Missed Part 1? Read it here.
"In the beginning, there was so much to figure out," reminisces Tom Mahon.
One thing that Shannon, Cameron, Tom M and Tom P weren't prepared for was the amount of paperwork they would have to submit to get their green coffee bean to potential Melbourne consumers.
Permits had to be obtained. Research had to be done. They had to get the right documents to the right people.
Eventually, plans were laid out to ship the first load of green coffee bean to Australian shores- around 900kg of it.
"We thought it was enough to last a lifetime!"
Trucks carted the precious cargo down to Timorese docks, where it was loaded on to a freighter. It would be three nail-biting months before they saw their coffee again.
The day finally came.
"We picked it up and took it back to Shannon's house. We were sitting in the driveway thinking, all right, what do we do next?" laughs Cameron.
A stir from next door caught the fellow's attention. Shannon's neighbour, Tony, was peering over the fence. They informed him they had bought nearly a ton of green coffee, and were just deciding what to do with it all.
"Are you guys crazy?" was Tony's flabbergasted response.
Fortunately for Wild Timor Coffee, Tony was a veteran in the coffee world. He arranged to have a friend roast it. "We'll see how we go," he cautioned.
The next time they heard from him it was over the phone. "How did you guys manage to buy such high quality coffee?" was the shout at the other end.
Elated by their good fortune, the boys cheered. Things were looking up!
Now, they had to find someone to buy it.
Our coffee helps to provide a fair wage for farmers in Timor-Leste.