There’s a saying in the coffee industry: all coffee is good coffee. Whether it is a dark and bitter cup or a good pour-over with tasteful fruit notes, all coffee serves a purpose.
It’s something Andy Piper, co-owner of Java Central, knows well.
“Often I think that it isn’t the coffee itself,” Piper says. “It’s the people you enjoy it with, the situation that brings you together and the location.”
One aspect of coffee Piper values is its source. This pushed Piper into the jungles of South and Central America, to visit coffee farms and even run into cartel-controlled countries.
To say he is deeply rooted in his passion for coffee would be an understatement.
Fourteen years ago, Piper was working in a small coffee shop in Bluffton, Ohio, where he got his first taste of the industry. Though he was never interested in working with a large coffee corporation, he did spend time in Chicago learning the ins and outs of brewing. He appreciates the connectivity and relationships within smaller coffee companies.
“The level of connection you have with the company’s structure is much more intimate and closer; it’s a real family type of atmosphere,” Piper says. “It requires a lot more passion and interest.”
He moved to Westerville in 2009 and started working at Java Central as a part-time barista while attending the Bradford School’s Columbus Culinary Institute and working several culinary jobs.
In 2015, he became partners with Ralph Denick, owner of Java Central, and made it his goal to have the cafe roast its own coffee. A position that had begun as part-time suddenly became more important than anything else.
“It all ended up coming back to coffee,” Piper says, laughing.
A Global Problem
To understand where coffee comes from, Piper has traveled many times to Southern and Central America to explore coffee farms. He establishes relationships with suppliers, visits where the coffee is sourced and circumvents the often problematic facets of the industry.
“It’s important,” Piper says. “Coffee hasn’t had the greatest history, even up to the 20th century, with how it treats people, what it pays farmers and the way it’s impacting the environment.”
Even after basic research, it’s easy to see that the state of the coffee industry is in a bit of a crisis. Market value has dropped below what farmers’ operations require and it’s becoming an unsustainable product to grow internationally.
During his travels, Piper works out trading details based on farmers’ costs and helps navigate the market sustainably.
“Hopefully things like this can prevent coffee from dropping,” Piper says. “Farmers are leaving their jobs and becoming migrants to other cities and converting their farms to other crops.”
Dangerous Travels
Piper’s travels have brought him to some of the most remote areas of the world, deep in the jungle and atop mountains. Though the locations are breathtaking, Piper is quick to reiterate they are often dangerous.
“It varies wildly by country, but I’ve been to places where organized crime has been a major problem,” Piper says. “A lot of coffee buyers end up working with missionaries or non government organizations to get a free pass from these groups to move about the country, or else things could get dangerous.”
In Honduras, the government has, as Piper says, more or less lost control of the rural areas. To conduct business in coffee, you must figure out how to work around cartels.
To stay safe, Piper often travels with armed guards when they are with missionaries.
“One trip, we accidentally found ourselves in the middle of a possibly organized crime-related exploitation of the farms we were working with,” Piper says. “It became very dangerous and we had to think very strategically on how to handle the situation.”
To see the impact his work has had however, has been fulfilling. Even when his work involves traveling four hours in a truck bed through the jungles of El Salvador, he wouldn’t trade it for anything.
“You get to these farms and sometimes they’re on top of a mountain overlooking this jungle, and it’s just the most beautiful tropical place you could imagine,” Piper says. “It’s awesome and so worth it.”
Realizing your Impact
Relationships are important to Piper – it’s how he got his start in the coffee world, where his love for the industry lies and, ultimately, has helped achieve his goal of roasting coffee at Java Central.
It’s hard to imagine, but what you do and where you shop in Westerville has an impact on the entire coffee chain, from farmers growing the beans to the buyers and right back to you.
“If you love coffee and want it to be around for the next century, supporting local coffee shops is very important. The dollars you spend on a cup of coffee has a larger impact than just local business,” Piper says. “It is extremely meaningful and I hope I can inspire customers and consumers to think more along with those terms when they purchase coffee.”
Piper’s work is one small piece to the puzzle, and it is something he has chosen to dedicate his life to.
“It’s truly a life-changing experience to do this kind of work,” Piper says. “Realizing that we are part of this interconnected world and knowing that what we do in Westerville impacts these hard-working men and women is powerful and drives me to continue to support what they represent. … It’s hard to put into words.”
Rocco Falleti is an associate editor. Feedback welcome at rfalleti@cityscenecolumbus.com.
