BROTHERS EMBARK ON A NEW JOURNEY

January 26, 2016

San Fernando Valley, CA - Brothers, Mosses and Peter Akizian, banter on a Tuesday evening at a local coffee shop discussing their stressful days within their corporate lives. Competitive in nature, each tops the other’s previous work story with their equivalent plus-one to stay atop the standings on who had the rougher day. Mosses, spends his days running an eCommerce site for a local Los Angeles tech company as the Director of eCommerce. In a position surrounded by red-tape, unnecessary approvals, lack of support and marketing budgets, Mosses is consumed with trying to find ways to continuously achieve year-over-year growth in visitor volume and sales. Peter, an Account Director at a television media company, is finalizing the last couple weeks of managing arguably the largest sports TV advertising campaign against the NFL 2015-16 season. A campaign backed with millions of dollars in advertising spend, constant pressure to attain the efficiencies in media placements, and a slew of logistical issues with this particular product category has stress levels at an all time high. With all this in mind the brothers continue to sip on their coffee and enjoy the relaxation it provides.

The next four words that come out of Mosses’ mouth is what changes it all. But before we get into that, let’s rewind for a very quick second and understand what fuels what’s coming:

Mosses, over the course of the last several years, had become a bit of a coffee connoisseur. Always on the hunt for a new roast, a new brewing mechanism, or a new coffee shop, Mosses was obsessed with discovering his perfect cup. At home he is known within his circle of friends and family as ‘The Coffee Guy’ since he had purchased his Chemex® Pour Over Kit and always took the time to carefully prepare a delicious cup of coffee for all of his guests.

Now back to that moment in the coffeeshop. Mosses looks at his brother and with not one ounce of hesitation or doubt he says “Let’s get into coffee!”

The G.O.A.T.

June 15, 2016

Burbank, CA - After several months of daily discussions, hundreds and hundreds of ideas tossed out, Mosses and Peter finally found a name that made them connect to their new coffee project, Fiyeli.

What the ‘Fiyeli’ is a Fiyeli? Well, Fiyeli means goat in Amharic, the primary language spoken in Ethiopia. Yup. Goat. Legend has it that nearly 1,200 years ago a goat herder in Ethiopia named Kaldi discovered coffee after he noticed that his goats became super energetic and happy every time they ate berries from a specific bush on his farm. Kaldi had reported his findings to the abbot of the local monastery. Initially the monastery believed both Kaldi and his goats were all possessed and had thrown the berries into the fire. Soon the wonderful smell of roasted coffee filled the room. The roasted coffee berries (commonly known as beans since they look look like beans once removed from it’s out skin) were then put into water and created an early version of the dark liquid we’ve all grown to love today.

The founding team loved this story. The fact that the vision of their company is to help coffee lovers find their perfect cup, and that Kaldi had found coffee through his goats, they thought they should give an ode to the founder by naming their business after his amazing animals.

By providing high quality, sustainable, delicious, and organic specialty coffee, Fiyeli hopes to connect everyone with the perfect cup for any stage of their day. Whether it be the wake up call you need in the morning, or the boost to break through the 3 o’clock wall, or just a relaxing cup of decaf to calm your mind from the daily storms just before bed and everything in between, Fiyeli has you covered.

Grab The Problem By It’s Beans

January 15, 2017

Burbank, CA - According to multiple studies, the world’s coffee supply is at risk of being depleted by the year 2080. Let’s do a very quick rundown of what’s going on:

• Climate Change: Global warming and climate change has been taking a toll on the coffee world. See, here’s the thing, there are actually dozens of varieties of coffee beans, but there are only two that are mass produced and have the flavor profiles that we utilize today, Robusta and Arabica. Robusta beans are used in the masses as they are much easier to grow. They can be grown at lower altitudes and are much less vulnerable to pests and weather conditions. The bean of choice though, Arabica, which is the more flavorful of the two, is much more difficult to grow. It requires higher altitudes, very specific weather conditions and most importantly, the Arabicas need several years to come to maturity and produce crop. The total annual yield is also minimal, which in theory should make the value of the bean much higher. Unfortunately, due to commercialization it hasn’t which brings us to our next problem…

• Consumption: A study done by the International Coffee Organisation showed that in 2014 there was more consumption of coffee than coffee produced. Which means, 100% of all the coffee that was produced in 2014 was consumed, as well as coffee from 2013, just to meet the world demand. With more and more demand on higher quality Arabica coffees, the increased interest in coffeeshops with the combined mass success of Starbucks as well as the new emerging artisan coffeeshop craze has created unheard of demand that is impossible to meet at this time and is only getting worse

• Farmers: A lot of the world’s coffee supply is produced by small mom & pop farmers in Latin America and parts of Africa. With minimal yields due to the complexity of the farming process, many farmers are enticed to convert their farms away from coffee to other higher yielding crop such as fruits, berries and nuts in order to survive. There are many organizations out there now that are dedicated to helping these farmers become profitable farming Arabica coffee, but unfortunately not enough of them

No more coffee in the world!?! Should we start to panic? Not quite yet. There is a new movement called the Third Wave of Coffee which is a movement trying to get coffee farmers to produce the high-quality coffee, but rather considering it a commodity like it is now, to position the coffee as artisanal, such as wine. This new view on coffee has created strong efforts by many small and large coffee companies alike to approach coffee much more delicately, to ensure the success of the farmer, the quality of the coffee, the consistency of the roasting process, and the lessoned carbon footprint of the entire farm to cup process. But most importantly, it is about coffee’s sustainability.

Fiyeli is aiming to aggressively join this movement. Understanding that the sustainability of coffee is extremely important, this new company is already looking to do what they can to ensure they do their part. They are a new and lean operation, but don’t let that fool you, they have grand visions of the future that involve helping all those in need that are within the entire farm to cup process of coffee and are excited to share their developments with their community in the coming months, years and future!