Eureka! California-Grown Coffee Is Becoming the State’s Next Gold Mine
17th February 2018
When Mark Gaskell moved to California after working in coffee-growing regions in Central America, he noticed coffee plants growing in gardens and wondered if large-scale production was an option.
In 2001, Gaskell, farm advisor for the University of California Cooperative Extension, established transplants and discovered that the sub-tropical plants could thrive in the Golden State. He recruited Jay Ruskey of Good Land Organics to help with trials, hoping coffee could be a valuable niche crop to help sustain small farms.
Ruskey started growing coffee in 2002 on his Santa Barbara, Calif., farm and quickly became a passionate coffee farmer.
“We learned that we had the ability to grow very good coffee with a very unique flavor,” Ruskey explains. “There is a misconception that you can’t grow coffee outside the Tropic of Cancer.”