Country of Residence
United States
Age
17
Project title
Open Book Coffee
Project Summary: Describe your project in one sentence
Open Book Coffee is a student-run micro-roaster that buys fair trade beans from small farmers in Latin America and Puerto Rico, sells them to local cafés, and uses an app to show customers exactly where their money goes.
Website URL(s) or social media handles.
https://incomparable-blini-6a47f7.netlify.app/
Project Category
My project is a brand new / emerging idea
Project Stage
Pilot-Stage (We’ve tried an activity or two)
Founding Story: What was the spark that led you to start your project? What was the "Aha!" moment that led you to get started and see the potential for this to succeed?
In my Social Entrepreneurship class, we could either do an internship or create a start-up. My co-founder Liam and I chose the start-up because we wanted to start building something real as early as possible. The real spark came before that, on a service trip with Plenitud PR in Puerto Rico. We worked on a small local coffee farm and helped restore it, and I saw firsthand how hard these farmers work. Their coffee was amazing, but almost nobody outside their community would ever taste it or know the people behind it. That was my “Aha!” moment. What if we could get these small farmers’ beans out into the world and let people see exactly where their coffee comes from? Liam and I created Open Book Coffee: we buy beans from small farms like the one I worked on, roast them, and sell them to local cafés. Our app shows customers the farm and the family behind every bag, and if they love the taste, they can tip the farmers directly. I’ve also run my own computer-building business for four years, so I know a student can start something real. Open Book Coffee is my chance to build a business where the people who do the hardest work finally get the credit, and the reward, they deserve.
The Problem: What problem are you helping to solve? Why does it matter to you and your community?
Small coffee farmers work incredibly hard, but they often get the smallest share of the money. On my service trip in Puerto Rico, I saw how much labor goes into every harvest on a small farm. Yet farms like these struggle to reach buyers, because big companies and middlemen control most of the market. The same is true for small growers in places like Colombia, Peru and Guatemala. Their coffee can be excellent, but without a way to reach customers, it stays unknown and they stay underpaid. On the other side, coffee drinkers have almost no idea who grew their coffee. Even labels like “fair trade” don’t show the real people behind a cup, so there’s no connection between the customer and the farmer. This matters to me because I’ve worked on one of these farms and met the people it affects. In the Bay Area, people care about supporting ethical businesses and love great coffee, and local cafés want something special to offer. Open Book Coffee connects both sides: we bring small farmers’ beans to local cafés, our app shows customers exactly where their coffee came from, and anyone who loves the taste can tip the farmer directly. That turns an everyday cup into real support for the families who grew it.
Your Solution: How are you solving this problem? Share your specific solution.
Open Book Coffee connects small coffee farmers directly with local cafés and the people who drink their coffee. We start by buying beans from small farms, beginning with the farmers in Puerto Rico I connected with on my service trip and later growing to small growers in Colombia, Peru and Guatemala. Buying directly cuts out middlemen, so more money reaches the farmer. Liam and I then roast the beans ourselves in small batches, which keeps costs low and lets us control the quality and flavor of each farm’s coffee. We sell that coffee to local Bay Area cafés, giving each one a unique product with a real story behind it, something chain coffee can’t offer. Every bag and café cup has a QR code that opens our app, where customers can see the farm their coffee came from, the family who grew it, how it was harvested, and exactly how their money is split between the farmer, the roasting and the café. That’s the “open book” in our name: nothing is hidden. If customers love the taste, they can tip the farmer right in the app, and 100% of every tip goes to the farm, just like tipping a barista, except this time they’re thanking the person who grew the coffee. This model helps everyone involved: farmers earn more and get recognized for their work, cafés get a high-quality product with a story their customers will love, and coffee drinkers finally get to see and support the real people behind every cup. We’re starting small with a pilot of one farm and a few local cafés, then expanding to more farms and cafés as we prove the model works.
Impact: How has your project created impact / made a difference so far? Or, if at an early stage, what will impact look like?
Open Book Coffee is at an early stage, but its roots are already real. On my service trip with Plenitud PR, I helped restore a small coffee farm in Puerto Rico and built relationships with the people who work there, and those connections are our starting point. For farmers, we hope to create higher, fairer income by cutting out middlemen, plus extra money from customer tips that goes 100% to the farm. Just as important, farmers will be recognized by name for their work, and their coffee will reach customers it never could before. Customers will gain a real connection to where their coffee comes from. Instead of guessing whether a purchase does any good, they’ll see exactly where their money goes. Our community benefits too: local cafés get a unique product that sets them apart, and Bay Area coffee drinkers get an easy, everyday way to support fair business. In our first year, we aim to partner with one or two small farms, sell to three to five local cafés, reach hundreds of customers through our app, and send every dollar of tips directly to farmers. We believe this will work because people love great coffee and want to support businesses that do good, but they rarely get to see the impact. Open Book Coffee makes that impact visible, turning every cup into a direct link between someone in the Bay Area and a farmer who deserves to be seen.
Your Innovation: What is different about your project compared to other programs or solutions already out there? How is your project new or innovative?
Many coffee companies already try to help farmers, usually through fair trade certification or “direct trade” labels. These are good steps, but they have limits. Certification can be expensive for small farms, so many are left out, and a label on a bag doesn’t tell customers who actually grew their coffee or how much of their money reached that person. Most customers are simply asked to trust the label. Open Book Coffee is different because it replaces trust with transparency. Instead of a label, every bag and café cup has a QR code that opens our app, showing the exact farm, the family behind it, and a clear breakdown of where each dollar goes. Nothing is hidden, which is where our name comes from. Our biggest innovation is tipping the farmer. Tipping is something people already do every day for baristas and servers, but almost no one has a way to tip the person who grew their coffee. We’re taking a familiar habit and applying it in a new place, so customers who love the taste can send money straight to the farm, with 100% of every tip going to the farmer. We’re also different because of how we started. Our first farm relationships come from real experience: I worked on a small coffee farm in Puerto Rico and helped restore it. We focus on small farms that big buyers and certification programs often overlook. And because Open Book Coffee is student-run, with Liam and me roasting the beans ourselves, we keep costs low and can work closely with each farm and café. By combining direct sourcing, our own roasting, a transparent app and direct tipping, Open Book Coffee turns every cup into a real connection between a Bay Area coffee drinker and the farmer who made it possible.
How many people are on your team?
2
Your team: What role(s) do your team members play? How do you share leadership with them?
Our team is two co-founders, Liam and me. We share leadership and make every major decision together. Liam leads outreach, getting farms to join our app, building on the Puerto Rico connections from my service trip. I lead business planning and finances. Our Social Entrepreneurship teacher is our advisor and will help us reach businesses in our community. As we grow, we plan to bring on more students to help with roasting, packaging and deliveries.
What’s Next: What are the next steps you plan to take to grow or strengthen your project over the next year? If your project is still in the idea stage, describe the steps you will take over the next three months to launch or begin developing it.
Over the next three months, Liam and I will turn Open Book Coffee from an idea into a working pilot. Our first priority is closing a deal with our first farm. Liam is already in contact with small farms, and we’ll work to agree on a fair price, order size and shipping so we can buy our first batch of beans. At the same time, we’ll buy a small coffee roaster and start test roasting. Practicing with small batches will help us learn the process, find the best roast for each farm’s beans and figure out our costs before we sell to anyone. We’ll also build a simple website as the first version of our app. It will include a page for each partner farm with photos, the family’s story and a breakdown of where customers’ money goes, plus a way to tip the farmer directly. Starting with a website lets us launch quickly and test the idea before building a full app. Finally, we’ll pitch to local cafés. With help from our teacher’s community connections, we’ll bring samples of our coffee to café owners, explain how the QR code and tipping work, and aim to sign our first café partners. If we reach these goals, we’ll start selling in our first cafés, collect feedback from customers and owners, and use what we learn to add more farms and cafés over the next year.
How do you encourage other people to join your project or learn about the problem you’re working on? If you have a new idea, tell us how you will do this in the future.
So far, we’ve started by sharing Open Book Coffee with our Social Entrepreneurship class and our teacher. Our classmates have given us feedback on our idea, and our teacher has become our advisor and will help connect us with businesses in our community. Looking ahead, our biggest tool for getting people involved is the business itself. Every bag and café cup will have a QR code, so each person who scans it learns about the farm, the family who grew their coffee and the problem small farmers face. Every customer becomes someone who understands the issue, and the tipping feature gives them an easy way to act on it right away. Our café partners will help spread the word too. By sharing the stories of our farms with their customers, they’ll help us reach people we couldn’t reach on our own. We also plan to invite more students to join us. As we grow, we’ll need help with roasting, packaging and deliveries, and we want to give other students the chance to learn how a real social business works from the inside, just like Liam and I are doing now. Our goal is to show people that something as simple as buying a cup of coffee can make a real difference, and that once you know who grew your coffee, you start to care about them.
