Namanyonyi Co-op united a community

The wheels were set in motion many years ago when Thanksgiving Coffee began our work with the Ugandan Coffee Cooperative “Delicious Peace” to bring their Interfaith coffee to market. For those of you who have been following us on this unique journey, we want to share another perspective. It is an article written by an organization that understands cooperatives are run by people, and people have many ups and downs.

"We love this story of multiple faiths helping each other, moving beyond personal beliefs"

The Article For You To Read:

How A Coffee Co-op United A Community – And Was Reborn After A Leadership Crisis

More of our history with the Delicious Peace Cooperative:

2009: Delicious Peace Moves Forward

2014: A Trip To Africa

2020: Delicious Peace Coffee: A New Story

2023: Evolution of Change

Where it all began - the Delicious Peace Coffee

Fort Bragg High School Culinary Arts Visit

Thanksgiving Coffee Company recently hosted 30 students from the Fort Bragg High School Culinary Department for a morning of touring, tasting, and education about coffee production.

The students have a wide range of reasons to study the art and science of cooking. Some wanted to learn how to cook better for themselves while others are considering a career in food service. We discussed coffee flavors and aromas, the early origins of coffee, and the role that Thanksgiving Coffee has played in the development of Specialty Coffee since 1972.

Fort Bragg High School Culinary Arts Students visiting the Cupping Lab of Thanksgiving Coffee

Coffee Picking

They had fun picking their own ripe coffee beans from the tree that is producing in our office. The sense of wonder increased as they witnessed the artisan roasting by our team, seeing the flames, watching the color of the beans change, and smelling the magic as the roasting process cycled through.

The Students Were Surprised To Learn That We Import Over 500,000 Lbs. Of Coffee From 22 Different Countries Annually.

Taste Range

When we finally got back to the cupping lab and could taste a range of coffees - light roast, medium roast, dark roast, French roast, and decaf – the reality of the process came full circle and the appreciation peaked. We discussed coffee flavors and applications as ingredients from things like dry rubs and even coffee jelly as a dessert element.

The best feedback came afterward when our Roastmaster/ Director of Coffee, Jacob Long, heard from his son, Abe, who is currently a senior at Fort Bragg High School, that the students had a great time and got a kick out of meeting his Dad.

Educators of Coffee

We are ready to promote coffee knowledge and are willing to do anything we can to support coffee education. This was a great experience all around.

The Cupping Lab Revolution: How Thanksgiving Coffee Changed Coffee Forever

It began with a journey to Nicaragua in the 1980s. Paul Katzeff, a former social worker and co-founder of Thanksgiving Coffee, traveled to listen to the farmers. Paul had the tools and vision to create a new way forward for the coffee world.

In those war-torn hills, Paul came face to face with the quiet strength of farmers who had survived conflict, drought, and poverty. What he discovered would transform his understanding of coffee forever.

What Paul saw was that coffee could be more than just a product. It could become a tool for restoring dignity, building solidarity, and giving voice to those who had been left out of their own story.

Coffee as a Bridge Between Worlds

Paul's 1985 trip to Nicaragua occurred during the U.S.-backed Contra War—a time of immense hardship and tension. What he witnessed moved him deeply: farmers cultivating resilience amid unimaginable challenges. Meeting with PRODECOOP, one of the earliest farmer cooperatives, he understood that meaningful change would require more than charity. It would take genuine partnership.

This experience birthed a vision for direct trade built on empathy and transparency. Paul saw coffee as more than a commodity—he saw it as a bridge connecting people across borders, across struggles, and across systems built to exclude the voices of those who grow the coffee we love.

A Revolution Born from Relationship

Years later, in 2001, Paul's vision took physical form when Thanksgiving Coffee helped create the world's first farmer-owned cupping labs. It started with a simple question:

What if those who grow the coffee were also the ones to taste it first?

That question sparked a revolution—and in partnership with our co-ops like UCA MIRAFLOR and CECOCAFEN, it redefined not just how coffee is evaluated, but who gets to define its value.

This work began with trust.

When Thanksgiving Coffee first partnered with these cooperatives, they were communities rising from hardship with their own vision. Families were replanting forests, rebuilding homes, and forming cooperatives that prioritized not only trade, but democracy, biodiversity, and food sovereignty.

As field researcher Christopher Bacon wrote:

"This is a story of reconstruction and resistance... of families working together to regenerate their communities, reclaim the land, and build new institutions of democratic governance."

In these post-war communities, farmers didn't just return to the land—they reimagined its future. By placing cupping labs in their hands, Thanksgiving Coffee wasn't introducing a new tool—they were honoring a movement already in motion.

"The $300,000 enabled 9 coops to build their labs and be trained as cuppers by me using SCAA scoring forms. It is one thing to have a lab but another thing to know how to use it. Training was essential. "
- Paul Katzeff

In 1999, when most coffee buyers still made quality decisions without farmer input, Thanksgiving Coffee proposed something radical: building professional cupping labs directly within producer cooperatives in Nicaragua. With a $300,000 USAID contract and decades of field experience, these labs were constructed in 2000, becoming the world's first farmer-owned and operated cupping facilities.

The innovation couldn't have been better timed. As Third Wave coffee culture was gaining momentum in the early 2000s with its focus on single-origin beans and transparent sourcing, these cupping labs equipped farmers to meet this new demand with unprecedented precision.

Suddenly, farmers could:

• Taste and analyze their own coffee before it left the farm
• Create detailed flavor profiles previously only done by importers
• Develop specific micro-lots for specialty markets
• Experiment with processing methods that enhanced quality
• Engage in price negotiations based on verifiable quality data

By 2001, the Cuppers Manifesto was born—a bilingual manual distributed to 10,000 Nicaraguan farmers and later shared with 8,000 producers in Colombia by the Colombian Coffee Federation.

From Third Wave to Fourth: Farmers as Flavor Artists

What began as a Third Wave innovation has evolved into something even more profound—what many now call the "Fourth Wave" of coffee, where farmers themselves have become recognized artists of flavor creation.

Today's most celebrated coffees often feature not just the region or farm name, but specific processing techniques developed and perfected by individual farmers—techniques like honey processing, extended fermentation, and anaerobic processing that create distinctive flavor profiles impossible to achieve through roasting alone.

This transition—from farmers as anonymous producers to farmers as named innovators—can be traced directly back to those first cupping labs. When farmers gained the ability to taste, evaluate, and experiment with their own coffee, they unleashed a wave of innovation that continues to transform the industry.

As Paul shared in a later interview:

"Coffee is about people. If you take care of the people, the coffee takes care of itself."

These labs didn't just reflect a shift in coffee culture—they helped create it. From these humble beginnings in rural Nicaragua grew the foundations of today's artisan coffee movement, where quality and value begin at the source and rise through shared craftsmanship.

A Legacy You Can Taste

Join the Revolution in Your Cup

The Cupping Lab Revolution was more than the technology of tasting coffee. It was—and still is—about relationship, repair, and reclaiming the right to define what coffee can be.

Every cup of Thanksgiving Coffee connects you to this ongoing story of transformation—from Third Wave transparency to Fourth Wave farmer artisanship. It's an invitation to participate in a more equitable, relationship-based trade model that honors both the product and its producers.

It is about following a path with heart to let it guide you to be in good relationship with life and the world.

The Way

"The way to great coffee flavor is not direct.

The path must be traveled

with great care and attention.

The way becomes a path, the path a road,

and then, magically, the road becomes a highway

that leads to people who cultivate the land on which the coffee derives its special flavor.

How does one find the path? Through caring.

One does not search so much for the road that leads to the tree, as for the road that leads to the heart.

This is the secret." 

Paul Katzeff

Co-founder, Thanksgiving Coffee Company

Learn more:
The Story of the Nicaraguan Coffee Cooperatives

The Impact of Origin Cupping Labs

Watch the Paul Katzeff Interview

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.

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.