The first true cup of coffee I had was shared with my grandfather in a rickety Costa Rican treehouse tucked away in the cloud forests of Monteverde. I was 18, my grandfather 70, and this trip was when I fell in love with not only the jungle, but coffee as well. 

It was not technically my first cup of coffee. I lived down the street from a Starbucks in Missouri, but the drinks I often ordered prior to my first true cup resembled cupcakes more than actual coffee.

Costa Rica is the first place I had a pure, black cup of coffee, right from the source. It tasted warm and full, chocolatey and nutty, and brewed in love and connection because the conversations shared over a cup were with my grandfather. We traveled for a week together, exploring the volcanos, the mountains, the beaches and the jungle. We ate rice and beans, sipped on pipas (what the locals call coconuts) and devoured cup after cup of pure, black, Costa Rican grown and brewed coffee.

Coffee means connection. Coffee means slowing down to taste what is in your cup, and to acknowledge that those beans have lived a long and intricate life before making it to you. Those beans were planted in the soil of foreign lands, watered with rain falling from the sky, passed through the hands of the farmers, and then those who rate, score, and sort the beans. Those who bag and those who deliver. Those who roast. Those who package the finished product. Those who brew. And those who sip.

Coffee is the second most traded commodity on earth. It is a beautiful mix of soil, water, and resources collected from around the world. When you drink coffee, you are not only connecting with those who have produced it, but also with those you choose to share it with.

Coffee means connection. It fuels both work and play. It fills gaps within cultures. Coffee bridges generations. Coffee means connecting with the entire supply chain and also with those you sit down with to share the finished cup.