Original Roastary on Noyo Harbor circa 1970's, With Paul and Panda

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.

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™.

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.

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™.

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.

Ariel view of the Noyo Harbor with original roastery and new roastery

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.

Stay Connected

Join our Mailing List - for stories from origin, brewing tips, and seasonal releases.

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™

In 2008, the interfaith coffee farmers of East Africa and Thanksgiving Coffee Company were honored with the Dr. Jean Mayer Global Citizenship Award from the Institute for Global Leadership at Tufts University.

The award recognized:

• our commitment to ethical and fair trade;
  
• our work empowering and connecting farmers and consumers;
  
• our pursuit of economic and social justice and environmental sustainability;
  
• and our belief that every person can help create a more peaceful world.

For us, this wasn’t simply a recognition of the past, but a compass for the future. It affirmed what has always been at the heart of Thanksgiving Coffee: coffee as a bridge between cultures, between faiths, and between people who may never meet but are deeply connected through the choices we make every day.

Our relationship with Rwanda began in 2004, when Co-Founder Joan Katzeff traveled there to establish her first solo international partnership with the Dian Fossey Gorilla Fund International. It was a defining moment in our history — a woman-led sourcing journey rooted in relationship, ecological responsibility, and courage.

In 2005, Co-Founder Paul Katzeff followed as part of a USAID initiative, working alongside Rwandan cooperatives to develop cupping labs and strengthen farmer-led quality. Together, Joan and Paul built a partnership that connected coffee farming, community renewal, and gorilla conservation across almost two decades.

Through this collaboration, we launched the Gorilla Fund Cause Coffee line in 2005, using Fairtrade Rwandan coffee to support the protection of mountain gorillas and the communities who share their habitat. In 2017, we expanded this legacy with Grauer’s Gorilla Coffee, made with Organic and Fairtrade beans from the Congo to support critically endangered Grauer’s gorillas.

In total, our Gorilla Fund Coffees raised $106,209 to support conservation, education, and habitat protection in Rwanda and the Congo.

This partnership reflects the heart of our ethos: a cup that protects life, uplifts communities, and strengthens the ecosystems we all share.

How to Practice Global Citizenship with Your Cup

Global citizenship can feel like a big idea, but it lives in very small, daily choices.

Here are a few simple ways to bring this theme to life:

• Brew with intention. Take a quiet moment to acknowledge the farmers, land, and hands that brought this coffee to you.
• Learn a farmer story. Visit our blog and read more about our origin partners and interfaith cooperative work.
• Share a cup. Make Rwanda coffee for a friend, neighbor, or coworker, and tell them a bit about the people behind the beans.
• Leave a review. Your feedback helps us tell farmer stories and grow support for relationship-grown coffee.
• Stay connected. Join our email list for monthly stories from origin, regenerative sourcing updates, and recipe pairings.

Every time you choose coffee that honors the people and our planet, you’re participating in a different kind of economy. An economy that is rooted in gratitude, reciprocity, and long-term relationship.