Let's Take a Break
Coffee Break
It’s summertime, so maybe your go-to cup is a cold brew or iced latte. Or maybe you’re the type that, no matter the weather, prefers a hot, black cup of joe in your ceramic mug with the cute saying… and maybe a little cream and sugar if you’re feeling fancy.
When traveling the world and experiencing different cultures, you will find that they all have something in common: people everywhere take time to sit in the company of their family, friends, guests, or coworkers to enjoy a cup of coffee (or tea if you’re not feeling those jitters).
Where does coffee come from anyway? Like the cacao bean, coffee beans come from trees and are the pit of a fruit referred to as a “cherry”. The beans are picked, separated from the fruit, and dried before being sent to ports around the world to later be roasted and sold. Arabica and Robusta are the two types of coffee beans. Arabica beans produce a better tasting, higher quality coffee, while Robusta beans are easier to grow and cheaper to buy. Most of your local coffee shops will use Arabica beans. The flavor tasted in different coffees depends on the region and elevation where the beans were grown and even the way they’re roasted. It’s very similar to wine tasting! A coffee of Ethiopian origin is grown at a higher altitude making it a denser bean and full of berry notes, whereas a coffee of Brazilian grown at a lower elevation, will bring out some chocolate and spice flavors. And it gets way more in depth than that!
We all like to believe that the coffee we purchase is directly helping the farmer who produced it. Unfortunately, that’s not always the case. Especially in today’s market, many coffee farmers have had to give up their farms because they weren’t sustainable. One way to help this is to buy from your local coffee roaster and ask them about the source of their beans. Most likely they are working with someone who has a direct relationship with farmers from all over the world.
Hopefully, reading this post has enriched your coffee drinking experience by causing you to ponder the journey that coffee has traveled from a farm to your cup. And now let’s try and bring this back to the world of taxes as you are quickly approaching the end of summer and thinking through all those goals you’ve set for yourself and your business. If it feels like you’re falling behind or not where you hoped you’d be at this point, take a deep breath, grab your favorite cup of coffee, and consider reaching out to MPK – we’d love to work with you to find ways to make more progress towards reaching your goals.
