Today we’d like to introduce you to Emerson Haro and Anthony Yuan.
Thanks for sharing your story with us Emerson and Anthony. So, let’s start at the beginning and we can move on from there.
Traveling has always been part of our relationship, after being together for a couple of months we decided it was time to travel abroad and we settled for Tulum in the Mayan Riviera. Being a new couple in a new country meant that we were able to talk every day all day if we so wished and within all these conversations of boring jobs, stale opportunities and existential crisis’s back at home we both realized that our jobs were not fulfilling and we started to wonder what we would be doing next. On one of the days, we were traveling from a cenote and we encountered a VW camper parked in the middle of the jungle with its top removed and serving coffee, in that instant we knew what was to come. Immediately we started to bounce ideas about how we could become a coffee shop on wheels in the US, how we could quit our jobs and focus on the beverage that we both loved. Coming back to Los Angeles after this newfound purpose we decided to put the wheels in motion, we booked one last trip to Europe to celebrate Tony’s birthday and our anniversary. While walking in London we noticed a Citroen van parked selling coffee and we immediately decided that that was the vehicle that would house our coffee shop, how where we going to do it was not of importance at the moment. After our travels through Europe and Mexico we sat down outside a churro store and we wrote on the back of a napkin what seemed like one hundred different iterations of names that could fit our business. That night the only thing we settled was that we would give each other one year to sort out finances and our jobs to make sure our company would grow.
On July of 2017, we finally settle on our name, Farm Cup Coffee an ode to the farms in which we were to get our coffee from. We felt the need to connect people to the hands that picked and process their coffee, to the stories and the history of each family that made this their life. We begun by looking at farms all over the world, looking for inspiration but also for people to educate us, we began calling them and emailing them to see how we could buy some coffee. Most of the farms would not write back because we were barely starting and you needed to buy huge amounts of coffee and it was simply not worth it for them. It did not discourage us and we continued until we found small lot farmers willing to initiate trading with us, out of the small batch of farmers we had to pick which ones we liked and how we were going to get them to LA. Through questions and videos we started to know the behind the scenes process of coffee, about how long it takes it to grow how much it takes a toll on the people who pick it and process it. During our visit to Costa Rica we realized the amount of value placed into the crops by the family who grew it, the value placed in not disturbing the environment or the landscape. This trip showed us what we needed to do and how we needed to do it, we promised to be eco-friendly and always put the stories of our farmers first and foremost.
For the next year, we visited our second farm in Peru and through it we learned the valuable lesson of co-existing in this world with not only other humans but the jungle and the life it gives back. Coming back to the United States we started setting up our online shop and selling our coffee bags in various farmer’s markets but we were not making money and our dream was quickly withering away. We then decided to take the leap of faith and have Tony quit his day job and focus on our business but then to travel once more to London to pick our future truck. In the year that followed our business grew very slowly but we knew that our end goal would be to serve the people of LA new coffees that came directly from the source. We believe that 2019 was the year of change and defeat, with the shipment of our truck whom we named Sunny came the revelation that we knew nothing about vehicles and how to import one that was never sold in the American continent. We both set forward with courage and started to figure out what we needed, a mechanic, a tow truck, builders for our kitchen and all the necessities to form a coffee shop on wheels. In four months, we became professionals in the field of imports, vintage engine parts, food truckers and coffee shop owners. Those were the really rough times for our company, always caught in between two worlds, one in which we were almost starting our business and the other in which we were waiting for all the government agencies to say yes to us. Months passed before we could begin our journey into who we are today, I quit my job and started the transition into a full-time business owner and on the 4th of July of 2019 we held our soft launch in Abbot Kinney.
With six different coffees from all over the world we set our sight in Downtown Los Angeles that day took a swing at us and we fell. Sales amounted to less than $100 dollars, we started to panic, was our plan not good enough? Was the attractiveness of this vehicle not enough to draw a crowd or was or product not the best in the market? With all the anxiousness and sadness that those days packed day after day we continued but disaster struck when our engine failed, every two weeks we would have to ship Sunny to Reseda in order for it to be seen by the only French mechanic in South Los Angeles. With little to no money in our pockets and barely any sells we saw ourselves selling Sunny but we persevered. We took every wrong turn into an opportunity to create a good customer relationship and before we knew it we had some people coming back. We started to see our numbers increase and the calls for booking started to roll in, we had our picture taken every day and people started to make mementos of Sunny all around LA.
Slowly but surely Sunny and us started to make a difference in every place we would arrive, people would know our drinks and our coffees. We started getting requests for us to stop by certain places and set up shop, that’s when we knew we were on the right track. 2020 started with a rough patch in which Sunny broke down and it was the biggest repair we have ever done on her. It broke us from our routine and we went away for close to three weeks. We were not only devastated but also taken aback from the support that our clients had for us. The days ticked by and we were able to resume our selling and the amazing faces of every single client would part the dark clouds and we could see that once again we were on the right track. As we sit here writing this, we have cleared a path that is filled with compassion for the Earth and each other, so we will continue to go at 20 miles per hour but at least it’s our 20 miles per hour.
Has it been a smooth road?
We can say ignorance is bliss and that is how we saw our work, always learning new things but never getting defeated. Nothing has ever been easy, the import of Sunny was one of the most difficult things that we have ever embarked on. The struggle to keep everything under control while convincing what seemed like ten different agencies all ready to restrict the access of Sunny was really tough. What was even worse was that there was absolutely no mechanics in Los Angeles willing to fix Sunny or take a look at her if she were to break down. We called around 120 mechanics and none had ever seen a Citroen like Sunny and they all declined to take a look at her when she broke down. Part of the business also came with competition in an already supersaturated market of coffee, we quickly learned that people had their favorite spot and we were not it. It did not matter that Sunny was cute and she was different we were different and not what the clients wanted. Endless sleepless nights trying to work up enough courage to drive Sunny uphills or in certain places that placed the engine in great stress was a horrible incident to have to witness. We also did not begin our coffee life with the knowledge that a barista or someone who has worked in a coffee had, we were new only guided by our extreme love of coffee. Drinking coffee vs serving coffee was so vastly different that we did not know where to begin. Everything was extremely scary the driving, the espresso machine the shipments of coffee the daily draining of the bank account in short nothing was and or is easy.
So let’s switch gears a bit and go into the Farm Cup Coffee story. Tell us more about the business.
When we visited our farm in Peru we met with the father of the family and he had been growing coffee for three generations and his children were the fourth. He sat us down at his table and he said “it does not matter how many competitors are out there, there is enough for all of us. If you know something that someone else does not then teach them and they will teach you something you do not know, we can grow with one another or fail individually.” We took that really seriously, we understand the uphill challenge of having a coffee business in Los Angeles but we know that we are different. We like to deal with our farmers directly and we like to travel to the farms to see how the environment is being affected by the crops that they grow, we want to see the children being children and not being used for labor we want to see life as it is and not through a picture taken by a third party. We want to sit at their dinner table and share stories and cry when they become sick or something is wrong with the crop, we want to be more than just a business transaction but a family.
When we bring our coffee into the United States it has already touched multiple hands but we pride ourselves in offering higher payment for their product so that the farmer can have more income per pound. In the world of coffee, every so often you have to get someone to rate your coffee crops and its best to stay above 80 points. We only sell coffee that has been rated above 85, with the highest being 92 points from Hawaii. When we create drinks we think of where we have been, the feelings that we get when we try new food from a food stall in the middle of the Peruvian jungle and bring that into our truck. We bring all our ingredients from where we taste them such as the salt from Peru, the lavender from France or the roses from Bulgaria. We believe in encouraging people to see the world, to expand the horizons beyond just coffee and see what the people who bring food to our table do after they are done. We are proud that we will not bend to the idea that everything has to be cheaper in order to make profit, we are a business built with quality and not quantity.
How do you think the industry will change over the next decade?
The coffee industry will change all the time and a big reason is climate change. The world cannot longer ignore that the threat of climate change is affecting rain yield and moisture in the areas where coffee is grown. As far as the industry within the United States we feel that all companies will align themselves to be more eco-friendly and offer a better variety of single origin coffees rather than blends. The coffee shop experience is gearing towards innovation but also comfort of the client, everyone wants to be the place where you go and take pictures but also have great drinks. We are seeing the introduction of more roasters in every city with better quality beans roasted daily or weekly whereas before you coffee was roasted months prior to your brewing it.
Contact Info:
- Website: farmcupcoffee.com
- Phone: 3233340492
- Email: [email protected]
- Instagram: farmcupcoffee
- Facebook: farmcupcoffee
- Twitter: farmcupcoffee
- Yelp: farmcupcoffee
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