The story behind this maker is music to our ears because it’s a tale of adventure, creativity, inclusivity, and exceptional coffee—all things we at Mouth love and appreciate. Husband and wife co-founders Tio and Kenzel Fallen developed their passion for coffee after visiting several coffee-producing regions. Tio, a mechanical engineer, was intrigued by both the science of roasting and the art of creating an exceptional coffee, an experience that reminded him of making music. (Respect: he had played trumpet for the famed Florida A&M University marching band.) So back home in Houston, Texas, they dreamed up a craft-roasted coffee company inspired by jazz and the place where music, art and coffee intersect.
The result is Three Keys Coffee, named for the three valves of the trumpet. It’s an homage to their ability to produce notes across a creative and complex range of tonal outputs. Just as Hank Mobley, Miles Davis, Dizzy Gillespie, John Coltrane, and others dared to create new sounds while remaining rooted in classical technique, so too does Three Keys elevate the at-home coffee-drinking experience through vibrant bag design, curated Spotify playlists to pair with each roast, and—most importantly!— top-quality, award-winning coffee.
Listen to this: In just a few short years, their craft coffee riff has drawn accolades from connoisseurs and casual drinkers alike, with four of the coffees scoring 92 or higher on a 100-point scale in blind ratings by Coffee Review, an authority on global coffee reviews since 1997, and one roast, “Congo Square,” named a top 30 coffee of 2021. Another brew was a finalist for the 2022 Good Food Awards and their packaging won a global Sprudge award. Oh, and they were awarded a sustainability grant from Oatly. This all bodes well for their ultimate goal, which is to make “specialty” coffee more accessible to everyone, just as jazz recordings brought live music sets to a more expansive audience. To which we say: Hear! Hear!