It was mile 9 of a 14-mile summit push, 5:45am, and the only coffee in camp was a packet of instant that tasted like burnt cardboard dissolved in lukewarm water. We drank it anyway. We always do. But somewhere between that first bitter sip and the summit, we got annoyed enough to do something about it.

Turns out, nobody was roasting coffee for people like us – people who need caffeine to work as hard as a trail runner, pack as light as an ultralight tent, and taste good even when brewed in a dented steel mug at altitude.

So we started roasting our own. Delicious batches, tested on actual trails, judged by actual hikers – not a marketing team in an office.