Mother-daughter UI alums open online coffee store
Feb. 26—MONTICELLO — For many families, "Goodnight" is often followed by the old rhyme, "Sleep tight; don't let the bed bugs bite."
However, when Aundie (Morallos) Owens was growing up, her younger sister decided to create her own benediction: "Adegacha."
Her sister explained that the made-up word was a way of saying "Goodnight, I love you."
"It encompasses all of the feelings that you want to just take care of your family," said her mother, Rhea Morallos.
"Adegacha" has become a catchphrase of the Morallos family ever since — and inspired the name of a new business by Owens and her mother.
The two women, both University of Illinois alumni, are co-owners of Adegacha Premium Coffee, which will sell coffee online starting March 8, International Women's Day.
While Owens lives in Monticello, her mother is in Southern California, making this a long-distance collaboration.
Owens said they are partnering with a roaster in Los Angeles on this venture and using organically sourced coffee from a variety of countries in Central and South America.
For now, Adegacha is an online store, but they hope to open a café in the future and are looking at properties in East Central Illinois or Southern California. Other potential plans include selling their products at coffee shops and grocery stores.
Owens said that the value she and her mother place on family is an integral part of their new business, as they have a lot of friends and family who work in the medical industry or other careers with long hours. It's a shame when these individuals come home after a long day and don't have the energy to spend time with their families, she said.
"That's kind of the basis for Adegacha," Owens said. "It's really centered around family and trying to make sure that we're energizing other people so they don't miss out on those quality times."
Morallos added that coffee helped her during one of the biggest transitions of her life: moving to the United States from the Philippines.
"Coffee is actually something that held me together," she said.
Another major change came in 2017, when Owens began attending the UI as a student-athlete. One of the reasons she decided to make the move from California was because the school and the community "felt so much like family."
Morallos later earned her MBA from the UI, and Owens is currently finishing up her last semester of law school. She has taken courses for this degree at both the UI and Loyola University of Chicago.
"Eventually, our vision was also to have a company to serve others," Morallos said. She and Owens hope to use Adegacha to help farmers in Central America and the Philippines.
Owens has been to the Philippines twice and remembers poverty she saw there.
"Eventually, we'd like to take another visit to the Philippines, meet with some coffee farmers there to see how we can support their families so that they're in a position so that their next generation can really just go to school and be in a position where they can decide what to do with their future," she said.
