This adventure started out with four friends.

Michel Chaffaux – Former Air Force pilot

André Plank – Business executive

Jean Lyon – Cabinet maker (Ecole Boulle)

Volker Repke – Security consultant

What brought us together?

Friendship, to begin with.

Followed by a common, or at least comparable, way of viewing the world.
Not forgetting the love for a good coffee

Apart from that, we did not have the same political views, the same culture or even the same history. We did not identify with the same traditions. However, this did not prevent us from feeling an odd empathy, and it is undoubtedly this that gave us an idea, a few years ago, to do something with a humanist approach together. But we all had our jobs and time went by. But over the years we continued to write to each other and talk, often with a cup of coffee.
This continued until 2008, when we felt that the time had come to take stock, or at least try, and to do it in such a way that it is useful to others.

Each one of us had had advanced enough and it was time to stop and think.
We had all read Jean Ziegler’s book “L’Empire de la Honte” (The Empire of Shame) where the author carried out a strong attack against the lords of coffee.

It was enough to spur us on.

We went to Ethiopia in September 2008 and we studied the complete journey of a green coffee bean, from the tree to our cup.

There we met farmers who loved their work but could no longer make a living of it. We met the Minister for Agriculture, Yaekob Yalla, who explained to us with fatalism that although coffee grows in the South, its profits (roughly €10 billion) are made in the North. We met men and women who are directly confronted with a market that they do not understand.

When we came back to Europe, we had one last question to resolve: what could we do to bring a bit more light, happiness and wisdom to this coffee market?

None of us were really sure of our answers.

But we were all sure that the question was a relevant one.

And that is why we created TERRA-KAHWA…