Edible San Diego

Coffee Connects
Celebrating Community the Café Moto Way
By Evan Ross
Photography by Chris Costa

Torrey Lee's easy smile seems to belie the competitive, often tumultuous industry in which he toils. Perhaps that's because Café Moto, his project of many years, offers him a platform above the din from which to facilitate the community connections he so appreciates.

Community First

Regardless of how coffee, and the global industry that surrounds it, continue to evolve, one thing remains true: There are not many things more powerful in bringing together diverse communities than a hot cup of well-brewed, high-quality arabica. This is a concept not lost on Lee.

As he sees it, communities of the bean are inextricably intertwined; woven into a global fabric by the people who grow, buy, roast and appreciate the unique characteristics of coffee. This is one reason why Lee and his wife, Kimberly, conscientiously evolved Café Moto into a venture that emulates the values those communities represent: togetherness, mutual support, celebration of diversity, sharing of ideas, sustainability, honesty, transparency and quality.

"I've worked in a few coffeehouses," says Lee. "In my experiences they are places where individuals, the community come together. There is such a bonding in the coffee community. First thing in the morning people roll out of bed, they don't look their best, they're not always happy. You give them a cup of coffee and some chat and incrementally something happens, a bonding. There are these pulses, these moments of coming together over a cup of coffee."

The Past and Present of a San Diego Institution

The experiences of which Lee speaks include some very close to home. Café Moto originally operated as the coffee roasting division of local stalwart Pannikin Coffee and Tea, which was founded by Lee's stepfather, Bob Sinclair, in 1968. Lee got his start here washing dishes and making coffee. In 1998, the Lees purchased the roasting division, and they have spent the years since molding it into the local institution is has become.

Today, Café Moto roasts approximately 2,000 pounds of coffee a day; they carry more than 30 varieties of coffee from Africa, Arabia, the Americas and the Pacific Rim, as well as many teas. About 75 percent of the coffee Moto sells is fair trade and about 55 percent is certified organic. The company was also recently certified as kosher. They serve more than 300 clients including grocery stores, restaurant chains and institutions such as UC San Diego. The majority of their business, however, is with small start-up coffee retailers.

"About 95 percent of the people we sell to are mom-and-pop operations and entrepreneurs that left their job at a bank or something and wanted to get involved in a different venture," Lee says. "I consider us a regional batch roaster. I don't tell my people to go to Los Angeles or Arizona or Nevada, that's just not our focus. We primarily stick to San Diego County and try to be able to reach out to our customers if they have a specific or immediate coffee or equipment need."

The Café Moto roastery and retail store, located in a new building on National Avenue, houses the company's entire roasting, packaging, direct sale and delivery operation. It also houses a test kitchen. Moto staff use the space as a laboratory of sorts to educate their customers about the varieties of coffee they import and sell, and to assist them in identifying the best coffees for their specific needs. In this way the customer becomes a partner in the coffee selection process, which enables Café Moto to sharpen their focus in providing the most desirable product to individual clients.

"The philosophy, or what we've always tried to do, is ‘try it before you buy it,'" says Lee. "If I can try a product and form an opinion about it then I can either sell it or recommend something else. So we get people to come down and try different products and then decide which they like.  Then they can believe in it and it's easier for them to sell it.  We spend a fair amount of time offering tastings and helping customers with their menus."

The Community Connection

While this personal customer service approach is refreshing, what is remarkable is the way Lee extrapolates it into his dealings with the buyers and farmers from whom he buys his coffee and tea. Just as he takes a very personal interest in the satisfaction of his local community, so he directly engages the communities that grow and deliver his product.

This is evidenced by his focus on working with farming cooperatives in Nicaragua and Costa Rica, his efforts to purchase product through fair trade contracts and his support for improving conditions in poorer growing regions such as Tanzania. To hear him speak about how shifts in the legal landscape and production processes may yield significant economic benefit to allow children to go to school and women to purchase farmland is to understand that social justice is no minor consideration for Lee.

"I visited with Fatima Ismael, president of the Las Hermanas cooperative, a group of 140 women-owned farms in upper Nicaragua. Nicaragua has gotten to a point where it is now possible for a woman to own the title document to a piece of land. So, these women banded together to produce small-batch specialty coffees that they can sell separately from the large Nicaraguan blends. It allows them to control the quality and get a premium for it. She was very eager to understand our coffee preferences and needs for consistent organic coffees to roast."

As if his impassioned telling of stories about his visits to these farms and cooperatives wasn't sufficient proof of this, there is the painting of the Nicaraguan highlands hanging in the retail area of the shop.

The painting was gifted to him by a young girl at Las Hermanas. It serves as a tangible representation of the very real benefits provided to that community by Café Moto's commitment to organic and fair trade buying. With the additional money they recoup from selling at fair trade prices, the women have been able to provide cervical cancer screenings, purchase uniforms so their children can attend school, and implement youth music and art programs. Lee's painting is the fruit of those projects.

Sustainably Oriented

Café Moto's company vision involves a holistic view of the coffee and tea industries and the far-reaching benefits of approaching them in a very personal and sustainable way.

In addition to the company's efforts to work closely with its customers, buy organic, support fair trade and connect with the sources of their products, they are also focused on increasing their own sustainable practices and decreasing their carbon footprint.

Their new building was built using many recycled materials from neighboring buildings. On the roof, they installed 100 solar panels that produce 17 kilowatts of power-enough to run the entire shop. The Café Moto delivery vehicles run on clean diesel and their roasting machine operates on natural gas. Lee is also constantly searching for more effective products and technologies to ship and store coffee, as well as to monitor and reduce energy demand from production, even as we interview.

"The gentleman that's here this morning is helping us put a piece of equipment on the roasting equipment that will help us monitor the air flow and a) give us a little more definition and b) reduce energy, which is a great complement to the whole system," notes Lee. "So, we can manipulate the machinery to produce the best coffee we can and at the same time reduce energy consumption. So, it's sort of a two-fer."

This kind of thinking seems to be a key element of Lee's business acumen, and the success of Café Moto. It's hard to say if he is constantly concerned with meeting his triple bottom line, or if that just comes naturally to him. But while he goes about improving the quality of the products he offers in a service-oriented, transparent and sustainable way, the communities he embraces and connects benefit from the intentions of his philosophy and the actions it engenders.

Evan Ross is a frustrated chef, brewer, sommelier and organic farmer trapped in the body of a foodie, craft beer and wine lover, and great appreciator of those inherently connected to the land. Writing is his expressive connection to these passions.