Inspired by the work of our frontline emergency responders, and fuelled by our passion to give back to these community heroes, Essential Coffee Company (ECC) was created.  Brought to life by Adrianne and I (Aris) in 2023, our story is over 23 years in the making. We first met in 1999 as we embarked on our journey to become paramedics. We’ve shared a life together ever since. In 2020, Adrianne and I made the life changing decision to move abroad. Realizing a dream we shared for many years was both exhilarating and anxiety filled. With three young children in the mix, we settled on a small island off the Caribbean coast of Panama, Bocas Del Toro. We visited BDT multiple times and fell in love with the charm, culture and vibe of this small community. Our decision made a lot of sense since Adrianne’s mom was Panamanian born and shares her time between Toronto and their family home in Santiago, a town on the mainland.  We had the security of having family only a boat ride and bus ride away.

Fast forward to 2022, two years removed from my last EMS shift and nearly two years living on a small Caribbean island, I continued to have doubts about our decision to leave everything behind. To bring context to the situation, my decision to leave EMS came about for several reasons. Shift work was taking a toll on me physically and mentally. I wanted to spend more time with my family and pursue other interests.

In the early stages of the pandemic I got sick from patient contact and took time off from the road. Looking back, I don’t remember feeling overly ill.  I felt physically recovered after a few weeks, but my mental health was struggling. Maybe it was the extended time off that caused me to overthink my situation. Agreeing to therapy was a hard pill to swallow, but it was necessary. My therapist was amazing and I cannot stress enough to my colleagues how important it is to utilize the services of a therapist, whether you think you need it or not. After months of therapy, the decision to hang up my stethoscope was clear, I was ready to move on.

Essential Coffee Company was born from the idea that Adrianne and I could stay connected to our emergency service peers. Having over 30+ years of combined service in EMS, almost half of our lives were spent on the road. We will always be grateful for the experiences we had, and starting ECC is one way to stay connected to our peers and support a cause that hits close to home.

Our mission at Essential Coffee Company is to help raise mental health awareness within our military and frontline communities across Canada and as far as our platform can reach, to help our charity partners provide the necessary avenues to assist our community service members. We hope to achieve this through our common love of coffee. We are honoured to be working with our Essential Partners to accomplish this mission. If we, at ECC can provide even the smallest value to our charity partners through our online coffee store, then we are moving in the right direction.

At ECC, we understand the importance of a cup of coffee to start off a 12 hour shift,  to help provide a boost of energy and focus during a busy day, or to simply enjoy a warm cup of coffee on our days off.  A proudly Canadian company, we have partnered with a Canadian roaster to provide coffee beans sourced from some of the leading growing regions in the world. We are committed to offering 100% roast-2-order, premium arabica beans producing classic coffee flavours, as well as amazing blends that are sure to satisfy every taste profile.

You may be wondering why ECC doesn’t offer any Panamanian coffee beans? Well that’s by design. Since we live here, it only makes sense to connect directly with the farmers to access some of the world’s best coffee. And that’s what we are striving to do. Standby as we foster new relationships with local farms throughout Panama, to offer our ECC community some amazing specialty coffee blends. 

We look forward to staying connected with all of you. Contact Us to reconnect and say hello. Are you a military service member, paramedic, firefighter, police officer, nurse, correctional officer, or dispatcher? We’d love for you to join our community and share your story on our Essential Blog. Every little bit helps our charity partners provide the services our community heroes deserve, so please share our story.

Welcome to the ECC community!