During my twenty years serving in the US Navy onboard nuclear submarines, I had lots of time to think of a business I would like to pursue once out. Growing up in Seattle and living in Kitsap County since 1979 I wanted something that would tie me to the Pacific Northwest.

The choice became obvious. With Seattle’s recognition for coffee, and with my rural living in the Seabeck area, I set my goals to raising coffee trees. I spent seven years researching coffee and accumulating the building materials I would need for a heated greenhouse.

Currently I have a modest size greenhouse with double-pane windows that’s heated in the winter and cooled in the summer. For backup heat I have an old woodstove. And as long as the family is convinced that the generator is really for the house and not for my plants, then we’re all happy.

Acquiring coffee seeds that would germinate proved a little difficult. I have a friend in Australia who supplied me with seeds, and I found a retired marine from Bremerton who was managing a coffee plantation in Kona Hawaii that sold me seeds as well.

So in December of 2004 I started growing my first coffee beans after almost 10 years of planning. 

Germination of coffee seeds is difficult at best. It took three months just for the seeds to sprout.  Maintaining correct moisture content during the period proved a battle, I lost a lot of seeds due to drying out or just over watering.  My first summer I lost hundreds of plants, when deer visited during the night and discovered a banquet of tender shoots.  Slugs also enjoyed the delicate sprouts, but now that the plants have matured a little, I haven’t seen any evidence of slug damage.

I have started expending the greenhouse as I am planning on keeping around 50 trees that I can raise to maturity and market a truly local coffee with it roots literally in Washington soil. Hmm, is Kitsap’s Best going to work?

The name 3 Leaf Coffee came from one of my plants. Coffee grows from sets of double leaves. And like the four leaf clover one of my plants is growing from sets of three. This peculiar plant is where the name of business came from.