New Cafe Concept Wants To Connect Consumers With Coffee Farmers – CoffeeTalk

Euphoria Coffee, owned by Nick Yost and Trevin Jensen, aims to raise consumer awareness about quality coffee by focusing on personal relationships with farmers and working together to create superior products. The company opened a new cafe in Calmar on November 29 at 110 Maryville St. Yost believes that Euphoria’s commitment to quality is second to none, as it closes the feedback loop between the producer and the consumer.

The cafe offers a variety of beverages, including coffee drinks, acai bowls, parfaits, frozen yogurt from Country View Dairy, and breakfast burritos. Many of the cafe’s ingredients are purchased from local producers, such as granola from 275th Bakery in Clermont, honey from Fassbinder Apiaries in Elgin, maple syrup from Turkey River Farm near Elkader, and yogurt, frozen yogurt, and milk from Country View Dairy in Hawkeye.

Yost and his wife Jacey founded Euphoria Coffee in 2018 in West Union, working with coffee growers, primarily in Guatemala, to roast and produce one of the most award-winning coffees in the United States. The business’ flagship location sells its coffee both locally and nationwide.

Yost and Jensen considered opening a second cafe in a larger town like Rochester, Minnesota, but decided to focus on perfecting their tiny town market instead. Calmar seemed like a natural spot for the company, and the company’s global connections carry through to their new location.

Yost’s passion lies in green coffee purchasing, working with farmers, and bringing coffee from all over the world into their warehouse. He believes in building relationships with farmers and connecting them to customers, and vice versa.

For example, Yost has been working with Don Santiago in Guatemala for the last four years, a coffee grower who has developed a friendship with him. Yost believes that building relationships and improving people’s lives is important when buying coffee. He and Santiago have worked better together because of this relationship, and they continue improving Santiago’s coffee crops.

Yost believes that farmers like Santiago can both see and reap the benefits of working with Euphoria through a long-term relationship. Producers in Guatemala can also sell their coffee crop to local markets there for immediate cash, but likely at a lesser price than Euphoria would offer. There is a lot of trust between growers and Yost, as they pay a little later in the year and pay for quality, so on average, they are paying double what their local markets offer, which is lucrative for everyone involved.

To meet the challenge of fostering grower awareness, Yost visited a co-op during his trip to Guatemala and tasted coffees from different producers. He noticed that the farmer who cared the most about their crop produced the best-tasting coffee. He also asked the farmers to taste each other’s coffee as well. The whole group picked the coffee that was more manually-processed and less mechanically-processed as the best coffee.

Euphoria mainly roasts its coffee on the light-to-medium end of the spectrum, focusing on highlighting the best natural characteristics of the coffee. They tend to keep their roast light to medium to retain that flavor. Lucas Sass, who has worked for Euphoria for four months, said he wasn’t a coffee drinker before working for Yost, but he has since become more of a coffee snob and a connoisseur.

The Euphoria café also adds calcium and potassium to distilled water, which is then used in all its pour-overs. Yost says that there is chemistry involved in coffee, and if we can connect the consumer to the producer, it becomes more appreciated by everyone involved.

In conclusion, Yost believes that connecting consumers to the producer of coffee can make it more appreciated by everyone involved. By fostering grower awareness and being sophisticated yet unpretentious when talking with customers about coffee, they can help create a more meaningful and sustainable coffee industry.

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