PORTLAND, Maine — Nearly 30 years ago, Mary Allen Lindemann co-founded Coffee by Design in Portland, a single coffee shop that has since added three more coffeehouses, a roastery, and a major wholesale operation.
As part of her job, she’s always on the lookout for good coffee, a mission that has taken her around the world, most recently to India, where she attended an event organized by the International Women’s Coffee Alliance.
Think of hot beverages associated with India, and what likely comes to mind is tea. What you probably didn’t know is that India is a major player in the coffee industry, the eighth largest producer of any country in the world.
“The last time I traveled to India was five years ago,” Lindemann told 207. “In spite of the pandemic, the progress the industry [there] has made in a five-year period is astonishing. They had good quality before. What they have now is great.”
Her visit included tastings, product pitches, and visits to coffee growers. But most of the focus was on empowering women and creating better opportunities for them in India’s coffee industry, especially on farms.
“If you support women and girls, you support entire communities,” she said. “They really are the foundation of what happens in living on a farm and living in these countries. We cannot forget them.”
When it came time to return home, Lindemann crammed into her luggage plenty of Indian products, some of which might, at some point in the future, end up for sale at Coffee by Design.
One of those items was a “spirit box,” a collection of coffees infused with gin, rum, or whiskey.
“When I brought this [box] back,” she said, “Jeremy, our director of operations, opened the bag.”
He tried some of those infused coffees and immediately delivered a verdict.
“He said, ‘Uh-oh. They’re REALLY good.’”