30 Years and running

Our Story

From our roots in Brattleboro, Vermont to Mocha Joe’s Organic Farmers Cooperative in Cameroon, West Africa, Mocha Joe’s has pioneered the art of making fine coffee with a conscience for more than 30 years.

Sustainable, Local, responsible

About Our Coffee

We care a lot about our beans: single origin, fair trade, community oriented, and ecologically conscious is how we do things around here.

  • 100% Solar Powered

For more than 30 years, we’ve developed some of the most environmentally-friendly roasting practices in the business.

We are a 100% Solar Powered business, with solar panels on the Capy’s family farm powering our roasting operation.

  • Roasted in Vermont

Specialty, single origin coffees are the most delicious and sought after coffee in the world. All of our coffees are carefully selected for seasonal freshness and a diversity of flavor from coffee growing regions around the world.

We roast only specialty grade coffee on a vintage 1950 Probat roaster in small batches, always fresh to order, right in the heart of Brattleboro, Vermont.

  • Socially Responsible

We only buy coffee that can be traced to the farm where it was grown and that fairly compensates coffee farmers and everyone along the supply chain, including Organic, Fair Trade, and Direct Trade coffees.

We cut out the middle man so farmers, mill workers, and our employees there make well over the going rate.

We are most proud of our Cameroon coffee project, a Direct Trade partnership with coffee farmers in West Africa.

Over the last decade, we’ve invested in the Cameroon community and helped raise the quality of coffee grown there through:

  • 0% Interest microloans for equipment & infrastructure improvements.

  • Coffee tree nursery to replant with younger, disease-resistant, higher-yield coffee trees.

  • Investments and training for improved specialty preparation. Farmers and mill workers get more money for specialty grade coffee!

Bottom line — every year our Cameroon coffee gets better and better!

Big Heart

Our Founders

In 1989, a young Pierre Capy worked in the field of interior landscape, installing and maintaining Ficus trees in malls. One day, he walked up to a coffee shop in in Cambridge, Massachusetts and ordered a regular coffee expecting nothing more than his daily pick-me-up. Within two weeks he had quit his job and began working at that café – The Coffee Connection in Harvard Square. After spending two years working for specialty coffee guru George Howell, Pierre got an early jump on the growing thirst for specialty coffee, opening a shop serving Coffee Connection coffee in his hometown of Brattleboro with wife Ellen. When the Coffee Connection was sold to Starbucks in 1994, Pierre and Ellen began roasting their own beans, and Mocha Joe’s Roasting Company was born.

More than 30 years later, Mocha Joe’s Café remains an iconic downtown business. Mocha Joe’s Roasting Company now has over 100 wholesale customers throughout the Northeast, and a talented staff of 7, all committed to the science and craft of great coffee. An industry leader in social responsibility, we offer high quality, certified Organic, Fair Trade, and Rainforest Alliance coffees, and have Direct Trade programs in Cameroon, and Guatemala. We believe that healthy ecosystems and sustainable economic relationships in coffee producing regions are essential to producing the quality coffees we serve here in Vermont.

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