Local company New Harvest Coffee celebrated its 15th anniversary on Friday. Friends, colleagues and college students all came together in the warm hall of the historic Providence Arcade, and every person held either a cup of coffee or a glass of whiskey — sometimes both.
In addition to coffee, the store sells a variety of high-end spirits. Rik Kleinfeldt MA’90, who co-founded New Harvest Coffee with his wife, Paula Anderson, said selling “high-quality whiskey and artisan cocktails” alongside coffee was a natural progression for the company.
Kleinfeldt said he travels to the farms — in Colombia, Guatemala, Costa Rica, Honduras and Kenya, for example — to source the coffee New Harvest will later sell, ensuring the company focuses on unique and varied blends.
Troy Reynard, owner of the Cosmic Cup Coffee Co. in Easton, Pennsylvania, came to Providence to celebrate New Harvest’s anniversary. “We’ve been customers of Rik’s since 2005,” he said, adding that he has often traveled with Kleinfeldt on his coffee-sourcing trips.
Reynard noted he and his customers appreciate “the integrity (New Harvest has) with sourcing coffee. … It’s coffee with a story behind it.” Kleinfeldt also pays the farmers well, Reynard said.
“We have a relationship with a small farm in Honduras going back eight years,” Kleinfeldt said. “We pay him probably like twice the fair trade price.” He added that he pays the farmers a flat rate — this is especially important because the coffee market fluctuates.
“Coffee prices have been low recently, but the general trend is for the price to increase,” he said. Coffee can only be grown in a certain climate zone, and the ideal zone is shrinking because of global warming, he added.
Kleinfeldt said he tries to communicate the value and complexity of his product. “Over the years, we’ve gotten more and more into education, both for the public and our wholesale customers,” he said, adding that he hopes to open another New Harvest storefront in the future.
Heri Kwon ’16, a New Harvest patron, said her favorite roast is from a farm in Ethiopia. “If I gotta grab a coffee downtown, I’m definitely going to grab a coffee from here,” she said.
