The Vine

July, 2015

Quito, Ecuador

We all have our coming-of-age experiences. That moment or day or year where you’re faced with a challenge and to overcome it you must grow up. Mine came in the summer between sophomore and junior year of college on a coffee farm in the Ecuadorian cloud forest. I had spent some time traveling in high school, however I was truly just wandering and searching for inspiration. Starting a food business interested me and I tried and failed to start a juice stand on GW’s campus. Coffee hadn’t even crossed my mind.

Through my travels, I have learned cliches exist for a reason, because they are proven true time and time again. Upon arrival at La Hesperia Natural Reserve, my life changed. It was all very cliche; walking through the coffee fields that first evening under the sun’s cool glow, dreaming of creating a livilihood working with this amazing gift from the Pachamama (Mother Earth). The dream ended that first day, however. Each day, I worked 10 hours in the fields to pay my room and board. Most days I missed home and daily chores of tending to baby coffee plants and picking cherries from the mature trees became an exhausting monotony. I thought about leaving halfway through my 3 month agreement. It was around that time, in mid July, when destiny reared its head.

After the morning work shift, I trudged through a small patch of forest leading to the main house. The sun was rising high in the equatorial sky and it was getting hot, and as I wearily navigated the winding path, something caught my attention out of the corner of my eye. A huge snake hanging from a tree??!! I really did think it was some kind of long tree snake spying on me like in the Jungle Book. Upon further investigation, it turned out to be a long forest vine, but my goodness, its uniform thickness from top to bottom and woven texture was astounding. The branch it was attached to must be 30-40 feet up, I thought to myself, truly a legendary vine indeed. So, I did what any bright eyed 20 year old would do, I tried to climb it. It didn’t go well, I maybe reached halfway. I tried again, worse. So, I continued along the path, my mind having already shifted to the day’s lunch menu.

That night, however, I couldn’t sleep. I tossed and turned for hours thinking about the vine; how it so easily defeated me and after two measly tries, I gave up. I reflected upon my senior year baseball season in high school which ended in a very dissatisfying manner. I thought about the girls I wanted to ask out during freshman year of college, but couldn’t muster the courage. I thought about the juice stand. Then, I looked into my future. I imagined my life as a 25 year old, coincidentally my age as I write this. If I can’t start learning from my mistakes and overcoming these challenges, I will be just as scared in 5 years as I am today, a notion which, in it of itself, frightened me.

So, I woke up early the next morning, after a few hours of sleep and long before sunrise and walked down into the forest. The vine gleamed in the moonlight, taking on an almost supernatural form. I felt something. It’s hard to exactly pinpoint when a person starts to feel like a grown up. For some, it happens early, they start to feel powerful on the sports field or in the classroom and they gain confidence as they move through their teen years. It’s that feeling of knowing that you can and will accomplish something with the necessary effort and resolve. That morning I felt that feeling for the first time, a strong rush of adrenalyne and self confidence that resulted in an epic saga in my life. I didn’t reach the branch at the top of the vine that morning, nor the following morning but I kept waking up before the sun to reach the holy grail. Weeks passed and as the calendar flipped to August, I started to feel unsure I could reach the top before my departure, but each morning I continued to try.

Two years later, in frigid early February, Cam’s Kettle was born on an Arlington street corner. Those early days of slinging coffee from my bicycle while scrambling to finish school weren’t so different from the early morning vine trainings. Yes, I reached the top of the vine and the view was magnificent. Now, we are applying the same principles that I learned in that cloud forest to grow our brand and further empower our Latin American coffee partners. Cam’s Kettle grows slowly and steadily, customer by customer, and we really do try to make good on our promise of serving coffee on a first name basis, however after about 1000 names it becomes difficult.

And if I ever decide to ink up, it will be an homage to that old forest vine.

Coffee Seedlings taking root