Behind the Cup: Dr. Jack’s Coffee Debuts

Now you can feel better about swiping your card at Dr. Jack’s Coffeehouse. New custom blends developed exclusively for Dr. Jack’s have replaced Starbucks Coffee and not only quench your thirst, but help provide for orphans in Honduras.

“Everything that’s available in the coffee shop is pretty much the same product, but better, because it’s now made with Dr. Jack’s Coffee,” said Dr. Brett Powell, vice president for administrative services. “I’ve heard a lot of positive feedback; a lot of people like the coffee and think it’s a lot better. I personally think it’s better. It’s good.”

Three new roasts were created over the summer by Westrock Coffee in Little Rock: a dark roast, a light espresso roast and a decaf roast.

Peter Guerin, a certified coffee taster and the director of product development at Westrock, blended the roasts.

“I put together several different combinations of our coffees that we had on site,” Guerin said.

He said the light espresso roast is a blend of Rwandan and Brazilian coffees.

“The Rwanda has a nice combination of some chocolate notes — more on a milk chocolate level — mixed with a little bit of citrus; not overwhelming, but just enough to give you a few different tastes that aren’t in your ordinary, average coffee,” Guerin said. “Then we mixed in a little bit of Brazil just to give it a little bit of acidity, a little bit of body.”

The dark roast is what Westrock calls its Kivu roast, a dark Rwandan roast.

“The decaf blend is a different origin; it’s a Mexican coffee, and it’s a medium-dark blend,” Guerin said.

The goal of Dr. Jack’s Coffee is not only to bring higher quality coffee to campus, but to support World Gospel Outreach and its orphanage in Tegucigalpa, a project started by Enactus two years ago.

“We are buying Rwandan coffee, so we are supporting Rwandan farmers and the agriculture there, but a portion of our proceeds are going to the Honduras orphanage,” said Justin Young, a senior business major and the project leader for Enactus. “Eventually we want to buy Honduras coffee, but there were some issues with getting it right now.”

The orphanage grows its own coffee to sell, but is currently unable to provide consistent enough quality to use in the Dr. Jack’s blends. The hope is that the additional money given through the profits will help bring the quality up enough to be used in future blends.

“As this grows and we can start doing the Honduras coffee, hopefully our revenue to them will help them to fully support their orphanage financially,” Young said.

In addition to being sold by the cup, bags of the coffee will be available within two weeks to purchase at the coffee shop.

“We’ve also talked with [Westrock] about doing K-Cups, and I think they’ll be able to do that,” Powell said. “We’ll also start selling the bags online … and then we’re going to try and get [Dr. Jack’s] into some of the larger churches where we have relationships.”

Powell said the number of blends will also likely increase.

“We’ll probably add some specialty coffees later, maybe a breakfast blend, probably something in the winter month,” he said.

For more information about Dr. Jack’s Coffee or to purchase coffee online when it becomes available, visit www.drjackscoffee.com.