Thanksgiving Coffee is an award-winning, family-owned coffee roaster operating on the Mendocino Coast since 1972. We are proud to be a Certified B Corp and a second-generation family-owned business. As pioneers of sustainability practices at the heart of coffee today, we have developed co-beneficial relationships with farmers spanning decades, giving us access to unique, acclaimed coffees you can’t find — or taste — anywhere else.
We didn’t start out to change the world. We were just looking for a good cup of coffee.
In 1972, Joan and Paul Katzeff set up a twenty-five pound roaster in the Mendocino Hotel to bring craft coffee to the Mendocino coast. At the time, our community was supported and nourished by Northern California’s natural bounty — towering forests, abundant fisheries, four-season farms, soon to be world-class vineyards, and a homing beacon for the back-to-the-land movement — but when it came to coffee, we were still drinking stale grounds from a can.
We named our company Thanksgiving to reflect our gratitude for living in a place where nature’s cornucopia overflowed. All of the ideals of the holiday resonated with our founders - community, abundance, giving back and giving thanks for our bounty.
Founding Story
Joan and Paul believe the secret to great coffee lies in the welfare of the farmers who grow it. They have worked foreconomic and environmental sustainability for our farmers so they can take better care of their coffee trees. Making sure our farmers benefit from the quality of their crop means they can pursue continual improvement, and pass their craft onto the next generation. This is why they did what they did.
Commitment to Sustainable Practices
Our commitment to sustainability began in 1985 after Paul Katzeff returned from his first trip to an “origin” country. That began TCC’s focus on Social Justice.
This interaction, while Katzeff was SCAA President, led to the creation of the SCAA’s involvement with coffee people. It influenced Bill Fishbein to create Coffee Kids and led to years of TCC’s sponsorship of Village Banks in Guatemala and Mexico, in which Coffee Kids acted as trainers and facilitators. Our Nixamel (Corn Grinder Project) was one of the first Food Security Projects sponsored by TCC and facilitated in Mexico by Coffee Kids.
In 1992 we introduced our line of certified single origin organic coffees called " The Harvest Line" consisting of coffees from Mexico, Peru and Guatemala. This was the first coffee package to feature pictures of the farmers from each country. The packages were labeled Aztec, Inca and Mayan Harvest, to celebrate the people who produced the coffee and their ancient cultures.
Thanksgiving introduced the first shade grown coffee line in 1996.
Then in 2015 we joined the Smithsonian Migratory Bird Center team. The SMBC "Bird Friendly" Certification is the only 100% Organic and shade-grown coffee certification available. This seal of approval ensures tropical "agro forests" are preserved and migratory birds find a healthy haven when they travel from your backyard to those faraway coffee farms.
Our ethical sourcing model, direct from small-scale farmer cooperatives, was used as the basis for the first fair trade certification from Fairtrade. We introduced some of the first Fairtrade certified coffees in 1999.
In 2001, we worked with USAID to introduce the first farmer-owned cupping labs in small cooperatives in Nicaragua. This allowed farmers for the first time to taste and improve their own coffees, thus understanding the true value for their product, and enabling them to achieve fair market prices for their beans.
We are proud to have been recognized across the coffee industry and the business community for these efforts, including Rotary International Ethics in Business Award in 2021, and Roast Magazine’s Roaster of the Year award in 2017, a once-in-a-lifetime achievement reflecting our decades of quality coffee and sustainability leadership. Read more
Second Generation
We are grateful that after more than 50 years — and now in our second-generation of leadership, with Jonah Katzeff as CEO — we are still providing employment to our community, advancing sustainability at a time when our world needs it, supporting farmers, and bringing world-class coffee to those who love it.
