Larry’s Beans

When graduate student Larry Larson ditched his economics degree to roast coffee in 1993, he didn’t just abandon academia, he helped invent a whole new model. One of seven founders of Cooperative Coffees, the only U.S. cooperative importing directly from fair trade farmers, Larson built a roastery with rainwater toilets and solar floors. But perhaps the cheekiest move: turning a defunct telephone booth into a Little Free Library, transforming a relic of long-distance connection into hyperlocal literary exchange.