OUR STORY
heart’s doors opened in 2009 with the idea that a great cup should highlight the distinct fruit flavors that are found in coffee. Built from the love to innovate and create an exceptional coffee experience, heart is owned and operated by Rebekah & Wille Yli-Luoma.
With 2 retail cafés & a roasting facility located in Portland, Oregon, we strive to provide a positive, comfortable, supportive & safe workplace for our employees.
We believe this type of environment is necessary in order to provide excellent customer service & hospitality.
Our hope is to foster a community space that is welcoming all humans--regardless of race, ethnicity, cultural or religious practices, sexual orientation & gender identification.
**When visiting our cafes, you may find we do not have WiFi. You are welcome to use your hot spot, but our intention with this is to support a more unplugged environment for our guests.
DIRECT RELATIONSHIPS
Over the last 14 years, we’ve been building relationships with producers in Kenya, Ethiopia, Colombia, Honduras, Mexico, Brazil & Guatemala.
We visit the farming partners we purchase coffee from throughout the year, maintaining a healthy working relationship built on open communication, trust and respect.
Our goal is to provide financial stability to our farming partners, so that our relationships will last and be mutually sustainable.
heart is in it for the long-run. We want to be sure our partners feel good about the relationship they have with us.
SEASONAL COFFEE
We secure green coffee during its peak time of the year. This is referred to as ‘seasonal’ or ‘current crop’ buying. Being an agricultural product; there are specific growing, picking and processing seasons for each type of coffee.
We believe the coffee's vibrancy is most apparent when it is fresh. heart travels to origin during and at the end of harvest times to show support, assist with quality control and select the best crops.
COFFEE PURCHASING
Producing a high quality product requires high quality ingredients.
heart has a reputation for sourcing some of the best green coffee in the world.
In coffee purchasing, the term FOB stands for “Free On Board,” and refers to the prices negotiated by us and the producers in-country.
FOB includes services such as milling, packaging, and anything else until the coffee is ready for export.
We take these costs into account when negotiating prices with our producer and export partners. The cost of coffee on a global level is dictated by the Commodity Market or “C-Market.”
The quality of coffee that heart works with is not affected by C-Market pricing.
PRODUCT
Our goal is to roast consistent, user-friendly coffee, so that brewing is easy and enjoyable.
We buy exceptional coffee from growers who care deeply about their crops. Treating the coffee with care is important to us.
Because of this, we do not label our coffee as light, medium or dark roast coffee. Our focus is to roast the coffee evenly without any roast byproducts.
All of our offerings have a specific roast profile that highlights the clarity of flavors within each coffee.
During the roasting process, we focus on even development throughout the bean, maximizing sweetness, without over-roasting uneven roasting or baking the coffee dry.
This style of roasting results in pronounced sweetness & fruit tones with a juicy finish.
Every bag of heart coffee is tagged with a roast date and batch number.
The batch # directly relates to a specific roast in our database, which was tested for quality.
Any roast batches that do not meet our standards of quality are donated to the local food bank.
We do not compromise quality, so that you can enjoy the best we have to offer.
BREWING AND CONNECTING
Improper brewing is the most common mistake resulting in an unpleasant cup of coffee.
Here are a few tips to making a good one:
• Freshly roasted coffee
• A burr grinder (we do not recommend blade grinders, as they produce uneven grounds)
• Filtered water
• Digital Scale
• Proper coffee to water ratio (1 to 16)
• Oxidized coffee filters (we do not recommend brown filters, as they taint the flavors of coffee)
If you have further questions, we welcome you to give us a call, stop by our cafes, or email us.
We want to help you brew the best coffee you can at home!