Above: Habte Mesfin, owner of the Kansas-based Revocup
Coffee Roasters is giving back 10 cents for every cup of coffee
and 1 dollar for every pound of coffee sold to the farmers.
(Courtesy photo).

Kansascity.com
By ANNE BROCKHOFF
Special to The Star
Freshness and tradition — that’s what Habte Mesfin speaks of while pulling an espresso shot at Revocup, his Overland Park coffeehouse. Talk with him a while longer, though, and the conversation turns to privation and struggle. Mesfin is from Ethiopia, where coffee probably originated and where growing, roasting, brewing and drinking coffee was an essential part of his family’s life. When Mesfin immigrated to the U.S. in the mid-1980s, coffee farmers could still make a living from the bean. That has since changed, Mesfin says. “At least people used to have a decent life. They had their own pride and could feed themselves,” Mesfin says. “Now things are quite different. People are working more, but what they are getting is a lot less.” Read more.

Related Tadias Story:
Interview with Habte Mesfin