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It began on a dirt road in a remote part of Tanzania, on a small family coffee farm found during a mountain adventure trip to Africa.
The family offered a traditional meal of Mishkaki and Pilau before walking through how they'd grown and made coffee for generations...harvesting cherries by hand... removing all four outer layers by hand to reach the bean...then, roasting over an open flame..grinding by hand with a mortar and pestal...then eventually enjoying an amazing cup of what we'd call "cowboy coffee".
After a sip of coffee a small handful of whole roasted beans were placed into my hand. They were to be eaten with nothing but a pinch of raw sugar added. It was simple and surprisingly tasty.
No shortcuts. No unnecessary or artificial ingredients. Just coffee in its rawest form.
That was the moment the idea took shape: if coffee could be this stripped down and raw, it would be lightweight, and packable to consume for easy energy in the wilderness. The first attempt at recreating it was direct: raw sugar and roasted beans, in tiny packages, and eaten by the handful, the way the family in Tanzania had shown.
It didn't work, at least not for anyone else. The mouthfeel was gritty, the roasted beans were difficult to chew, and pieces of coffee had a habit of getting stuck in your teeth for the rest of the hike and it looked like you'd been eating dirt. What was normal on a farm in Tanzania wouldn't translate to a mountain in the Cascades, and pretending otherwise wasn't going to build a product worth making.
So the process started over, this time with research instead of a family farm: sourcing the best freeze-dried coffee available, studying and testing natural ingredients that could genuinely support energy, focus, and endurance outdoors, and figuring out how to combine them without losing the one thing instant coffee usually gets wrong... great coffee flavor. That work took a year, recipe after recipe, and became the foundation of Forth & Further: real, specialty-grade coffee freeze-dried to preserve its taste and blended with other natural ingredients (adaptogens, functional mushrooms, minerals, and MCT) for the physical and mental boost ones body needs on the trail.
You see, the trip that led to a small family coffee farm in another county actually began as a trip to summit the highest mountain on that continent.
A passion for the outdoors, hiking, camping, mountains and doing things the hard way led to Forth & Further. The idea of venturing forth into the wilderness and sometimes the unknown. Then, reaching beyond one's comfort zone, seeking an adventure and destination that many never will experience. Taking part in all that comes with an adventure (not matter how long or how difficult in the moment) and coming out the other side thriving.
