Behind the Scenes at Aspen Ideas Festival 2025: Coffee, Community, and the Birth of Unbound Brews
From the founder:
It was an honor to share the stage with Corby Kummer, author of The Joy of Coffee and Executive Director of Food & Society at the Aspen Institute, at this year’s Aspen Ideas Festival for a culinary conversation around the founding of Unbound Brews.
What people didn’t see was the mad rush to prepare 300 samples of coffee to pair with our cupping session that had me running around trying to find a kettle within 10 minutes of walking onto the stage. Thanks to Megan, Jenn, and the culinary team at the Ideas Festival, we got it done just in time so I could enjoy presenting our journey through coffee with Corby Kummer.
In 2022, I began my journey as an Aspen Food & Society Food Leaders Fellowship with the objective of connecting with like-minded visionaries across the entire food industry – including farmers, entrepreneurs, sociology professors, and leaders at Amazon, Walmart, and Pepsico.
We often talk about our imposter syndrome, where we see the state of the world and who appears to have power within it while we set out to create a long-lasting, more equitable food system. How can this small group of people have a meaningful impact in today’s food system? And yet still the conversation begins, and we eventually lead into action.
Shortly after wrapping up our first year as the inaugural Food Leaders Fellows, I made the decision to begin my entrepreneurial journey within coffee. I realized the challenge of providing high quality coffee at the convenience life demands, and sought to take my hobby of home-roasting coffee on a toaster-oven looking operation into a full-fledged coffee company in LA.
Along the way, I experienced my passion for coffee roasting expand to the point where we now roast for numerous other specialty coffee companies while we build an impact-based coffee venture. Meanwhile, we have been innovating a new coffee format that will take our vision of providing high quality coffee at convenience to new heights. Despite being less than two years into the journey, it feels as if we have provided a positive impact to the food system. The journey has only just begun.
Thank you to Corby, and the entire Aspen Ideas Festival team for allowing me to share our story. In the end, over 4,500 coffees were produced for the Ideas Festival attendees using Unbound Brews coffee beans, we sold 50 bags of our Visionary blend throughout the festival, and I made so many genuine connections with other community leaders who likely also felt the imposter syndrome at some point or another. It was another step in the right direction of making a meaningful impact in today’s food system.