It’s tempting to tread the path of mediocrity—it requires less effort and guarantees a certain level of satisfaction. For example, we could simply increase our annual coffee purchases to keep producers content.
Yet my background in teaching offers a different perspective. In a classroom, you learn to recognize the diverse motivations of students. Distinguishing between internal and external motivation is challenging, because true passion must emerge from within.
Coffee is no different.
Some producers and roasters are content to meet the market’s minimum expectations—good enough to sell, safe enough to repeat. But the people who truly elevate the craft are animated by something deeper. They’re driven by an intrinsic curiosity to experiment, to endure the hard work of fermentation trials that might fail, to re-imagine economic models that reward more than volume.
Mediocrity rewards compliance. Excellence rewards courage.
Choosing the latter means embracing risk: accepting that innovation can take years to refine, that markets may be slow to understand, that comfort will be scarce. But just as the most engaged students light up when they own their learning, the most visionary coffee producers thrive when their creativity is met with trust and collaboration.
That is the path worth walking—not the easy one, but the one where genuine motivation and enduring value live.
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