Ethos 2018 | We have a dream!

Today, as we celebrate one of the most inspirational figures in history, we wanted to reflect and share with you our own aspirations and dreams for this year - we're so excited and would love to hear your thoughts (email us at coffee@ethosroasters.com)!

First, we want to continue on our journey to (one day) be recognized as one of the best coffee roasters in the USA - sourcing a wider selection of beans (including rare finds where both quality and impact are off the charts - i.e. our new "X Series"), and growing our business without compromising our freshness & small-batch roasting promises (to this end, we're planning to add a second roaster this year, which will allow us to serve a wider range of volumes - always roasted fresh, to order!). Please follow us on Facebook and Instagram as we search for #TheNewEthosRoaster!

Second, we want to keep improving your customer experience... and create our first loyalty program this year! If you haven't already, we would encourage you to create an account in our website - we added this functionality to make your checkouts easier (i.e. you can securely save your billing and shipping details), and give you the ability to see your coffee history, but we think we can also use it to reward your support! Please stay tuned... and send us your ideas!  We have also just created our first recurring Subscription program - you can choose the amount of coffee we send, and how often you'd like us to send it! There's no pre-payment, no need to re-order every time, and you can cancel anytime! Ongoing subscribers get our best value (as our new "X Series" coffees are included, plus exclusive sample previews of new arrivals and experimental blends), and we hope you'll check it out and let us know what you think! We've also kept 2, 3, and 6-month prepaid subscriptions, as they make great gifts!

Finally, we want to make sure we continue to grow our IMPACT - we're currently phasing out our non-Organic-certified inventory, so within the next 6 months, ALL Ethos single-origins will be certified Organic. We'll continue to source exclusively Fair-Trade or fully traceable Direct-Trade beans (if the price paid to the farmers is higher than Fair-Trade) and we will continue to go out of our way to find and support small-farmer-championing, women-inclusive cooperatives! 

Thank you so, so much for being part of our dreams and our journey!

Jolian & Lisbeth

PS. WFLA News Channel 8/38 is doing a segment on coffee and they've decided to come to Lakeland and visit the Ethos roastery!!! We'll be in the morning news on Mon, Jan 29, live at 7 am, and on re-runs throughout the day... we'll also try to get and share the link on our Facebook page if you'd like to watch online :)

HAPPY NEW YEAR!

Hello 2018! We wanted to begin this year by thanking you for making 2017 the best year in Ethos history (yet!), and wishing you many new adventures, blessings, and delicious cups of freshly roasted coffee in 2018!

As we look back a year, we really couldn't have imagined what 2017 had in store for us - from the move to our own (amazing) location in Lakeland, to being honored with a prestigious Entrepreneurship award, appearing on prestigious local and regional publications (Tampa Bay Times, The Ledger, Haven Lakeland, and The Lakelander) and even on TV (Bay News 9 and local NBC Channel 8) - we really couldn't have imagined how an incredible year 2017 turned out to be! Yet, the most amazing and exciting thing that happens to us every single day is when we get an order from a returning customer - it really is the most exciting feeling in the world to get to do what we love, for reasons we love even more (the opportunity to make an impact in the lives of farmers and customers), and for people who are giving us the chance to do it again! We realize we haven't met all of you yet - but we want you to know we're truly and deeply grateful to you for every single time we get to roast for you! 

As we begin 2018, we're looking forward to so many things... from our first craft beer collaboration, with the incredibly talented team at Swan Brewing, to getting our first multi-store customer, Uncle Nick's Bagels, and adding our SECOND roaster this year (stay tuned... we would love YOU to be part of this!). Above all, we're looking forward to the chance to impact a lot more people (farmers, customers, and partners) and get closer to our long-term goal of creating a new sourcing model that goes beyond Fair-Trade, and building the most customer-centered coffee roastery in the world! 

And for each of you we hope 2018 brings you everything you're wishing (and working) for!

Jolian & Lisbeth

T H A N K Y O U

Happy Thanksgiving!!! Today, we just want to say THANK YOU for making Ethos Roasters possible! Each order, each review, each message, each follow, each like... every day you inspire us to do our best work, every day you remind us that we're not alone on this journey - and every day we're grateful for each of you!

Tomorrow we're hosting our first Thanksgiving Friday at The Roastery, and we'll be brewing a variety of single-origin coffees and loose-leaf teas for anyone who comes! This is just a small way to express our gratitude, and if you're in the area, I hope you'll consider joining us!

Thank you, from the bottom of my heart, for making this dream possible!

- Lisbeth

'TIS THE SEASON

I'm a few days late on our monthly blog post (my apologies)... yet it is for good reason - we've been really busy roasting and preparing for our debut at the Tampa Holiday Gift Market, as the winner of this year's Young Entrepreneurship Program! We have FOUR awesome new Fair-Trade Organic coffees joining our lineup for this event - Damas de San Ignacio (a women-grown coffee from Peru), Copan (Honduras), Chiapas (Mexico), and La Cumbre (Colombia), and which will be added to our online store shortly after the event (Nov 9-12). If you're near the Tampa Bay area, please come meet the team! (we'll have special freebies/offers for regular customers, so please let us know who you are!)

We're so excited about this Holiday season! It is our first one at The Roastery, and we really want to make it special for you, our customers - the ones who make everything possible! So... please mark your calendars for:

* Our first-ever THANKSGIVING FRIDAY @ The Roastery | Friday Nov 24, 9 am - 12 pm  |  Free tours and free coffee all morning - our way to say THANK YOU to all our customers for your support (we're not planning to have roasted beans for sale that day, as we'd like to focus on saying thanks and giving back, but if you're making a special trip to Lakeland and would like us to roast something for you, of course we can make it happen!)

* Our new Artisan Dripper Launch! | A ceramic dripper handmade by Guatemalan women artisans that will take your pour-overs to the next level... a very limited edition will be launching online December 1st! (Please check our FB and IG for preview pics!)

* Friday Coffee Tastings | Every Friday in December, 5-7 pm | Come relax and enjoy with us the coffees we've roasted that week, along with a beautiful view of Lake Beulah! 

We're also open to your suggestions on other events you'd like us to have! Please connect with us in social media and let us know!

Always grateful for the opportunity to be your roaster,

- Lisbeth

CELEBRATING COFFEE!

This month we celebrate coffee (National Coffee Day is Sept 29th) - the amazing drink powering our days and inspiring our conversations for over a thousand years! (Yes, coffee is really that old, discovered in 11th century Ethiopia).

As we celebrate our love for coffee, I wanted to take an opportunity to connect with you, our customers (current and potential), and thank you for making this dream, this leap, possible!

Coffee for us is so much more than an amazing drink... it is the way we've chosen to try to make a difference in the world. You may have not realized, but each of our coffee origins has not been selected based solely on quality and flavor, but also to support the people behind it - and to ensure their efforts are increasingly recognized and rewarded. This has meant saying "no" to high-scoring Specialty coffees that were absolutely delicious and attractively priced, but that did not meet our "Ethically Sourced" criteria (Fair-Trade or higher prices paid to the farmers, supporting a Co-op or small group of small farmers, and grown under sustainable methods or certified Organic). Quality and price can't matter if we're supporting well-funded coffee farms only trying to "grow their business" - no matter how high the quality or price, this is not ethically sourced. Our buying power is the single most powerful weapon each of us (businesses and individuals) has - and if we use it thoughtfully, we can support - and build - the kind of world we want to live in... and those who are trying to build it!

Thank you for supporting us, at Ethos Roasters - wholeheartedly trying!

= Lisbeth

PS. Thank you for reading! If you made it this far, you deserve a discount code! Please use "BACK4COFFEE" at checkout for 10% off your entire order until Oct 29th!