Best Kicking Horse Coffees in 2022

Kicking Horse Coffee

Elena Rosenfeld was not even remotely prepared for her first wholesale orders. She started Kicking Horse Coffee with her partner, Leo Johnson, and started getting some orders from gourmet stores about 172 miles away from their bases in Invermere, British Columbia’s Rocky Mountains.

At that time, they did not have any cardboard boxes to pack their coffee in. So that searched the town’s back alley for any they could use. When they finally taped the package, they took it down to Skinny’s Shoe Repair, where they repaired the box, when to the bus station, and put it on the bus to reach its destination.

After she graduated from the Montreal University in 1990, she and Johnson decided to settle in Invermere. But with jobs that were hard to come by, the couple initially ran a fruit stand to cater to tourists during the summer months, where they lived in a cabin with no running water or electricity.

However, they soon realized that they needed a business running that could be successful all year long. SO, they bought a local cafe with the help of a loan and turned it into a modest profit that enabled them to save up money to spend on traveling later in life.

In 1996, they took another loan and began roasting fair trade and organic coffee beans in their garage, and gave the business the name Kicking Horse Coffee. They soon became popular and sales took off quickly.

Since then, Kicking Horse Coffee has become one of the best and biggest retail success stories in Canada. Its distinct black packaging started appearing in caf’s and grocery stores all across the country and even in outside countries like the US.

The company is extremely quiet about its finances but expects more than 1.3 million tons of coffee every year. Kicking Horse Coffee boasts of over 85 employees. In 2012, AC Nielsen, the marketing research firm, ranked Kicking Horse Coffee as one of the top ten commercial brands in Canada, alongside stalwart names like Tim Hortons, the famous bakery chain.

Despite all the success, Kicking Horse Coffee chose not to move and stayed at the same town in which it started. While the population of Invermere rises during the summer months due to tourist visits to nearby wildlife parks and the country’s hot springs, it is otherwise home to just 3,000 people. So of course, it is not the kind of place one would expect to find one of Canada’s biggest retail businesses.

The whole business is housed under a 60,000 square feet facility that is located in the east of the Columbia River that bisects the town, as it drains into the Windermere Lake.

Elena Rosenfeld never thought that her business would see so much success. Initially, she just wanted to immerse herself in regular Canadian life and building and running a successful empire was the last thing in her mind.

Why Kicking Horse Coffee?

For more than two decades, Kicking Horse Coffee has been literally ‘kicking ass’ in the coffee industry. The coffee variety is exceptionally tasty and organic. Also, all the products you see are Fair Trade. The company has also been named the #1 Best Workplace in Canada in 2018.

The Kicking Horse Coffee Cafe

If you travel to the trench of the Canadian Rocky Mountains, you will see the Kicking Horse Cafe in front of the Kicking Horse Coffee’s main headquarters. In this cafe, you will find the best and freshest coffee being prepared, along with finely-baked food and snacks. You have a full range of coffee and food products, which are all delicious and ready-to-go.

Apart from the regular food and drinks, you can also purchase coffee equipment, cups, mugs, apparel, shits, and more! You can also roam and explore the local areas and learn about the company’s work culture from the team present there.

Here are some great Kicking Horse Coffee packs:

Original ‘Kick-Ass’ Dark Roast

This Kicking Horse dark roast’s coffee beans are grown in South America and Indonesia. The beans have been certified as Fair Trade; hence, you can be sure that the coffee farmers that grew these strong and sweet beans are being compensated for their hard work and effort.

Since the original dark roasting is done in the Rocky Mountain air, you will find some of these coffee beans to be oily. It has a smoky and sweet flavor with little bitterness. The overall flavor is smooth and strong. It is a great cup of coffee to drink with sweeteners or creamers.

Cliff Hanger Espresso

This is a medium roast coffee blend made for espresso fans with a taste for chocolate and sweet beans from Indonesia, Africa, and Central and South America. It is a delicious blend of delicate taste that can be roasted to full flavors and intensity with no bite.

The Cliff Hanger will offer you all the stripes of a good-quality medium roast and coffee from around the world will agree. While you might the caffeine-level that most medium roasts have, you will definitely enjoy the aroma of chocolate and fruits with almost no bitterness.

Grizzly Claw

If you are a fan of rich and dark coffee, then the Grizzly Claw is certainly made for you. It has a strong focused coffee flavor with hints of chocolate. It is normally sold medium ground that is ready to brew and consume.

The coffee beans are grown in Central and South America. It will appeal to fans of sweeter and milder roast coffee. The dark roast coffee bean has been exposed to a sufficient amount of heat to give it a smoky edge.

Three Sisters

This coffee has been named after three mountains in the Canadian Rockies. These are some light and some medium dark roast beans. The beans are grown in South America, Central America, and Indonesia. The combinations of different blends make this coffee cup extremely smooth.

This coffee does not have a sharp and acidic flavor. Neither has it has a bitter tang. But, the blend is a unique mixture of medium and dark roast that is ready for brewing. It appeals more to people who like to have a gentler taste for coffee.

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