Winnie Czulinski –
Not only the smell – rich, dark and fresh-roasted – beckons you into the north part of the sunlit St. Lawrence North Market on Saturday. It’s the telltale burlap sacks (Arabica, Indonesia), the glossy little coffee trees in pots, the five-litre kettle and giant funnel … and the customers.
Meagan Thibeault’s company She Grows Coffee (which also sells online) is more than a “purpose-driven coffee supply for people who want to do good to themselves, others, and the Earth.” In every bag of coffee imported and sold is a continuation of a local legacy.
For three decades from 1994, a quirky jam-factory building in Riverside near the Don Valley Expressway was the aromatic landmark and home to Merchants of Green Coffee, a pioneering organic Fair Trade coffee initiative – known also for selling green ‘raw’ coffee beans for home- and micro-roasters.
Co-founded by brothers Derek and Brad Zavislake, Merchants was also celebrated for its atmospheric Restoration Café, where a cup of fresh-roasted, -brewed coffee was an art and education.
Says Thibeault, who began there in 2012, “I learned about the space, I learned about their project in Honduras … and just how much work was put into it, and how it was a model for sustainable coffee production.”
The world drinks 500 billion cups of coffee each year. How long does it take to grow one of those potted coffee seedlings? Three to five years.
Absorbing globalization and world issues, communications/media/journalism grad, barista and artist Thibeault became a “hard-core coffee girl.” She worked over 10 years as communications director and project developer at Merchants of Green Coffee. It closed in 2024 after the death of much-loved co-founder “Coffee Derek” Zavislake.
Quin Zavislake, who grew up in the Merchants of Green Coffee environment, was 12 when he met Thibeault. “She and my dad (Derek) complemented each other incredibly well, and I grew up watching them work together and support one another. Meagan became an important part of Merchants later on, and today she is carrying part of that history forward in her own way.”
The Merchants’ website is still maintained by Thibeault, passionate to keep its legacy alive. She also was delighted to get its former market space for her own initiative.
Thibeault became a colleague and close friend of the late Dr. Jane Goodall through the Global Coffee Solution. The world-renowned primatologist/anthropologist was an ardent conservationist who believed in improving the lives of people and communities.
“Her idea of community-led conservation led her to working with coffee farmers and developing projects to improve their social and economic conditions so that they could then take care of their environment.”
That coffee needs forest in order to grow in a healthy way means deforestation threatens the industry. “Our project in Honduras ensures that the coffee being produced is on farms that are half coffee and half restored forest.”
As part of the project’s development team, Thibeault has reported and documented the story to people in Canada and the United States. It’s also important for her to show the involvement of women running the co-ops and this sustainable business.
Of her mentors like Derek Zavislake and Jane Goodall, Thibeault says, “It’s hard to even recognize that they’re not there anymore. You feel like they’re still with you, especially being such big personalities themselves, too, who have made such an impact. So it makes you more motivated.”
Thibeault, who also works as operations and project coordinator at the Jane Goodall Institute of Canada, will celebrate the two-year anniversary of her small company in October.
Quin Zavislake, who with his brother Jake has launched an organic-cotton coffee filter/stainless-steel frame called the ACE Brewer, says, “What I admire most about She Grows Coffee is the way Meagan has taken so much of what she learned and experienced during her time at Merchants and built something entirely her own with it.
“It means a great deal to me to see part of my dad’s legacy continuing through her work. There’s a shared history behind what we’re both doing, in different ways, carrying forward something that began long before both of us at Merchants.”
On a typical Saturday at St. Lawrence Farmers’ Market, Thibeault may serve 150 customers, choosing from coffees such as Ethiopian Yirgacheffe and Costa Rican La Pastora. Then she gears up for the East York Farmers’ Market on Tuesdays.
Living between the two markets is handy. But it’s especially appropriate that Thibeault (“Coffee Meagan,” Jane Goodall called her) is a passionate resident of Riverside, where her local and global Fair-Trade coffee and reforestation journey began.
