Excited to finally meet up with our "coffee shaman", Mike Love. Mike is co-owner of Coffee Labs located in Tarrytown, NY and knows just about everything there is to know about coffee production and tasting. A former proffesional chef, Mike became burnt out at his job and decided to go into business for himself along with his wife, Alicia. Mike took what he knew as a chef and quickly honed them towards the amazing world of coffee. He then took it one step further by actually traveling to coffee plantations around the world and sourcing his beans personally. As a result, he has developed many close relationships over the years ensuring truly fair-trade practices from his sources. Experiencing Coffee Labs coffee is much more than a great cup of coffee. We feel as if we're being transported to that particular plantation while drinking their coffee.

Mike: "Coffee Labs Roasters is exceptionally proud to offer a variety of what we like to call Relationship Coffees. Relationship coffee is more to us than just buying green coffee from farmers at origin, it's about forming real friendships with people all over the world. We do business with these people, but we also break bread with them and we know some of their families. We get to know a lot of them pretty well, and we strive to visit origin at least one or two times a year. It's not just about inspecting the farm and tasting the coffee, it's about people."

Also Joining us on this podcast via phone from his family coffee plantation in Colombia is Ivan. Ivan is a veterinarian as well as a coffee grower and owner of Cafe Tio Conejo Coffee (Uncle Rabbit). Mike and Ivan have formed a deep relationship over the years producing phenomenal small batch coffee that is truly sustainable and fair-trade. Ivan not only runs the operation he also offers eco-tourism adventures at the plantation. We hope to go soon!