Respecting the craft
Fokken has been selling Colombian coffee since 2018, but his love for the country and its culture began as a student needing a foreign language credit in order to graduate from Texas Tech University.
After taking a trip to Guatemala with a friend, he ended up traveling back to the country and staying for a month to study Spanish one-on-one with a teacher. He was then able to take a test that equated to two years worth of Spanish at the university.
“I was done, but I knew I loved [it],” Fokken said. “I figured if I can learn this language, this can be my world.”
Fokken furthered his Spanish skills by living in Costa Rica for another month, and in 1997, moved to Colombia to open an office for an oil and gas company.
“I fell in love with Colombia and have just been going back nonstop,” Fokken said. “Sometimes I live there, sometimes I live here, but the best is not living there. The best is not living here. The best is back and forth. If you can make dollars and spend pesos, life is good.”
Coffee Heaven has officially been up and running since this year. The business operates out of a 1952 Willys Jeep, a known symbol of Colombian coffee culture as they were used to transport coffee beans through the country’s rugged mountain terrain.
Fokken imported the Jeep from Colombia in 2019 and hit a few roadblocks—including having to put the Jeep back together after Customs and Border Protection took it apart for a narcotics inspection, and the COVID-19 pandemic—but the Jeep is what makes the business what it is.
“That is such an integral part of the coffee culture in Colombia, and coffee is one of the things that best represents Colombia,” Fokken said. “There's no way we can be at an event and a Colombian be within eyesight of where we are without them coming. What they end up doing is thanking us for sharing something positive and wonderful about Colombia here.”
What they offer
Coffee Heaven uses a variety of Colombian coffee beans for its hot and cold coffee drinks, such as geisha and sudan rume. Because of the vast number of microclimates within Colombia, Fokken said the same bean variety grown in a different region can have different tasting notes. Fokken also works to cultivate a relationship with each farmer he gets his beans from.
“I have never imported one bean from a farm where I have not actually spent the night there," Fokken said. "I know the people that picked it.”
Other drinks served on the jeep include fruit juices and smoothies made using South American fruit such as guanabana and maracuya, or passion fruit. Also on the menu is tea made from coca leaves, an ancestral medicinal plant, and avocado toast.
The mobile business can be found at events around the Austin metro, including farmers markets, health and wellness fairs and school events.
What’s special about it?
Fokken has woven another Colombian passion into his business through conservation efforts for cotton-top tamarins, a Colombian primate that is one of the most critically endangered species in the world.
A portion of Coffee Heaven’s sales go toward a local nonprofit called the Cotton Top Project, which supports Proyecto Tití in Colombia. Proyecto Tití helps protect and restore cotton-top tamarin habitats and educate the local community about the importance of these conservation efforts.
Coffee Heaven even has its own representative for the species: Ambassador Tai, a four-year-old cotton-top tamarin who was donated to Fokken. Named after Tayrona National Park in Colombia, Tai was born in the United States and is a descendant of a group of cotton-top tamarins who were used in laboratories to do investigations on colon cancer.
“It's one of those cases where whatever you put out into the universe comes back to you, and I cannot imagine my life without him now,” Fokken said.
