You would be hard pressed to find someone more passionate about coffee than Viviana Gurdian. A fifth-generation coffee producer, she traces everything back to her great-great-grandmother, who managed her family’s Costa Rican coffee plantation, Hacienda Miramonte. This is the same farm that now supplies Willows Coffee, Gurdian’s online coffee store.
Gurdian looks forward to the future of Willows Coffee and her mission of informing the people of Minnesota and the U.S. about what really goes into their cup. “We call it from farm to cup,” she says.
Willows Coffee is unique because the coffee is exported directly from the farm. The company doesn’t offer any blends, which Gurdian says are misleading and implies the coffee is not entirely from where it claims to be sourced.
Gurdian hopes Minnesotans will one day find her family’s coffee in their local grocery store or favorite restaurant. “I tell people to try our coffee black and if they don’t like it, then they can add other things,” Gurdian says. “If you have a good coffee, you don’t need to put anything in it.”
