Fair Trade organic coffee is a pretty recent buzzword in foodie circles, but one of the companies that started it all is quietly celebrating its 20th anniversary this month.

“My uncle signed the contract to buy the first coffee harvest from the Mam people back in 1989,” recalls Brad Lerch, the second generation to operate Café Mam in Eugene, Oregon. “In April 1990, we received our first shipment of beans.”

Café Mam (pronounced “mom”) had a humble beginning. Brad’s uncle, dahinda meda, loved coffee, but couldn’t stand the idea of drinking something that required so many pesticides – and so much human suffering – on its way to his cup. “He just wanted a decent cup of organic coffee,” Brad says. “To a certain extent, I think we caught lightning in a bottle – we were in the right place at the right time.”

The Mam people are one of three indigenous communities of Mayans in Guatemala and southern Mexico. They grow shade-grown, organic Arabica coffee free of pesticides and insecticides, and over the years have formed cooperatives to link their small remote villages together to purchase their own processing and refining equipment.

“These stable, established cooperatives allow these people to get the highest profit for their efforts. They don’t have to be dependent on processors who take a portion of their harvest,” Brad says.

The money that the cooperatives make goes to improve life in the villages where they live. Proceeds from the coffee produced by the Mam people for Café Mam has gone toward numerous projects, including schools and clinics that invest in the next generation.

“These villagers get to continue to support their communities, and get to stay on their farms. It’s a better prospect than having to leave the farms for the bigger cities, or try their luck coming to the U.S.,” Brad says.

But even after 20 years, Brad still feels they’re just getting started. “It’s very gratifying to be recognized as one of the first to be doing this,” he admits. “But to me, we still feel like a small, but growing family business.

“It’s great to see how quickly consumers supported the environmental and social aspects of it,” Brad notes. “But it feels like it’s taken a long time for consumers to drag the industry along. The coffee industry really devalued it for a long time, and now it’s finally starting to take notice.”

Although the darker French and Italian roasts are always a hit, Brad likes to introduce coffee lovers to Café Mam’s well-balanced lighter roasts. “The Mocho and Tango varieties are excellent blends of Italian roast and medium [roasts],” he says. “I think with all our coffees, though, the character that comes out is a mellow, pleasing flavor.”

Try one of the many varieties of Café Mam by the pound at your Market.