Three Questions with Kris Carlson of Coffeekris

Coffeekris Founder Kris Carlson cupping coffee. All images courtesy of Kris Carlson.

After more than a decade working in cafes, roasting, wholesale, green coffee sales and sourcing, Kris Carlson decided to give herself a distinct new job title: sourcing curator.

Carlson launched Kansas City-based Coffeekris in 2025, building a green coffee business around relationships she had already cultivated with importers, exporters, producers and roasters.

Rather than operate as a conventional importer, Carlson serves as an authorized representative for a network of specialized importing companies, helping roasters navigate coffees from numerous ethically minded suppliers through a single point of contact.

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The Coffeekris portfolio currently includes 11 importing partners offering coffees from all over the world. Carlson said the importers compensate her for the connection, while Coffeekris roaster clients pay the same prices they would when buying directly from the importers.

“Unlike most brokers, I’m transparent,” Carlson recently told DCN. “You know exactly who I’m working with, why, and where the coffee is coming from. There’s no gatekeeping knowledge.”

Born in Kansas City, Carlson moved to the Philadelphia area at age 13 before returning to Kansas City at 24. A music and art major in college, she was naturally drawn to places built around art, music and community, and began working as a barista at Take Five Coffee + Bar, an Overland Park, Kansas, coffee shop and venue that closed in 2015.

From there, Carlson joined Revocup Coffee Roasters, an Ethiopian-founded Kansas City-area roasting and retail company. 

“Learning where, and more importantly who, coffee came from planted a seed in me — a desire to understand the global trading system well enough to advocate for its evolution toward equity, and to make exploitation extinct,” Carlson said.

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Revocup also became deeply important to Carlson personally. Six months after she began working there, Carlson’s mother died by suicide. Carlson said the Revocup owners, coworkers and broader community surrounded her with support as she began grieving.

“Revocup changed the course of my career, but I can’t talk about what it did for me professionally without talking about what it did for me as a person,” Carlson said.

Carlson gradually moved beyond bar work into cafe management, roasting and wholesale. She competed as a Glitter Cat Roaster, volunteered as a U.S. Coffee Roasters Championship stage manager and received industry scholarships, including a 2022 Diedrich Roasters scholarship through the Coffee Roasters Guild.

Carlson’s career took a defining turn into green coffee when she joined Democratic Republic of Congo-focused importer Mighty Peace Coffee, which has since ceased operations, then later joined Anthem Coffee Imports. 

“Every phase taught me something different, and all of it has added up to working at multiple origins across Latin America, East Africa, and Asia — cupping, selecting lots, and building relationships with producers and exporters directly,” Carlson said. 

Current Coffeekris partners include Swift Coffee Sourcing, founded by Emily McIntyre; Optimist Coffee Traders, founded by former Mighty Peace Co-Founder Jim Ngokwey; and Benchmark Coffee Traders, founded by Vikram Patel, among others. 

Carlson said she intentionally favors partners led by women and people from historically underrepresented groups, while maintaining a diverse enough portfolio to serve roasters buying anything from a few bags to commercial volumes.

“I don’t care if you’re the janitor or the president of the company, I try to treat everyone with the same respect. If you buy two bags, two pallets, two supersacks, or two containers, I can work with you,” Carlson said. “The only thing I don’t compromise on is working ethically, and that includes respecting every actor in the trading system.”

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The model has grown faster than even Carlson expected. She said that when Coffeekris launched, she cautiously hoped to sell the equivalent of one container of green coffee during the first year. Instead, she said sales exceeded 10 containers.

“After having a room of men tell me directly that I wasn’t capable, I hold this success with humility and with pride,” Carlson said. “Do not confuse that with ease. Starting your own business is never easy. I have so much left to learn, and I take no step forward for granted.”

Three Questions With Kris Carlson

What excites you most about coffee?

The women I spent years admiring from a distance are now people I do business with. That’s not a favor anyone did me — it’s just business, and a few years ago it wouldn’t have been.

I’m excited about equitable business proving itself to be good, lasting business. Competitive mindsets aren’t as fruitful as we tend to think. Instead of cutting each other down and thinking in slices of pie, we could recognize that my lit candle lighting yours doesn’t take away from my flame. We shine brighter together.

And I’m excited about working with incredible people who aren’t the first ones chosen in patriarchal, euro-centric environments. I’m a root-for-the-underdog person, and I want to see my homies win. 

What troubles you most about coffee?

I’m happy to acknowledge that progress has been made, but the world is still so extremely sexist. My heart is for the people who have to work at least twice as hard to even be considered for things that get blindly handed to cis-white-het men. And it isn’t only unfair to them — it’s a quality problem for the whole industry. Every time we default to the same people, we’re leaving good coffee, good buyers, and good ideas on the table because they arrived in an unfamiliar package.

And there’s a second layer to it. When someone is mistreated and says so, she becomes the problem — not what happened to her. That’s how these patterns stay intact. The cost of speaking is set high enough that most people do the math and stay quiet.

I’m so thankful for every male ally I meet. I don’t have a poker face, and this is who I am. Sometimes my honesty gets me taken advantage of, but more and more often it’s aligning me with the people I want to be with.

What would you be doing if it weren’t for coffee?

In some parallel universe I became the musician and artist I was too afraid to be in my twenties, and I’m sure I’ll be in touch with her again. But if I had to leave coffee tomorrow, I’d get certified as a BMX coach, train hard, and run clinics for girls and women.

Fear is a garbage excuse not to do things. That’s something coffee taught me, and I’ll carry it no matter where life takes me.

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