Coffeelands, Rutland MA

A Coffee Maven Review
(August 2024, updated March 2025)

This visit has a bit of a backstory -- I'll do my best to keep it brief. It starts with another café -- Coffeelands in Clinton. The fact that Coffeelands is not on this blog already is a huge oversight! Not only have I been there many times, but it is also my favorite café. Yes, the Coffee Maven has a favorite, and Coffeelands in Clinton is it!

I post about it frequently on Facebook, but I just realized that the only post on Geocafes is a very brief 2017 post about its precursor -- Coffeelands World Gifts Espresso Café. If it sounds like it was named by a committee, that is because it essentially was. The original café was founded circa 2011 by my friends at the Polus Center for Social & Economic Development (another long story).

When the global non-profit organization decided to sell the café, they found the perfect buyer, who simplified its name and business plan, but has kept its focus on celebrating the farming communities that grow its coffee, tea, and chocolates. 

March 2025 Update

I returned to the café during our 2025 spring break, in part to drop off a coffee artifact. As we downsize our home, there was no good place for this lamp, and I knew it would have a good home at Coffeelands. 

So I stopped by on my way to a new (unrelated) café in New Hampshire. Both Coffeelands locations always have great window art. This one (which I flipped because I took it from the inside) is wonderful on at least two levels.

First, it reminds us of the people and lands behind the coffee we enjoy. Amid the beautiful leaves and coffee cherries, it reads, "Proudly supporting a CULT...ivation movement for sustainable coffee."

Second, it allows me to frame one of the shop's neighbors, part of a chain I discuss in some detail on an old web page entitled Coffee Hell. The proximity of many independent cafés to their better-funded rival chains is, of course, part of the origin story of this blog, which was inspired by a visit to Country Kitchen in Walpole nearly 20 years ago.

Lagniappe

During my first conversation with the owner, Rhonda, she had so many excellent questions about coffee that I told her she should join my next travel course. She did so -- three times! Each time, we learned a lot from each other and of course from the farmers and others in the industry. Here are just a few action shots:

Traveling "to origin" is something everyone involved in specialty coffee hopes to do. Here Rhonda (right) is learning from two of the greats: worldwide Cup of Excellence winner Byron Corales and his daughter Sara, the first to market specialty coffee to domestic markets in Nicaragua. 

Transparency is an even more important benefit of fair trade than its financial and contractual advantages. Here Rhonda is tasting coffee in a tasting lab owned by the farmers themselves. 

And even something as serious as coffee needs a bit of fun. Rhonda insisted on this goofy selfie at the mouth of an active volcano -- Volcán Masaya.