OQ Coffee Brews a Local, Sustainable and World-Conscious Cup

To Evan Gentry and Benjamin Schellack, OQ Coffee is more than a way of making money. It's an attachment to their community, a way to spread free trade and sustainability practices, and an attempt to bring a quality product to New Jersey.

Schellack, 27, and Gentry, 24, started OQ Coffee about a year and a half ago. They supply fresh roasted, free trade, organic and sustainable coffees to several locations around New Brunswick and central New Jersey.

During a visit to Elijah's Promise on Livingston Avenue, where the duo roast their coffee, Schellack said he came to New Brunswick after studying at Vanderbilt University, spending a year in Italy doing graduate studies, and studying at Princeton Seminary.

After taking a part-time job at a Starbucks while studying at Princeton, Schellack said he started to develop a palate for espresso, and a visit to Cafe Grumpy in New York City was an eye opener, he said.

"Coffee tastes so good when it is done right," Schellack said.

The duo started roasting at home, and decided to expand on that idea. They did not have enough money to open their own retail space, but they were able to get the business off the ground, and currently supply their coffees to several locations throughout the area, and through their website.

Schellack said the company's profitability is not exactly where they had hoped it to be by this point, coupled with the fact that the price of coffee has gone up.

"But it's not a bad place to be in at all," he said.

On OQ Coffee's website, beans are available from Africa, Latin America, and Asia.

A variety of coffee that OQ Coffee supplies comes from smaller farms rather than major suppliers, Schellack said.

For example, OQ Coffee gets one variety of beans from a supplier called "Eco Cafe," a Haitian owned and operated group that grow the beans and ensure profits go back to the local farmers that grow them, or toward projects such as reforestation in Haiti, to ensure the Haitians there can grow more food Schellack said.

"We look for stuff like that," he said.

Schellack said the company is content at the moment to sell very locally and to cater to the immediate community. The George Street Co-Op stocks bags of OQ Coffee's beans, and the duo sell their coffee, both brewed and beans, at the Rutgers Gardens Farmers Market on Fridays. A Better World Cafe in Highland Park sells the coffee brewed with their lunch offerings, and OQ Coffee cane be found in assorted cafes, coffeehouses and and farmers markets in Princeton, Morris Township, Ridgewood, Madison, Somerville and even in Baltimore and Merion, Pa.

"At the end of the day we are not looking to make big bucks,'' he said, of the way OQ Coffee ultimately operates. "We care for the people who grow it (and) we care for the people who drink it."

For more information on OQ Coffee, including a list of beans for sale and the places that sell it, visit www.OQcoffee.com.