'Coffee is supposed to bring people together': Ethiopian coffeehouse opens in Fort Collins

Armed with just a hot plate and small metal pan, Hirut Crusan filled her shop with the aroma of fresh-roasted coffee beans Wednesday afternoon.

The beans — imported from Crusan's home country of Ethiopia — quickly went from green to different toasty shades of brown as she swirled them over the heat and eventually carried them out from behind her shop counter.

"This is what I do every morning," she said, shimmying the pan around the small space as if it were a bundle of sage — its rich scent growing.

"Wake up, everybody!" she added with a laugh.

Growing up on her family's Ethiopian coffee farm, coffee was always a central part of Crusan's life, she said. It's even more so after the May 18 opening of her first brick-and-mortar coffeehouse, Konjo Ethiopian Coffee.

The shop is located in The Vibe apartments, just east of the complex's leasing office at 3707 Le Fever Drive. Its space was formerly home to a satellite location of The Crooked Cup coffee shop.

Konjo Ethiopian Coffee's shop marks a new chapter for Crusan's coffee roasting business, which she started out of her Windsor home around 2015.

Crusan said she's roasted her own coffee all her life but started getting requests for her coffee beans from neighbors and friends after she and her husband, Charles, moved to Fort Collins in 2013 and settled in Windsor two years later.

At the urging of her friends and family, Crusan set up her first coffee bean booth at the Windsor farmers market in 2017.

"I was famous for having the tiniest tent," Crusan said with a laugh.

Crusan's booth eventually became a farmers market fixture, expanding to other markets in Fort Collins and Loveland.

"This coffee business was my therapy. It was my way to be around people," Crusan said, adding that she sometimes felt lonely as a stay-at-home mom of two living in a relatively new state.

Crusan eventually went from roasting coffee beans in a small pan to a drum roaster, which allows her to roast 15-pound batches of beans at a time. She still refuses to use any computerized roasting machinery, relying instead on the trustiest resources she has — "my senses," she said.

In March 2020, just one day before restaurants, bars and other businesses were shut down due to the COVID-19 pandemic in Colorado, Crusan purchased her very own coffee truck. She debuted it that summer when farmers markets returned with new COVID-19 protocols and restrictions.

Farmers markets returning allowed Crusan to keep her business going, she said. Soon her coffee truck became known for its iced spiced coffee and chai tea — both of which are made with Crusan's own blend of Ethiopian spices.

After two years of operating the coffee truck, Crusan said it was time to try for a brick-and-mortar shop.

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When she found the space at The Vibe, she thought it would be a great connecting point between Fort Collins, Windsor and Loveland.

Konjo Ethiopian Coffee's shop serves regular hot coffee, regular or spiced iced coffee, hot or iced lattes, mochas, chai teas and fruit smoothies as well as various baked goods and snacks.

Customers can also go there to purchase one-pound bags of Crusan's roasted coffee beans for $16, bottles of her various cooking, coffee and chai spice blends and Ethiopian scarves and shawls.

Since opening the shop, Crusan has hired two employees who help her run it and the coffee truck, which will once again be at Larimer County's Farmers' Market in downtown Fort Collins and Loveland's farmers market at Fairgrounds Park this summer.

Crusan said she hopes to start hosting weekly Ethiopian coffee ceremonies at the shop. The traditional ceremonies — a daily occurrence in Ethiopia where people gather to roast beans and brew coffee together — were central to daily life where Crusan grew up.

They were where people gathered to talk, connect "and gossip," Crusan said with a laugh.

"Coffee is supposed to bring people together," she said.

Konjo Ethiopian Coffee is open at The Vibe apartments from 7 a.m. to 2 p.m. Wednesdays through Fridays and 8 a.m. to 4 p.m. Saturdays and Sundays. Customers of the shop are asked to park on Le Fever Drive.

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Erin Udell reports on news, culture, history and more for the Coloradoan. Contact her at ErinUdell@coloradoan.com. The only way she can keep doing what she does is with your support. If you subscribe, thank you. If not, sign up for a digital subscription to the Coloradoan today. 

This article originally appeared on Fort Collins Coloradoan: Ethiopian coffeehouse opens in Fort Collins apartment complex