I love everything about coffee.
The taste (when it’s a good cup).
The smell (even if it’s a terrible cup.)
The ritual of making it.
The warmth of the mug when you wrap your fingers around it.
Drinking coffee with friends and talking.
Drinking coffee alone and writing.
We have a lot of foodies in our small town in Southern Oregon and several coffee shops where green coffee beans are roasted on the spot. I wrote an article for Oregon Business Magazine about Noble Coffee Roaster’s founder Jared Rennie. Noble Coffee takes coffee very serious. Jared Rennie’s staff will dump a shot rather than serve a mediocre cup of Joe.
Noble Coffee is a wholesale and retail organic coffee business with its global headquarters in a 3,000-square-foot airy space in the Railroad District in Ashland. Rennie is a man with endless energy. He’s always in motion, talking with his hands. Focused and frenetic at the same time.
The main tenets of Rennie’s values-driven business philosophy: uncompromising product and slow growth. Noble has accounts throughout Oregon and California’s Bay Area, and Rennie says there is more demand for his product—and the extensive training given to any business serving Noble coffee—than he can accommodate. Rennie’s had calls from Alabama and southeastern Washington. He’s been turning down customers.
“We pay a lot of attention to our accounts. We also have a high level of expectation,” Rennie explains. “We’ve pulled our coffee from some accounts because they butcher it. We want Noble Coffee to mean something … Doing great coffee is really hard. It’s really easy to take great coffee and mess it up.”
My article’s available on-line: “Noble Coffee Prospers in Ashland.”
Wondering where to get the best cup of coffee in Ashland, Oregon? A lot of people love Noble Coffee. It’s an excellent choice, for sure, but recently it’s been edged out by some of the newer coffee roasting businesses.
Published: October 27, 2010
Last update: January 21, 2020
Alexandra says
Like the name! We serve Peace coffee at my B&B. The operate out of Minneapolis.
Randy says
I clicked on to your site because I saw the blog entry name in Simple Mom when you commented there. I thought you were going to be talking about Ashland Coffee & Tea in Ashland, Virginia. They have “noble” coffee there as well. By that I mean they are a real community focused place doing what they can to keep live music flourishing by artists who might not have hugh name recognition to the masses but often have strong followings whereever they play.
I’m for “Noble Coffee” prospering wherever it can.