Why Tov
Good, in the old sense.
The name is a Hebrew word. It is not a claim about our coffee so much as a standard we would like to be held to.
The word
And God said, “Let there be light,” and there was light. And God saw that the light was good.Genesis 1:3–4
The word translated good there is tov, and its reach is wider than the English. It covers what is pleasant to look at, what is well made, what is fit for the purpose it was made for, and what is morally right.
One word for all four. Hebrew does not treat them as separate questions.
It is the word you would use for a thing that turned out right. The first time it appears, it is said about light.
Why it fits
It is a lot to put on a jar. We are not claiming the coffee gets there — it is what we are aiming at.
The easiest of the four to skip is the last. Coffee can be lovely and well made and still have somebody underpaid at the far end of it.
Coffee is a small enough corner of the world to be honest in. You can know who grew it. You can say what you paid. You can hand someone a good cup on a morning that matters to them.
What that looks like
It looks like publishing what we pay for green coffee, because a price nobody can see is a place for something to go wrong.
It looks like glass jars that come back and get filled again, rather than bags that go in the bin.
And it looks like turning up early to a wedding, or to a funeral, and making one good thing on a day that belongs to somebody else. Nobody comes for the coffee. That is not a reason to make it badly.
Where we are
Tov is a small roastery in Bloomington, Indiana. The bar lives at Fig Tree Market in Ellettsville six days a week, a second one travels, and the coffee turns up on a few shelves belonging to neighbors we are glad to be next to.