The name 1000faces comes from Joesph Campbell's book "The Hero With A Thousand Faces."  We chose it because we thought that the undertaking by Campbell towards that of religion, mythology, and cultural phenomenon was akin to how we want to approach coffee, peoples, and place.

Like Campbell we believe that there is more to life than commercial success or representational living.  There is greatness to be had out there in this market of life(and coffee) and the only way the we become the hero and subsequently discover this greatness is to follow one's bliss.  Our bliss is coffee.  

We believe that by bringing forth greatness unto the Athens coffee market we will be living the hero's life.  We want to be Socrates of this modern day Athens.  Screaming out from the steps of the center of town: 'THE UNEXAMINED COFFEE IS NOT WORTH DRINKING!"  There are peoples and places behind that bean, families that need to be brought into the limelight and flavors that need to be expressive.  The substance of coffee is not to be hidden behind dark oily roasts, that the American fix was predicated upon with the proliferation of a broad yuck of franchised, easily replicated, and unmindfully repeatable coffee culture.  Once acceptable, but now just insulting.

We live and die by a praxis of incorporating profound nourishment to the entire story.  From seed to cup, the best we can or die trying.  All our hopes and dreams are bet upon the idea that our community and communities surrounding us want to know, the want to reclaim taste, and they want to be given heroic examples of courage of fighting for what one company believes in.  That truth crush the earth shall rise.  That chickens come home to roost.  That what is in the water comes out in the rinse.  Can we get Athenians to stop drinking coffee roasted in Michigan?  Can we teach our students at UGA about farmer and region when they purchase a cup from the contracted providers?  We have tried not to call out and shame, but we are passionate people and time is short. What is it, we need to do, to inspire you more, to get this community deeply invested in bravely and defiantly demanding greatness?

This we go to work on each day.

TODAY:

Today all our staff gathered around the cupping table and examined seven new coffee's we might one day work with.  We cupped(systematically evaluated) two coffee's from Beloya Processing Station in Yirgacheffee, Ethiopia brought sent to us from two gentlemen working directly with farmers and processors in the region. We cupped the Hartman Estate from the Volcan Region of Panama, exploring what the effects of the honey processed coffee of a rain riddled 2009 Central American harvest did for our hearts. We cupped the Nanegal Townships' 2009 harvest from the dense rain forest region of Ecuador one of our owners purchased directly last harvest.   We cupped six different roasts from a new partnership with growers of Alta Goniana in Brazil...

With each coffee we critically considered as a group, what we liked and disliked about each coffee.  Talking about the aroma, the fragrance, the mouthfeel, the body, the acidity, the aftertaste, the flavor notes of each coffee, how much we paid for the coffee, where that money is going, where the project is going, how we feel about the people behind this project and the vision they have for their future land use and community investment.  This process takes hours out of our day, it is messy and spills out everywhere... and is the lateral movement we rely upon in our hunt of greatness.

Right now Athens stands hungry in the shadows of the great coffee scenes of Portland, Chicago, Durham, the Bay Area, and Ithaca.  Our goal is to make Athens not only relavent coffee destination, but a place seekers journey to in wild excitement for coffee courting, love-making, and understanding. 

In the coming months we are going to launch an exciting new project with SLOW COFFEE out of Norway.  We are working on funding to do extensive filming and presentation of all of our work with growers and barista's alike.  We desperately don't want to hid behind labels and be the unpleasant finger pointing to the moon.  We will unfold everything out before you, like a feast spread out before both peasant and king in perfect and delicious plain view.

Work hard, play hard, love hard.  It makes dying, so enjoyable.  We dream.