Affectionately known as Sister’s Living Room, Sisters Coffee Company is a community fixture and owners Joy and Winfield Durham, host a huge variety of events throughout the year with free music, soup nights and special java-related events. Always striving for excellence in new territory, Sisters Coffee recently opened a hip coffee lounge in Portland’s trendy Pearl District with a rustic urban decor, bringing a slice of small town hospitality to an urban setting.
In the fast changing world of coffee micro-roasters, you’re only as good as your last batch. Tastes and trends come and go but a solid roast with abundant flavor will always stand the test of time. In their latest venture, the Durhams turned their gaze to the mountains of East Africa where Sisters residents Paul Rawlins and John Hornbeck had established close friendships with the local coffee growers.
Sisters Coffee’s newest addition to their innovative line is this premium Kabum Coffee from Uganda, a “Coffee With A Cause,” with its chocolate and nutty flavor and crisp finish. But its story from crop to cup is compelling, drawing together the needs of two disparate communities and companies, continents away, in a marriage to foster and cultivate better, more fair direct-trade agreements.
Kabum’s long journey to Central Oregon starts eight years ago with humanitarian missions to the Ugandan village of Kapchorwa led by local Pastor Tim Kizziar, where a clean-water well was completed and medical attention was delivered. Members of the Sisters community remain deeply involved with the heath, educational and well-being of hundreds of Kapchorwan kids. The region’s 1500-foot elevation and climate make for sublime coffee growing conditions, especially for Arabica beans.
The growers on the green slopes of Mt. Elgon must be smiling with this angelic union between the Sisters-based Kabum Coffee and their marketing partner, Sister Coffee Company. The exciting enterprise began with a single mission to Uganda in 2005 by Sisters Community Church to a micro-finance project supporting hundreds of area farmers. Relationships and trust developed over the past years formed the genesis of the non-profit Kabum Coffee International.
“It’s a culmination of eight years of building schools and wells for these people and spearheading a plan to help export their coffee directly,” said Justin Durham, director of marketing for Sisters Coffee. “We’re honored to join forces with this organization and it really means a lot to offer this great coffee to the public.”
The first shipment of Uganda Kabum coffee arrived in mid-June to great anticipation.
“Our only concern was if the quality of the coffee was going to match its incredible social justice narrative,” he said. “So we were overjoyed after our initial cupping. We couldn’t be happier with this coffee and are so proud of our friends, John Hornbeck and Paul Rawlins for their hard work, dedication and faithfulness.”
Direct Trade and Fair Trade relationships eliminate middle-man brokers and allow portions of the profits to return to the growers themselves to reinvest in their towns and families. Kabum’s plan kicks it up a extra notch with the establishment of a True Trade criteria, based on a humanitarian business model to produce a consistent supply of quality coffee beans while providing maximum funds returned to the source.
“We love this story and wanted to be in business with Kabum,” said Durham. “It’s exactly what we set out to accomplish here at Sisters Coffee and continue to try and cultivate. It’s all part of what gives us the passion to go and bring back this coffee for our customers and make a difference in these farmer’s lives by ensuring they’re fairly compensated for their hard labor.”
The Kabum organization returns a vast majority of the profits right into the grower’s hands and also provides micro-loans for equipment and seasonal bonuses for quality product after harvest time.
Sisters Coffee is the exclusive provider of this extraordinary coffee and is currently in the process of designing a private label for Kabum.
“Coming together to promote these growers is truly important,” said Durham. “It’s a unique co-branding strategy that makes this project so much fun with boundless potential.”
Sisters Coffee Company is located at 273 W. Hood Ave. www.kabum.org.
