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Photo Courtesy of Kevin Arita. 
Kevin Arita, Founder & President of Candelario’s Coffee. Photo Courtesy of Kevin Arita. 

Spotlight: Kevin Arita

For the sixth edition of the Spotlight series, AL DÍA conducted an interview with Kevin Candelario Arita, the President of Candelario’s Coffee.

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In a 2013 article titled, “Young boy who migrated alone to the U.S. grew to publish his own book,” AL DÍA News told the story of then 18-year-old author Kevin Candelario Arita.

After the release of his book, “Lost in America,” Arita made national and international news headlines again, this time as an entrepreneur for a joint venture in the coffee industry. 

Shortly after graduating from high school, Arita and his former high school teacher, Dr. Richard “Dick” Stafford, started Yonah Coffee. The company had two purposes: to help Arita obtain a work visa to remain legally in the U.S., and to raise money for his college fund. 

We decided to follow up with Arita for an update on where life has taken him since AL DÍA last spoke to him almost seven years ago.

Check out the Q&A below:

Tell us about “Yonah Coffee.” How did this come about? 
It all started with my interest in attending college, but not having the means to. Dr. Stafford and I sat down to brainstorm and we came up with the idea of selling coffee. The initial idea was to use the profits to fund my education and utilize this business to help with my immigration status. Of course, there were a lot of logistical things we had to think about, but we did our research, and we were able to identify the best way possible to begin this journey. Our business grew enough to be in about 30 coffee shops across northern Georgia.  

 
Where is Kevin Candelario Arita today?
After trying several other things, I began to think about coffee again, but I wanted to do things differently this time.I just launched my coffee company, Candelario's Coffee, here in Dallas, Texas. My vision consists of traveling to Honduras and eventually Central America to source coffee from local farmers. I want to add value to each step in the supply chain.

First, I would like to source the coffee directly from farmers and at the same time educate them about how to better harvest their crops, how to retain the quality, and how the market truly works. I have been doing my research and what I found is that when the price of coffee goes down, farmers stop caring about the quality. I want to be able to educate farmers that although coffee is a commodity, if you have specialty coffee beans, you can sell them at a higher price point in the event the market price is down. On the other hand, I also want to educate consumers about what they’re drinking. There are a lot of misconceptions about coffee. One of my favorites is when people ask for the “strongest coffee,” but coffee doesn’t work like that. Coffee has caffeine, but it all comes down to rations and to how it’s brewed.

 

What’s next for Kevin? What would you like to accomplish?
I want to grow my company from where we are today. I am starting small, selling online, but I want to grow my business to be a supplier to different coffee shops. Once that happens, I intend to begin sourcing coffee from Central American farmers, Hondurans specifically. I would also like to start my own roaster here in Dallas down the line.
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