There is coffee growing in California. And if this elicits a whaaa? sort of reaction from you, you’re not alone. Sarah Henry told me that so many have asked her after looking at her book, Farmsteads of the California Coast (Yellow Pear Press, 2016): “Coffee? Really? From California?” And Sarah gets to say yes. California, really.

She can even pinpoint the first farm doing it, the one she wrote about in Farmsteads: Good Land Organics (GLO), in Goleta, is a ship steered by farmer Jay Ruskey, who has developed a reputation in California for successfully growing the crops that no one thought possible to grow in the region—mostly subtropical crops like cherimoyas, finger limes, passionfruit, dragonfruit. (The farm even grows lychees and goji berries.) And now coffee.