you taste the difference? Will you be the difference?
When a business becomes a Certified B Corporation it means that they have undergone an extensive process to meet the highest standards of verified social and environmental performance, public transparency, and legal accountability to balance profit and purpose... This was a perfect community for Thanksgiving Coffee to join, with thousands of conscious companies in 89 countries who do real work to make our world a better place for all.
B Corp is A Network to Build Collaboration and Work Toward a More Inclusive Economy
Nicaruguan farmers who spoke out for justice were a huge turning point in our company's history. The women led farmer cooperative of Soppexcca is part of this Nicaraguan legacy and the work we do as a B Corp. When you go to drink your next cup of coffee, take a moment and ask yourself, what is in your cup, really? Is it a "Just Cup"? How does it sustain the Earth? How does it treat our life sustaining waters? Does it support the humanity of all the hard-working farmers? Can you taste the difference? Will you be the difference?
Image: Natividad Lopez Garcia, Reina Isabel Quintero, and Flor Rodriguez, founding members of SOPPEXCCA’s women’s cooperative in Nicaragua.
To try Soppexcca’s Organic and Fair Trade coffee from Nicaragua you can either purchase the Flor de Jinotega or our Bee Bold Cause Coffee in Dark and Medium, which uses their coffee as the main bean in the blend.
Stay Connected and Learn How We Use Our Coffee For Good.
Recommended Reading
Back to the Blog-
![A History of Fair Trade and Coffee Farmer Advocacy]()
Cups of Change
the promise behind A Just Cup
Paul Katzeff with children of the Nicaragua Coffee Farm 2001
"Be Our Voice"
Paul Katzeff recalls stepping off a plane in Nicaragua in 1985 and being greeted by Sandinistas carrying AK-47s. They were also campesinos, farmers trying to survive a civil war. They brought him into a room and asked him to carry their story home. He agreed.
That yes changed Thanksgiving Coffee. The people behind the harvest became part of what we meant by quality. Their request helped give us the words we still stand behind: Not Just a Cup, But a Just Cup™.
This October, Cups of Change follows that promise from Nicaragua to our roast room above Noyo Harbor, and into the wider coffee community. It is a story of what happened when a small Mendocino Coast roaster listened to farmers and began changing how it did business.
How Nicaragua Changed The Roast Room
Joan and Paul founded Thanksgiving Coffee in 1972 with a 25-pound roaster at the Mendocino Hotel. Freshly roasted coffee was finding its audience. We were learning our craft and building a business in the community that had welcomed us.
Original Menu and Roaster Illustration from Mendocino Hotel 1972
Café por la Paz, Coffee for Peace, gave our customers a deeper way to take part in our coffee journey. Our 1986 brochure shared how we gave a 25-cent contribution from each bag of coffee sold. The program sent rebates to UNAG, a Nicaraguan farmers’ organization supporting agrarian reform. Our 2016 retrospective shares how we distributed 500,000 educational brochures. Coffee was now a way to bring farmers’ struggles into American homes and give direct support back to their hard work.
We tell more of that history in our blog A Just Cup.
The promise to be the farmers voice was taking a practical form: a bag of coffee could carry information, raise funds, and invite a customer into a relationship with the people who grew it.
For the farmer organization’s perspective on this history, read “Daniel Núñez: The Farmers’ View,” a 1991 interview in Revista Envío, exploring farmers’ struggles for land, fair prices, and peace.
Changing what a coffee bag could tell you
Some changes began even before Nicaragua. Our packaging history records roast color on labels in 1972 and the use of Goglio valve bags in 1977. Freshness dates gave customers another useful fact about their coffee. These details helped people understand what they were buying and helped us deliver the flavor we worked so carefully to develop.
In 1992, our Harvest Line put farmers’ photographs on the packages. Customers could see a face behind the harvest. The grower’s work deserved a place beside the roaster’s name. Our early organic coffees and later commitment to shade-grown coffee also brought the health of the farming landscape into the conversation.
Harvest Line packages - Thanksgiving Coffee Company 1992.
Those choices helped turn a package into an invitation to pay attention. They connected the pleasure of drinking coffee with questions about who grew it, how it was cultivated, and how its value was shared. Independent roasters and producer organizations were building a wider movement toward fairer trade, and we were proud to work alongside them.
From one roaster to an industry conversation
A small roastery can have a voice beyond its harbor. Thanksgiving Coffee was a founding member of the Specialty Coffee Association of America (SCAA), and Paul was the association’s first president, serving three terms. In 2008, the SCAA honored him with a Lifetime Achievement Award for his extraordinary contributions.
In 1992, as president of the board, Paul created the SCAA Environment Committee, later renamed the Sustainability Committee. Its questions reached beyond the roast room. How could coffee businesses support the people growing their beans? What did the industry owe the forests, soil, and biodiversity that made those harvests possible?
Those questions became commitments. On October 10, 1997, the SCAA board unanimously adopted a sustainability policy that named biodiversity protection, respect for human rights, and prices that could support economic sustainability.
For us, this is part of becoming a movement maker: listening to farmers, bringing fellow roasters together, and helping turn concern into collective action. Paul’s leadership was one contribution to work carried forward by many people across the coffee community.
Explore this chapter of our history:
- A Just Cup: The story behind specialty coffee’s first environmental committee
- SCAA Sustainability Statement
- Quality revolutions, solidarity networks, and sustainability innovations: following Fair Trade coffee from Nicaragua to California
This is how a movement grows. People meet, disagree, organize, and change what their profession is willing to take responsibility for. We were one part of that work, alongside collaborators who carried it far beyond Mendocino.
Putting the tools of quality in farmers' hands
The promise also changed who gets to judge a coffee. From 2000–2001, Thanksgiving Coffee worked with USAID and Nicaraguan cooperatives on farmer-owned cupping labs. A lab made structured tasting possible at origin, and training taught growers to use the same tools and standards buyers use to assess their harvest.
For a producer, that knowledge supports experiments, improvements, and negotiations grounded in what the coffee actually is. UCA Miraflor and CECOCAFEN were among our cooperative partners. These farmers already knew their land deeply. The cupping tools gave them another way to show the value they create.
Explore the cupping lab story to meet the people and cooperatives behind this change. The ripple was practical: more knowledge at origin, better-informed conversations about value, and a stronger place for farmers in the story of specialty coffee.
Songbird Colombian carries the conversation forward
The questions behind our work with farmers, how coffee is grown and what a purchase can support, still guide us today. One example is our October feature coffee, Songbird Colombian, an organic, Smithsonian Bird Friendly certified dark roast with notes of toasted nut and dark chocolate and a smooth, lasting finish. Every package supports the programs of the American Birding Association.
Its story begins in Colombia’s Sierra Nevada de Santa Marta, where our Agroberlin farmer profile introduces Dario Delgado and his family’s La Cabaña farm. Coffee grows there beneath native shade trees, and our relationship with Agroberlin began in 2015. Bird Friendly certification requires organic production and verified habitat protections, so the trees overhead are part of the story, too.
Care still has to arrive as a delicious cup. That work happens every day in our roast room, where experience and close attention turn a farmer’s harvest into the coffee you brew. In 2017, Roast magazine named Thanksgiving Coffee its Macro Roaster of the Year. We’re grateful for that recognition, and for the growers whose coffee makes our craft possible.
The next ripple begins here
For more than fifty years, Thanksgiving Coffee has contributed time, energy, and coffee to community gatherings along the Mendocino Coast. Behind that history are neighbors setting up events, artists sharing their work, volunteers making things happen, and coffee being poured while people come together. We are part of this community, and it is part of us.
This October, we are contributing coffee to the Native Arts Expo and One People, One Fire October 16–18 in Mendocino, with Bee Bold Alliance helping share the invitation. These Indigenous-led gatherings offer a chance to listen to Native voices, meet artists, and support their work. We invite our neighbors to join us.
We want a regenerative future for Thanksgiving Coffee and the harbor we call home. We are exploring how food sovereignty, art, and community learning might grow alongside the work of roasting and our relationships with farmers. To carry those possibilities forward, this company needs a healthy business behind it. The next chapter depends on people continuing to choose our coffee.
If this work matters to you, choose Songbird Colombian, select a subscription if it fits your household, or introduce a friend to Thanksgiving Coffee.
Your order helps sustain the daily work and relationships behind this story. Then brew a little extra for this month’s Maple and Coffee Baked Pears. The cook deserves a cup, too.
“Be our voice” began with farmers asking to be heard. Cups of Change is an invitation to keep listening, and to let what we learn change what we do. Thank you for helping carry that promise forward.
Not Just a Cup, But a Just Cup™
Frequently Asked Questions
What was Thanksgiving Coffee’s Coffee for Peace project?
Coffee for Peace was a project supported by Thanksgiving Coffee in the 1980s that connected Nicaraguan coffee producers with consumers in the United States and Canada. Coffee sales returned funds to Nicaragua’s farmers’ organization, UNAG, to support farming communities.
What does “Not Just a Cup, But a Just Cup” mean?
Thanksgiving Coffee’s motto connects great coffee with responsibility to the people who grow it. Co-founder Paul Katzeff adopted the phrase after visiting Nicaragua in 1985, when witnessing farmers’ living conditions changed his understanding of what a good cup of coffee should represent.
How did Thanksgiving Coffee support coffee farmers in Nicaragua?
Thanksgiving Coffee purchased Nicaraguan coffee, advocated for producers, and supported the Coffee for Peace project. Later, the company helped nine Nicaraguan cooperatives establish farmer-owned cupping laboratories and trained producers to evaluate their own coffee.
How can coffee cupping help farmers negotiate better prices?
Cupping is a standardized way to evaluate coffee’s aroma, flavor, and quality. Access to cupping equipment and training helps farmers understand and document their harvest’s value, giving them stronger information for discussions with buyers. Quality knowledge supports negotiation, although it does not guarantee fair compensation.
What is Smithsonian Bird Friendly coffee?
Smithsonian Bird Friendly® coffee meets certification requirements for organic farming and wildlife habitat protection. The standards protect tree cover and biodiversity on coffee farms, helping conserve habitat for migratory and resident birds.
About the Author
Lavender Grace Kent, Head of Brand Narrative & Culture
Lavender Grace documents Thanksgiving Coffee’s history, producer relationships, environmental commitments, and continuing work at the intersection of coffee, culture, and biodiversity.
Stay in touch - we like to stay connected
A History of Fair Trade and Coffee Farmer Advocacy
read more -
![Back to the Land, Forward in Time]()
Back to the Land, Forward in Time
Biodiversity, organic coffee, and the art of creating with care
September has a way of turning quietly on the Mendocino Coast. The light shifts, the gardens offer their last abundance, and the first edge of autumn asks us to notice what we have grown, both in the ground and in our lives.
This season, we are thinking about the relationships that hold everything together: people and place, farmer and roaster, tradition and everyday life. Biodiversity is part of that larger picture. It is the living foundation behind good coffee, and one of the things Thanksgiving Coffee is committed to protecting.
Original Roastary on Noyo Harbor circa 1970's, With Paul and Panda
A Living Mendocino Inheritance
Thanksgiving Coffee was born from the Mendocino Coast world. Our story is connected to Fort Bragg's working harbor, the Mendocino art scene, environmental activism, and the back-to-the-land ethos.
From the beginning, coffee here has meant more than a product. It has offered a way to remain connected to place, to people, and to a life shaped by purpose.
Much of what once sounded "alternative" has become part of how many of us are trying to live today. We want to know where our food comes from. We care about soil and water. We value independent makers and the knowledge carried within their work.
Coffee as Part of a Living System
Biodiversity is one of the threads tying these values together. Coffee doesn't grow in isolation. A biodiverse coffee farm can include shade trees, birds, insects and other pollinators, microorganisms, ground cover and neighboring plant species - all interacting with the coffee crop and the soil and water that sustain it. Coffee grown organically within a diverse landscape develops as part of a living system - carrying the influence of climate, elevation, soil, variety, and the knowledge of the people who tend it.
From Industry Change to Habitat Protection
Thanksgiving Coffee began making the relationship between coffee and habitat visible decades ago. In 1994, we introduced one of the first shade grown coffee lines, connecting customer choice with the protection of tropical forest habitat. Learn more about shade-grown coffee.
In 2015, we joined the Smithsonian Migratory Bird Center’s Bird Friendly program. This certification brings organic agriculture and forest canopy protection together, recognizing coffee farms that provide habitat for migratory birds and other wildlife.
That history continues to shape how we understand biodiversity today. It is a living foundation of the landscape and an essential part of coffee quality and our responsibility. When farms maintain diverse vegetation, forest canopy, and healthy soil, they create conditions in which coffee, wildlife, and farming communities can thrive together.
A Resilient Coffee System Is a Human System
Every cup passes through many hands. Farmers bring an intimate knowledge of their land. Cooperative leaders build shared stability. Cuppers develop their palates through years of practice. Roasters respond to the qualities each coffee brings. Designers, production teams, retailers, and customers carry it forward from there.
This is where biodiversity and justice meet. Fair compensation supports farmers in caring for their farms, remaining connected to their land, and passing knowledge from one generation to the next.
Putting Knowledge in Farmers’ Hands
Original Cupping Lab project, Nicaragua
Thanksgiving Coffee put this belief into practice in Nicaragua. In 1999, Paul Katzeff proposed placing professional coffee tasting tools directly in the hands of producer cooperatives. With support from USAID, Thanksgiving Coffee helped nine cooperatives build cupping labs owned by farmers in 2000 and trained farmers to evaluate coffee using the same standards as buyers. The farmers could taste, understand, and demonstrate the quality of their own coffee, strengthening their ability to improve it and negotiate its value.
We see ecological responsibility and fairness as complementary goals. They are the same root system, revealed in different forms.
Not Just A Cup, But A Just Cup™.
Mendocino Vienna: A Taste of Place
Mendocino Vienna blends organic coffees from Central America, South America, and Indonesia. Each coffee is shaped by its own landscape and farming traditions.
Careful roasting brings these coffees into balance. The result is bold but sweet, with notes of nuts and dark chocolate and a natural sweetness that lingers. This dark roast still allows the blend’s character to come through.
The beans travel from three continents, but the blend itself was shaped here on the Mendocino Coast. Many of our customers first discovered it in Mendocino and have kept returning to it over the years.
One longtime customer, Joe Massucco of Seattle, first tasted Mendocino Vienna while visiting the coast. He describes it as dark and flavorful without tasting burnt, and as a welcome companion to the morning paper.
Sold outA New Way To Enjoy Mendocino Vienna
Its rich notes of chocolate and nuts also make Mendocino Vienna a wonderful foundation for cold brew recipes. Try our Mayan Mocha Smoothie, made with chilled Mendocino Vienna, cacao, banana, cinnamon, and your choice of milk.
Bringing These Values To Your Cup
The choices we make as coffee drinkers can support a more resilient and biodiverse coffee system.
- Look for meaningful certifications. Learn what Organic, Fair Trade, and Smithsonian Bird Friendly certifications tell you about how a coffee was grown or traded. Shade, biodiversity, farming practices, and economic relationships all matter beyond the cup.
- Learn where your coffee comes from. Origin is more than a flavor descriptor. It represents farmers, communities, landscapes, and generations of knowledge.
- Support companies that maintain lasting producer relationships. Relationships built over time can create greater transparency, shared knowledge, and a deeper understanding of quality.
- Learn one story behind the coffee you buy. Knowing something about the people and places behind your coffee can change your relationship with it.
Ready to Begin That Journey?
Start with this month’s featured coffee, Mendocino Vienna. Discover how organic coffees from three continents and more than fifty years of Mendocino Coast roasting experience come together in one enduring blend.
None of this has to be perfect. It simply has to become part of your practice, repeated with care.
Carrying the Legacy Forward
As the fall equinox approaches, we are giving thanks for the harvest, for the people who grow and cultivate our food, and for the relationships that make all of it possible.
The back to the land movement taught us to pay attention. The arts taught us to imagine. Biodiversity reminds us that everything is connected.
At Thanksgiving Coffee, this is living history. It continues through how we source, roast, and share coffee. It also lives within the community that continues to grow around it.
Explore Mendocino Vienna and experience what it means to cultivate coffee, community, and a more thoughtful way of living.
Not Just A Cup, But A Just Cup™.
Frequently Asked Questions
What does biodiversity mean in coffee farming?
Biodiversity refers to the variety of life found within and around a coffee farm. This can include coffee plants, shade trees, food crops, native vegetation, birds, pollinators, insects, fungi, and microorganisms in the soil.
These living elements interact with one another. Together, they can help maintain healthy soil, protect water, support natural pest control, and make a farm more resilient to environmental change. Coffee is one crop within this larger community of life.
How is shade grown coffee good for biodiversity?
Shade grown coffee is cultivated beneath a canopy of trees rather than in a cleared field exposed to full sun. When that canopy includes a variety of tree species and layers of vegetation, it can provide food, shelter, and migratory pathways for birds, insects, and other wildlife.
Shade trees can also help regulate temperature, retain moisture, reduce soil erosion, and return organic matter to the ground. However, “shade grown” by itself is not always a regulated claim. Smithsonian Bird Friendly certification provides additional assurance because participating farms must be certified organic and meet specific standards for forest canopy, vegetation, and habitat protection.
What is the difference between Organic, Fair Trade, and Bird Friendly coffee?
Each certification looks at a different part of the coffee system.
Organic certification focuses on farming and processing practices. Certified organic coffee must meet verified standards governing how it is grown and handled. These standards restrict most synthetic pesticides and fertilizers while supporting soil and water health, ecological balance, and biodiversity.
Fair Trade certification focuses on people and trade. It establishes social, economic, and environmental standards for participating producers and businesses. Depending on the certifying system, this can include price protections, additional community premiums, labor standards, and support for democratic producer organizations.
Smithsonian Bird Friendly certification focuses on habitat. Bird Friendly farms must first meet organic certification requirements. They must also maintain specific levels of shade, forest structure, and plant diversity that provide habitat for migratory birds and other wildlife.
A coffee can carry more than one certification. Organic addresses how the coffee is cultivated. Fair Trade addresses how it moves through economic and social relationships. Bird Friendly adds verified habitat requirements. Together, they give coffee drinkers a fuller understanding of what their coffee supports.
About The Author
Lavender Grace Kent, Head of Brand Narrative & Culture
Lavender Grace documents Thanksgiving Coffee’s history, producer relationships, environmental commitments, and continuing work at the intersection of coffee, culture, and biodiversity.
Stay in touch - we like to stay connected
Back to the Land, Forward in Time
read more
Cups of Change
the promise behind A Just Cup
Paul Katzeff with children of the Nicaragua Coffee Farm 2001
"Be Our Voice"
Paul Katzeff recalls stepping off a plane in Nicaragua in 1985 and being greeted by Sandinistas carrying AK-47s. They were also campesinos, farmers trying to survive a civil war. They brought him into a room and asked him to carry their story home. He agreed.
That yes changed Thanksgiving Coffee. The people behind the harvest became part of what we meant by quality. Their request helped give us the words we still stand behind: Not Just a Cup, But a Just Cup™.
This October, Cups of Change follows that promise from Nicaragua to our roast room above Noyo Harbor, and into the wider coffee community. It is a story of what happened when a small Mendocino Coast roaster listened to farmers and began changing how it did business.
How Nicaragua Changed The Roast Room
Joan and Paul founded Thanksgiving Coffee in 1972 with a 25-pound roaster at the Mendocino Hotel. Freshly roasted coffee was finding its audience. We were learning our craft and building a business in the community that had welcomed us.
Original Menu and Roaster Illustration from Mendocino Hotel 1972
Café por la Paz, Coffee for Peace, gave our customers a deeper way to take part in our coffee journey. Our 1986 brochure shared how we gave a 25-cent contribution from each bag of coffee sold. The program sent rebates to UNAG, a Nicaraguan farmers’ organization supporting agrarian reform. Our 2016 retrospective shares how we distributed 500,000 educational brochures. Coffee was now a way to bring farmers’ struggles into American homes and give direct support back to their hard work.
We tell more of that history in our blog A Just Cup.
The promise to be the farmers voice was taking a practical form: a bag of coffee could carry information, raise funds, and invite a customer into a relationship with the people who grew it.
For the farmer organization’s perspective on this history, read “Daniel Núñez: The Farmers’ View,” a 1991 interview in Revista Envío, exploring farmers’ struggles for land, fair prices, and peace.
Changing what a coffee bag could tell you
Some changes began even before Nicaragua. Our packaging history records roast color on labels in 1972 and the use of Goglio valve bags in 1977. Freshness dates gave customers another useful fact about their coffee. These details helped people understand what they were buying and helped us deliver the flavor we worked so carefully to develop.
In 1992, our Harvest Line put farmers’ photographs on the packages. Customers could see a face behind the harvest. The grower’s work deserved a place beside the roaster’s name. Our early organic coffees and later commitment to shade-grown coffee also brought the health of the farming landscape into the conversation.
Harvest Line packages - Thanksgiving Coffee Company 1992.
Those choices helped turn a package into an invitation to pay attention. They connected the pleasure of drinking coffee with questions about who grew it, how it was cultivated, and how its value was shared. Independent roasters and producer organizations were building a wider movement toward fairer trade, and we were proud to work alongside them.
From one roaster to an industry conversation
A small roastery can have a voice beyond its harbor. Thanksgiving Coffee was a founding member of the Specialty Coffee Association of America (SCAA), and Paul was the association’s first president, serving three terms. In 2008, the SCAA honored him with a Lifetime Achievement Award for his extraordinary contributions.
In 1992, as president of the board, Paul created the SCAA Environment Committee, later renamed the Sustainability Committee. Its questions reached beyond the roast room. How could coffee businesses support the people growing their beans? What did the industry owe the forests, soil, and biodiversity that made those harvests possible?
Those questions became commitments. On October 10, 1997, the SCAA board unanimously adopted a sustainability policy that named biodiversity protection, respect for human rights, and prices that could support economic sustainability.
For us, this is part of becoming a movement maker: listening to farmers, bringing fellow roasters together, and helping turn concern into collective action. Paul’s leadership was one contribution to work carried forward by many people across the coffee community.
Explore this chapter of our history:
- A Just Cup: The story behind specialty coffee’s first environmental committee
- SCAA Sustainability Statement
- Quality revolutions, solidarity networks, and sustainability innovations: following Fair Trade coffee from Nicaragua to California
This is how a movement grows. People meet, disagree, organize, and change what their profession is willing to take responsibility for. We were one part of that work, alongside collaborators who carried it far beyond Mendocino.
Putting the tools of quality in farmers' hands
The promise also changed who gets to judge a coffee. From 2000–2001, Thanksgiving Coffee worked with USAID and Nicaraguan cooperatives on farmer-owned cupping labs. A lab made structured tasting possible at origin, and training taught growers to use the same tools and standards buyers use to assess their harvest.
For a producer, that knowledge supports experiments, improvements, and negotiations grounded in what the coffee actually is. UCA Miraflor and CECOCAFEN were among our cooperative partners. These farmers already knew their land deeply. The cupping tools gave them another way to show the value they create.
Explore the cupping lab story to meet the people and cooperatives behind this change. The ripple was practical: more knowledge at origin, better-informed conversations about value, and a stronger place for farmers in the story of specialty coffee.
Songbird Colombian carries the conversation forward
The questions behind our work with farmers, how coffee is grown and what a purchase can support, still guide us today. One example is our October feature coffee, Songbird Colombian, an organic, Smithsonian Bird Friendly certified dark roast with notes of toasted nut and dark chocolate and a smooth, lasting finish. Every package supports the programs of the American Birding Association.
Its story begins in Colombia’s Sierra Nevada de Santa Marta, where our Agroberlin farmer profile introduces Dario Delgado and his family’s La Cabaña farm. Coffee grows there beneath native shade trees, and our relationship with Agroberlin began in 2015. Bird Friendly certification requires organic production and verified habitat protections, so the trees overhead are part of the story, too.
Care still has to arrive as a delicious cup. That work happens every day in our roast room, where experience and close attention turn a farmer’s harvest into the coffee you brew. In 2017, Roast magazine named Thanksgiving Coffee its Macro Roaster of the Year. We’re grateful for that recognition, and for the growers whose coffee makes our craft possible.
The next ripple begins here
For more than fifty years, Thanksgiving Coffee has contributed time, energy, and coffee to community gatherings along the Mendocino Coast. Behind that history are neighbors setting up events, artists sharing their work, volunteers making things happen, and coffee being poured while people come together. We are part of this community, and it is part of us.
This October, we are contributing coffee to the Native Arts Expo and One People, One Fire October 16–18 in Mendocino, with Bee Bold Alliance helping share the invitation. These Indigenous-led gatherings offer a chance to listen to Native voices, meet artists, and support their work. We invite our neighbors to join us.
We want a regenerative future for Thanksgiving Coffee and the harbor we call home. We are exploring how food sovereignty, art, and community learning might grow alongside the work of roasting and our relationships with farmers. To carry those possibilities forward, this company needs a healthy business behind it. The next chapter depends on people continuing to choose our coffee.
If this work matters to you, choose Songbird Colombian, select a subscription if it fits your household, or introduce a friend to Thanksgiving Coffee.
Your order helps sustain the daily work and relationships behind this story. Then brew a little extra for this month’s Maple and Coffee Baked Pears. The cook deserves a cup, too.
“Be our voice” began with farmers asking to be heard. Cups of Change is an invitation to keep listening, and to let what we learn change what we do. Thank you for helping carry that promise forward.
Not Just a Cup, But a Just Cup™
Frequently Asked Questions
What was Thanksgiving Coffee’s Coffee for Peace project?
Coffee for Peace was a project supported by Thanksgiving Coffee in the 1980s that connected Nicaraguan coffee producers with consumers in the United States and Canada. Coffee sales returned funds to Nicaragua’s farmers’ organization, UNAG, to support farming communities.
What does “Not Just a Cup, But a Just Cup” mean?
Thanksgiving Coffee’s motto connects great coffee with responsibility to the people who grow it. Co-founder Paul Katzeff adopted the phrase after visiting Nicaragua in 1985, when witnessing farmers’ living conditions changed his understanding of what a good cup of coffee should represent.
How did Thanksgiving Coffee support coffee farmers in Nicaragua?
Thanksgiving Coffee purchased Nicaraguan coffee, advocated for producers, and supported the Coffee for Peace project. Later, the company helped nine Nicaraguan cooperatives establish farmer-owned cupping laboratories and trained producers to evaluate their own coffee.
How can coffee cupping help farmers negotiate better prices?
Cupping is a standardized way to evaluate coffee’s aroma, flavor, and quality. Access to cupping equipment and training helps farmers understand and document their harvest’s value, giving them stronger information for discussions with buyers. Quality knowledge supports negotiation, although it does not guarantee fair compensation.
What is Smithsonian Bird Friendly coffee?
Smithsonian Bird Friendly® coffee meets certification requirements for organic farming and wildlife habitat protection. The standards protect tree cover and biodiversity on coffee farms, helping conserve habitat for migratory and resident birds.
About the Author
Lavender Grace Kent, Head of Brand Narrative & Culture
Lavender Grace documents Thanksgiving Coffee’s history, producer relationships, environmental commitments, and continuing work at the intersection of coffee, culture, and biodiversity.
Stay in touch - we like to stay connected
A History of Fair Trade and Coffee Farmer Advocacy
read more
Back to the Land, Forward in Time
Biodiversity, organic coffee, and the art of creating with care
September has a way of turning quietly on the Mendocino Coast. The light shifts, the gardens offer their last abundance, and the first edge of autumn asks us to notice what we have grown, both in the ground and in our lives.
This season, we are thinking about the relationships that hold everything together: people and place, farmer and roaster, tradition and everyday life. Biodiversity is part of that larger picture. It is the living foundation behind good coffee, and one of the things Thanksgiving Coffee is committed to protecting.
Original Roastary on Noyo Harbor circa 1970's, With Paul and Panda
A Living Mendocino Inheritance
Thanksgiving Coffee was born from the Mendocino Coast world. Our story is connected to Fort Bragg's working harbor, the Mendocino art scene, environmental activism, and the back-to-the-land ethos.
From the beginning, coffee here has meant more than a product. It has offered a way to remain connected to place, to people, and to a life shaped by purpose.
Much of what once sounded "alternative" has become part of how many of us are trying to live today. We want to know where our food comes from. We care about soil and water. We value independent makers and the knowledge carried within their work.
Coffee as Part of a Living System
Biodiversity is one of the threads tying these values together. Coffee doesn't grow in isolation. A biodiverse coffee farm can include shade trees, birds, insects and other pollinators, microorganisms, ground cover and neighboring plant species - all interacting with the coffee crop and the soil and water that sustain it. Coffee grown organically within a diverse landscape develops as part of a living system - carrying the influence of climate, elevation, soil, variety, and the knowledge of the people who tend it.
From Industry Change to Habitat Protection
Thanksgiving Coffee began making the relationship between coffee and habitat visible decades ago. In 1994, we introduced one of the first shade grown coffee lines, connecting customer choice with the protection of tropical forest habitat. Learn more about shade-grown coffee.
In 2015, we joined the Smithsonian Migratory Bird Center’s Bird Friendly program. This certification brings organic agriculture and forest canopy protection together, recognizing coffee farms that provide habitat for migratory birds and other wildlife.
That history continues to shape how we understand biodiversity today. It is a living foundation of the landscape and an essential part of coffee quality and our responsibility. When farms maintain diverse vegetation, forest canopy, and healthy soil, they create conditions in which coffee, wildlife, and farming communities can thrive together.
A Resilient Coffee System Is a Human System
Every cup passes through many hands. Farmers bring an intimate knowledge of their land. Cooperative leaders build shared stability. Cuppers develop their palates through years of practice. Roasters respond to the qualities each coffee brings. Designers, production teams, retailers, and customers carry it forward from there.
This is where biodiversity and justice meet. Fair compensation supports farmers in caring for their farms, remaining connected to their land, and passing knowledge from one generation to the next.
Putting Knowledge in Farmers’ Hands
Original Cupping Lab project, Nicaragua
Thanksgiving Coffee put this belief into practice in Nicaragua. In 1999, Paul Katzeff proposed placing professional coffee tasting tools directly in the hands of producer cooperatives. With support from USAID, Thanksgiving Coffee helped nine cooperatives build cupping labs owned by farmers in 2000 and trained farmers to evaluate coffee using the same standards as buyers. The farmers could taste, understand, and demonstrate the quality of their own coffee, strengthening their ability to improve it and negotiate its value.
We see ecological responsibility and fairness as complementary goals. They are the same root system, revealed in different forms.
Not Just A Cup, But A Just Cup™.
Mendocino Vienna: A Taste of Place
Mendocino Vienna blends organic coffees from Central America, South America, and Indonesia. Each coffee is shaped by its own landscape and farming traditions.
Careful roasting brings these coffees into balance. The result is bold but sweet, with notes of nuts and dark chocolate and a natural sweetness that lingers. This dark roast still allows the blend’s character to come through.
The beans travel from three continents, but the blend itself was shaped here on the Mendocino Coast. Many of our customers first discovered it in Mendocino and have kept returning to it over the years.
One longtime customer, Joe Massucco of Seattle, first tasted Mendocino Vienna while visiting the coast. He describes it as dark and flavorful without tasting burnt, and as a welcome companion to the morning paper.
A New Way To Enjoy Mendocino Vienna
Its rich notes of chocolate and nuts also make Mendocino Vienna a wonderful foundation for cold brew recipes. Try our Mayan Mocha Smoothie, made with chilled Mendocino Vienna, cacao, banana, cinnamon, and your choice of milk.
Bringing These Values To Your Cup
The choices we make as coffee drinkers can support a more resilient and biodiverse coffee system.
- Look for meaningful certifications. Learn what Organic, Fair Trade, and Smithsonian Bird Friendly certifications tell you about how a coffee was grown or traded. Shade, biodiversity, farming practices, and economic relationships all matter beyond the cup.
- Learn where your coffee comes from. Origin is more than a flavor descriptor. It represents farmers, communities, landscapes, and generations of knowledge.
- Support companies that maintain lasting producer relationships. Relationships built over time can create greater transparency, shared knowledge, and a deeper understanding of quality.
- Learn one story behind the coffee you buy. Knowing something about the people and places behind your coffee can change your relationship with it.
Ready to Begin That Journey?
Start with this month’s featured coffee, Mendocino Vienna. Discover how organic coffees from three continents and more than fifty years of Mendocino Coast roasting experience come together in one enduring blend.
None of this has to be perfect. It simply has to become part of your practice, repeated with care.
Carrying the Legacy Forward
As the fall equinox approaches, we are giving thanks for the harvest, for the people who grow and cultivate our food, and for the relationships that make all of it possible.
The back to the land movement taught us to pay attention. The arts taught us to imagine. Biodiversity reminds us that everything is connected.
At Thanksgiving Coffee, this is living history. It continues through how we source, roast, and share coffee. It also lives within the community that continues to grow around it.
Explore Mendocino Vienna and experience what it means to cultivate coffee, community, and a more thoughtful way of living.
Not Just A Cup, But A Just Cup™.
Frequently Asked Questions
What does biodiversity mean in coffee farming?
Biodiversity refers to the variety of life found within and around a coffee farm. This can include coffee plants, shade trees, food crops, native vegetation, birds, pollinators, insects, fungi, and microorganisms in the soil.
These living elements interact with one another. Together, they can help maintain healthy soil, protect water, support natural pest control, and make a farm more resilient to environmental change. Coffee is one crop within this larger community of life.
How is shade grown coffee good for biodiversity?
Shade grown coffee is cultivated beneath a canopy of trees rather than in a cleared field exposed to full sun. When that canopy includes a variety of tree species and layers of vegetation, it can provide food, shelter, and migratory pathways for birds, insects, and other wildlife.
Shade trees can also help regulate temperature, retain moisture, reduce soil erosion, and return organic matter to the ground. However, “shade grown” by itself is not always a regulated claim. Smithsonian Bird Friendly certification provides additional assurance because participating farms must be certified organic and meet specific standards for forest canopy, vegetation, and habitat protection.
What is the difference between Organic, Fair Trade, and Bird Friendly coffee?
Each certification looks at a different part of the coffee system.
Organic certification focuses on farming and processing practices. Certified organic coffee must meet verified standards governing how it is grown and handled. These standards restrict most synthetic pesticides and fertilizers while supporting soil and water health, ecological balance, and biodiversity.
Fair Trade certification focuses on people and trade. It establishes social, economic, and environmental standards for participating producers and businesses. Depending on the certifying system, this can include price protections, additional community premiums, labor standards, and support for democratic producer organizations.
Smithsonian Bird Friendly certification focuses on habitat. Bird Friendly farms must first meet organic certification requirements. They must also maintain specific levels of shade, forest structure, and plant diversity that provide habitat for migratory birds and other wildlife.
A coffee can carry more than one certification. Organic addresses how the coffee is cultivated. Fair Trade addresses how it moves through economic and social relationships. Bird Friendly adds verified habitat requirements. Together, they give coffee drinkers a fuller understanding of what their coffee supports.
About The Author
Lavender Grace Kent, Head of Brand Narrative & Culture
Lavender Grace documents Thanksgiving Coffee’s history, producer relationships, environmental commitments, and continuing work at the intersection of coffee, culture, and biodiversity.
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Back to the Land, Forward in Time
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Roots of Justice | Paul’s Blend –
Our Founders’ Roast
January is a month of return.
After the rush of the holidays, we slow down, reflect, and set intentions for the year ahead. At Thanksgiving Coffee Company, January brings us back to the beginning - to the land, the relationships, and the values that shaped who we are.
Paul’s Blend is where that story starts.
Born on the Mendocino Coast in 1972, this Founders’ Roast honors Paul Katzeff’s lifelong belief that coffee could be more than a commodity - that it could be a tool for justice, dignity, and connection between people and place.
This is the coffee that carries our roots.
Paul Katzeff at the original roastery on Noyo Harbor, CA
A Cup Born from Mendocino
Thanksgiving Coffee Company was founded in a working harbor town shaped by fishermen, artists, and back-to-the-land dreamers. Mendocino’s rugged coastline and radical imagination influenced everything - from how we roasted coffee to how we built relationships with farmers around the world.
Paul’s Blend reflects that origin story. It is a classic medium roast crafted with consistency and care, developed through decades of roasting experience and long-standing partnerships with smallholder farmers.
This is not a trend coffee.
It’s a foundational one.
Original roastery on the Noyo Harbor, California
Ariel view of the Noyo Harbor with original roastery and new roastery
Roots of Justice in Every Cup
Paul Katzeff came to coffee as a social worker and community organizer. That background shaped the values that still guide Thanksgiving Coffee today:
- Long-term, direct relationships with farming partners
- Paying prices that honor labor and sustain families
- Investing in farmer-led quality control and education
- Believing that quality of life and quality of coffee go hand in hand
Paul helped pioneer farmer-owned cupping labs, co-founded the Specialty Coffee Association, and advocated for organic and shade-grown coffee before it was mainstream.
Paul’s Blend is a tribute to that legacy - steady, thoughtful, and built for the long view.
Paul’s Blend Organic Medium Roast coffee.
Flavor Profile: A Foundational Medium Roast
Paul’s Blend is designed to be approachable, balanced, and deeply satisfying—an everyday coffee shaped by decades of craft and care.
Tasting Notes:
- Blueberry and gentle fruit sweetness
- Smooth cocoa and milk chocolate tones
- Soft cashew nuttiness
- Clean, comforting finish
It’s a coffee that meets you in the morning and stays with you through the day - expressive without being loud, familiar yet layered, and grounded in the flavors Paul has always loved most.
Paul's Blend is one of the award-winning coffee roasts from our 2017 Roaster of the Year prize.
Honoring Martin Luther King Jr. and the Roots of Economic Justice
January is also a time to honor leaders who shaped the path toward justice, dignity, and shared responsibility. As we observe Martin Luther King Jr., we reflect on Dr. King’s enduring belief that civil rights and economic justice are inseparable - that a truly just society must honor the dignity of labor and ensure fairness within the systems that sustain everyday life.
Dr. King spoke often about the moral responsibility of both institutions and individuals, calling for an economy rooted in respect, equity, and human worth. He believed that progress is built not only through historic moments, but through consistent, values-driven actions - often quiet and unseen- that collectively shape the future.
Choosing where your coffee comes from is one of those choices. Every cup of Paul’s Blend supports long-standing relationships, ethical sourcing, and a belief that economic fairness begins with respect and reciprocity.
The 1963 March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom, where civil rights and economic justice were brought together in a call for dignity, fair labor, and shared humanity.
The March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom stands as a powerful reminder that the movement for civil rights was also a movement for economic justice. It called for fair labor, living wages, and systems that recognize the full dignity of every person’s work.
Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. understood that justice must be woven into daily life - from wages and work to how communities care for one another. As we reflect on this moment in January, we are reminded that meaningful change is carried forward through sustained commitment and everyday choices - values lived out not only in moments of history, but in the practices we choose to uphold.
Paul’s East Harlem Buying Club, 1962
These photographs document a food buying club organized by mothers in East Harlem in 1962, operating out of the basement of a public housing project. Faced with high food prices, limited access to fresh ingredients, and the daily pressures of poverty, these women came together to solve a shared problem: food security for their families.
By pooling resources and purchasing food collectively, they lowered household food costs and increased disposable income - profits were shared, and expenses reduced through cooperation rather than competition. The food they sourced reflected their own cultural traditions, allowing families to eat healthier, familiar meals while maintaining dignity and autonomy.
Mothers in East Harlem working together in 1962 to organize a cooperative food buying club, using collective purchasing to improve food access, reduce costs, and strengthen community resilience. Photos by Paul Katzeff
An unexpected outcome emerged alongside the economic impact. The act of solving a community problem together fostered pride, hope, and a renewed sense of agency. The enthusiasm visible in these images reflects more than a transaction - it reveals the mental and emotional benefits of collective action and women-led leadership.
This grassroots model would later inform the next generation of food cooperatives, including Ukiah Natural Foods, and ultimately influence the cooperative principles that shaped businesses like Whole Foods Market. Long before “alternative food systems” entered the mainstream, these women demonstrated that necessity, creativity, and cooperation could build resilience from the ground up.
The values that shaped this moment - cooperation, dignity, and shared prosperity - would later shape how Paul approached coffee. Paul’s Blend carries that lineage forward, offering a daily ritual grounded in justice, relationship, and care.
Simple Recipe:
Paul’s Mendocino Morning Latte
A grounding ritual for the start of the year.
Ingredients:
- Double espresso brewed with Paul’s Blend
- Steamed milk
- Light honey drizzle
Instructions:
- Pull a double espresso using Paul’s Blend.
- Steam milk until silky.
- Combine and finish with a gentle honey drizzle.
Enjoy slowly - best paired with a quiet January morning and a clear intention for the day ahead.
A Cup That Started a Movement
Paul’s Blend is more than our Founders’ Roast.
It’s a reminder of what’s possible when coffee is rooted in land, relationship, and justice.
As we begin a new year, we invite you to start your mornings with intention - grounded in gratitude, guided by values, and connected to a story that began over fifty years ago on the Mendocino Coast.
Where to Go Next
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With Gratitude Since 1972
To our farmers, our Mendocino community, and everyone who shares this daily ritual with us - thank you.
Your cup carries our roots forward.
Not Just a Cup, But a Just Cup™
Lavender Grace is the Sustainability Consultant for Thanksgiving Coffee Company
Stay in touch - we like to stay connected