I’ve just returned from a month on the road, visiting coffee friends old and new in the UK (Scotland and England) and Portland, Oregon. At the same time, our Sourcing and QC Director, Michael, has been in Ethiopia for a post- and pre-harvest debrief with partners.

Separately, the same word came up for us both. It’s a word that somehow perfectly places us in this moment of our personal (intertwined) careers:

Continuity.

Not consistency. That would imply that we could have somehow delivered the same exact thing, day in and day out, which with Ethiopian coffee… with specialty coffee in general, I think is largely impossible, given we are dealing with geopolitics, agriculture, climate change, and the greatest variable of all: humanity.

Rather, a continuous arc of showing up, beginning for Michael when he entered coffee in 2004 and for me in 2008, and for both of us when we engaged with Ethiopian coffee in 2013, Peruvian in 2015.

Showing up through business failure, through hard lessons on the nature of partnership and trust, through COVID and post-COVID, through war.

Showing up with effortless 90-point coffees and still showing up when the same coffees take outsized effort to deliver 87 points.

Showing up at the beginning of things when just buying a single container is a bigger effort than moving cross-country, at the middle of things when a container is our smallest unit of measurement, and certainly showing up for later, when we reap the fruits of our efforts together.

Gebre and Michael, c. 2016, in Gedeo Zone on a shared washing station project

As I enter the mid-point of my career (I’m 41, have been in coffee since 2008 and an entrepreneur since age 13), a throughline begins to emerge in surprising ways. I share this because, for others in this time of life, I think it’s a familiar experience, and for those of you just getting started, I want to encourage you.

There were so many points in my career when I was forced (either by external circumstances or my own restless nature) to “start over”, “pivot”, or “re-vision” everything. Each one felt like a death.

I felt shame over how quickly I could move on… and shame over how long it took me to wise up to the reality of certain relationships or situations. I felt the eyes of the world on me, carving me up, judging me without knowledge of what actually was happening. I felt intense fear and anxiety that whatever new thing it was I had embarked upon would fail.

Truth is, many of my endeavors have failed or have been net neutral in their effect. From being the public face of Catalyst Trade’s scaling and closure, to co-founding a tech company in 2015 which never really got where we needed it to go, to operating a thriving roastery in Southeast Portland which still didn’t make ends meet.

Frankly, I could list dozens of these attempts.

Building a career is hard in any setting, but building something independent and unique—something that actually helps the world be a better place for us all to live—that’s just a pathway without a map.

Throw in my unconventional backstory (little formal education, raised in a cult, extremely artistic etc.), add the mercurial nature of the coffee industry, and toss in a healthy dash of sexual harassment and gender discrimination, and you’ve got a recipe for, well, an interesting life.

Ten years later, much wiser and greyer: 2026, Gebre and Michael

And yet here I am, with my colleagues and particularly my husband/business partner Michael, realizing that what I have built has legs.

The reputation I’ve built is consistent, warm, real.

And what I have built is such a personalized career: coffee sourcing from trusted business partners, selling to and equipping trusted roasters in North America and beyond. We do this our own way. And we actually like the people we work with.

Time Tells a True Story

In Portland I held a public cupping at Buckman Coffee Factory and had the chance to smile at some faces I have long loved.

I visited Wes and Chris at Case Study Coffee, and we reminisced about the 2014 era when I worked (briefly) for them and they offered my tiny family, which was struggling to find a long-term living situation, several temporary places to live.

I sat with Chris Brady of Extracto Coffee, just like I sat with him in Ethiopia in 2017 over a Habesha beer after a long day on the road.

I took a side hug in passing from Cassy Gleason and Sarah Hall and Erika Schwager, women I’ve spent real time with outside of our shared coffee profession, and even though we barely had minutes to catch up, the relationship bloomed between us as if it hadn’t been years since we last talked.

Michael McIntyre and Chris Brady c. 2016 in Chole,on the way to Harar

In Ethiopia at the same time, Michael sat with Gebre Teklemariam, (above, with Michael, twice ten years apart) who originally brought us to Ethiopia to consult with his export company in 2016, with Getachew, who has like clockwork texted him the new minimum price list every Tuesday since it started coming out, and with Beti and Mahder of Dumerso, with whom we’ve weathered some real storms since we began partnering in 2019.

With Tsegab and Abebeyahu and so many more.

And with Aron, our Ethiopia Coordinator, who has shown true continuity of loyalty, hard work, and talent.

Both at origin and in coffee buying settings, we did not achieve our reputation by being perfect or by avoiding mistakes.

We’ve made mistakes right and left, many of them simply ignorant and some of them from a kind of stubborn righteousness which is its own best teacher.

But we have owned every mistake.

Corrected our work.

Rebuilt to the new shape of reality.

Listened to customers and suppliers.

Learned languages, both spoken and nonverbal.

The result is a sense of ease, of rightness.

Success which isn’t entirely linear, but rather exponential.

Walking into a room and realizing: I don’t have to introduce myself. The work speaks for itself.

Cupping at Buckman Coffee Factory, June 18 2026

You don’t get to this sweet place in your career without getting to it.

Getting to it requires trial and error. Heartbreak and falling in love. Taking risks and bearing the consequences.

Getting here is so worth it.

I tried and tried and tried to dig below the surface of what we do, have gained real-life competence and traction, and now am discovering midway through my life that there is a thread running through every action and binding it all together into something beautiful.

This morning, I am celebrating the continuity that I’m experiencing with Swift and in my personal life.

I wish the same for you.

— Emily McIntyre, CEO, Swift Coffee Sourcing