Counter Culture Coffee is a

Durham, North Carolina Durham ( ) is a city in the U.S. state of North Carolina and the county seat of Durham County, North Carolina, Durham County. Small portions of the city limits extend into Orange County, North Carolina, Orange County and Wake County, North Carol ...

–based

coffee roasting Roasting coffee transforms the chemical and physical properties of Coffee processing, green coffee beans into roasted coffee products. The roasting process produces the characteristic flavor of coffee by causing the green coffee beans to change ...

company founded in 1995. It has regional

training Training is teaching, or developing in oneself or others, any skills and knowledge or fitness that relate to specific useful competencies. Training has specific goals of improving one's capability, capacity, productivity and performance. I ...

locations in

Asheville, North Carolina Asheville ( ) is a city in Buncombe County, North Carolina, United States. Located at the confluence of the French Broad River, French Broad and Swannanoa River, Swannanoa rivers, it is the county seat of Buncombe County. It is the most populou ...

;

Atlanta Atlanta ( ) is the List of capitals in the United States, capital and List of municipalities in Georgia (U.S. state), most populous city in the U.S. state of Georgia (U.S. state), Georgia. It is the county seat, seat of Fulton County, Georg ...

;

Boston Boston is the capital and most populous city in the Commonwealth (U.S. state), Commonwealth of Massachusetts in the United States. The city serves as the cultural and Financial centre, financial center of New England, a region of the Northeas ...

;

Charleston, South Carolina Charleston is the List of municipalities in South Carolina, most populous city in the U.S. state of South Carolina. The city lies just south of the geographical midpoint of South Carolina's coastline on Charleston Harbor, an inlet of the Atla ...

;

Chicago Chicago is the List of municipalities in Illinois, most populous city in the U.S. state of Illinois and in the Midwestern United States. With a population of 2,746,388, as of the 2020 United States census, 2020 census, it is the List of Unite ...

;

Emeryville, California Emeryville is a city located in northwest Alameda County, California, in the United States. It lies in a corridor between the cities of Berkeley, California, Berkeley and Oakland, California, Oakland, with a border on the shore of San Francisc ...

;

New York City New York, often called New York City (NYC), is the most populous city in the United States, located at the southern tip of New York State on one of the world's largest natural harbors. The city comprises five boroughs, each coextensive w ...

;

Philadelphia Philadelphia ( ), colloquially referred to as Philly, is the List of municipalities in Pennsylvania, most populous city in the U.S. state of Pennsylvania and the List of United States cities by population, sixth-most populous city in the Unit ...

; and

Washington, D.C. Washington, D.C., formally the District of Columbia and commonly known as Washington or D.C., is the capital city and federal district of the United States. The city is on the Potomac River, across from Virginia, and shares land borders with ...

Counter Culture training centers provide education in the fundamentals of preparing and serving

coffee Coffee is a beverage brewed from roasted, ground coffee beans. Darkly colored, bitter, and slightly acidic, coffee has a stimulating effect on humans, primarily due to its caffeine content, but decaffeinated coffee is also commercially a ...

and serve as classrooms and event spaces. Training centers are not only for vendors of Counter Culture Coffee but are also available to anyone interested in coffee production. Training centers also host competition training, food events with guest chefs, and professional

workshops Beginning with the Industrial Revolution era, a workshop may be a room, rooms or building which provides both the area and tools (or machinery) that may be required for the manufacture or repair of manufactured goods. Workshops were the only ...

. Counter Culture Coffee buys primarily from small coffee producers at prices between $1.30 and $25 a pound. As such, they are regarded as a "boutique" coffee roaster, a company which sources from multiple small estates and

cooperative A cooperative (also known as co-operative, coöperative, co-op, or coop) is "an autonomy, autonomous association of persons united voluntarily to meet their common economic, social and cultural needs and aspirations through a jointly owned a ...

s rather than a single large grower.

Company history

Counter Culture Coffee started

roasting Roasting is a cooking method that uses dry heat where hot air covers the food, cooking it evenly on all sides with temperatures of at least from an open flame, oven, or other heat source. Roasting can enhance the flavor through caramelizat ...

coffee in Durham in 1995. Founded by Brett Smith and Fred Houk, their focus was creating custom coffee blends for some of Durham and Chapel Hill's southern restaurants. They sold their first coffee to Pop's Restaurant in Durham in 1995. The company expanded its operations to areas along the East Coast. The firm also diversified its line of products and services, offering

seasonal A season is a division of the year based on changes in weather, ecology, and the number of daylight hours in a given region. On Earth, seasons are the result of the axial parallelism of Earth's axial tilt, tilted orbit around the Sun. In temperat ...

coffee selections and

educational Education is the transmission of knowledge and skills and the development of character traits. Formal education occurs within a structured institutional framework, such as public schools, following a curriculum. Non-formal education also fol ...

programs that focus on

sustainability Sustainability is a social goal for people to co-exist on Earth over a long period of time. Definitions of this term are disputed and have varied with literature, context, and time. Sustainability usually has three dimensions (or pillars): env ...

and the

coffee brewing Coffee preparation is the making of liquid coffee using coffee beans. While the particular steps vary with the type of coffee and with the raw materials, the process includes four basic steps: raw coffee beans must be coffee roasting, roasted ...

process.

Sustainability

Counter Culture Coffee directly collaborates with

artisans An artisan (from , ) is a skilled worker, skilled craft worker who makes or creates material objects partly or entirely by handicraft, hand. These objects may be wikt:functional, functional or strictly beauty, decorative, for example furnit ...

who grow the coffee, and their partnership with

farmers A farmer is a person engaged in agriculture, raising living organisms for food or raw materials. The term usually applies to people who do some combination of raising field crops, orchards, vineyards, poultry, or other livestock. A farmer mi ...

is a basis for their sustainable coffee model, which involves working with progressive and environmentally sensitive farms in the trade. In 2008, they launched a third-party Counter Culture Direct Trade Certification, establishing

direct trade Direct trade is a form of sourcing practiced by certain coffee roasters, chocolate makers, tea sellers, gemologists and more who build direct relationships with the farmers, artisanal miners and processors who sell their products. There is no s ...

standards for sustainability, quality, and fairness in the coffee chain. Additional initiatives include their Sustaining Educational and Environmental Development at a Source (SEEDS) program and the company's Sustainability Scorecard. The SEEDS initiative aims to support sustainability and education on the origins of the products. At the same time, the Sustainability Scorecard measures the impact of the company's efforts toward building a more sustainable supply chain.

Education

The firm also provides consumers, employees, and wholesale partners with educational programs on coffee brewing, origin, and history. Professional development courses include Brewing Science, Barista Fundamentals, Coffee Origins, Cupping Fundamentals, and Brewing: Technique & Troubleshooting.
Public educational initiatives include free "Tastings at Ten" every Friday morning, as well as homebrew labs for coffee enthusiasts offered at a fee. Educational courses are offered at thirteen Counter Culture Training Centers across the country.

Locations

Coffee is roasted in two production facilities in Durham, North Carolina (also the company's headquarters) and Emeryville, California.

References

External links