Coffee City

Melissa Allison tracks Seattle's — and the world's — caffeine addiction.

May 1, 2009 4:41 PM

Storyville Coffee contributes up to $1 million in sales to help free enslaved people

MIKE SIEGEL/THE SEATTLE TIMES

Issaquah students look at a map of Africa to locate areas where money they raised was used to free enslaved people.

Storyville Coffee, the Bainbridge Island roaster and mail-order coffee company that's gotten attention for a four-minute video bashing overroasted beans from "big coffee," will contribute May sales up to $1 million to help rescue victims of slavery, trafficking and other forms of violent oppression.

It's working through International Justice Mission, the Washington, D.C., charity that used $50,000 raised by three Issaquah schools last year to free 120 enslaved people, as described in this story by Seattle Times reporter Katherine Long.

Storyville's video, called "The Truth," is a few years old but still gets attention for lines like this delivered by a woman melodramatically distraught about overroasted coffee: "They got blistery, like if you were in the sun too long, like a bad sunburn, like you would have to put aloe vera on the bean, but of course you can't!"

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