Panama – Coming to a Flat Black near you
Jun. 05, 2009
By Kendra Stanton Lee
Dorchester Reporter
Americans consume some 400 million cups of coffee every day, and though we are no Seattle, Bostonians are serious about their joe. If you’re not brewing it at home, you might grab your “coffee regular” from “Dunkies” or maybe your coffee comes from any number of independent coffee houses here in Dorchester. Or maybe it comes from Panama.
Last month, Jennifer and David House, co-owners of Flat Black Coffee Company, traveled to Panama to bring the best brew back to their coffee shops in Lower Mills, Peabody Square, and in the Financial District downtown. Such an excursion in the coffee world is known as a “trip to origin.” That is, a trip to meet the people responsible for growing, picking, cleaning, and shipping the coffee beans that are packaged, ground, and brewed in our coffee houses here.
Trips to origin were a part of the business plan for Flat Black from the very beginning, according to Jennifer. Jennifer said she, David, and co-founder Jeff Chatlos asked themselves, “What is our business goal five years down the road? We knew we wanted to expand with more retail stores.” Such a goal necessitated purchasing their own roaster (which the Houses equate to the price of a luxury car) in order to have more control over quality, she said.
“We offer coffee from twenty different countries. It was our intention to provide the consumer with the highest quality coffee bean produced in that country,” she said.
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