Wize Tea

When Max went to France for school in 2012, he overdosed on coffee during finals season and was ordered by his doctor to quit coffee and switch to tea. He never loved traditional green and black teas, so he started searching for alternatives that would be delicious, healthy, and ultimately sustainable for his body and the planet. A month later, he and his French classmate Arnaud were starting a new entrepreneurship class project. That first day of class, they came across a study about the coffee leaf that proved its strong health benefits, light caffeine, and long history of use as an herbal infusion in Ethiopia and Indonesia. It also became apparent that coffee farms are very seasonal and farmers suffer from extremely volatile market prices and a long off-season where they are trimming off extra leaves but not using them for anything. They began to ask themselves "why hasn't anyone tried to craft or ferment the coffee leaves before, like they do in the traditional tea industry?" They had a hunch that they could create very special flavors and varieties if they applied the same tea-style methodology to the coffee leaf. At the end of the school year, they decided to put theory into practice and flew to Nicaragua to find some coffee farms. During their search, they met Enrique Ferrufino, a third-generation coffee farmer who leads the country in ethics and innovation. When they brought the idea to Enrique, his eyes lit up with inspiration as he started brainstorming different ways of cultivating, crafting, and ultimately creating a new delicious drink that has the potential to revolutionize the industry for the better. One year later, Enrique joined Wize as an equal-equity founder and bolstered the team with decades of coffee-growing experience. This team-focused aspect makes Wize vertically integrated from the ground up, and ensures that the farmers and their workers' have decision-making power for long-term growth and sustainability.