Gnome is Where You Park It: The Coffee That Started It All
Our very first blend started with an Airstream, two gnomes, a poodle named Louie, and a chihuahua named Cocoa pointed down an open road. Gnome is Where You Park It — our Anytime Anywhere medium dark roast — was built for life on the move, and it has been our signature coffee from day one. Sourced from women-led cooperatives in Guatemala and Honduras, roasted clean on a zero-emissions Bellwether electric roaster, and tied to the Care Camps Foundation through our Coffee with a Cause program, this is a cup that goes somewhere. Smooth, bold, and tasting of caramel, toffee, and dark chocolate — with a campfire waiting for anyone who wants to pull up a chair.
Every great adventure has a first step. For us, it was hitching up the Airstream, loading Louie the Poodle and Cocoa the Chihuahua into the cab, and pointing the nose toward somewhere we had never been. Coffee in hand. Always coffee in hand. That first blend we ever made? It lives on the bag with the gnome versions of us, our silver home on wheels, and those two wonderful dogs. Pull up a chair. There is always room at this campfire.
The Anytime Anywhere Blend, also known as Gnome is Where You Park It, was our very first offering. We built it for people who understand that the best coffee is not necessarily the one brewed in the fanciest kitchen. Sometimes it is the cup you make at a campsite in Utah looking over a canyon of hoodoos. Sometimes it is the one you pour before sunrise in a parking lot off the Pacific Coast Highway, steam rising off the mug while the rest of the world is still quiet. This coffee was made for that moment.
And it carries a whole lot more than flavor.
The Label Tells the Story
Every bag of Traveling Gnome Coffee features original artwork. Not stock photography, not AI generated filler. Original pieces, hand crafted by a real artist, each one telling a piece of our story on the road. The label on this bag was created by Mary Love, known on Instagram as @flowergrrrlmary. It shows the gnome versions of us beside the Airstream, with Louie the Poodle and Cocoa the Chihuahua right there in the scene, because of course they are. Those two go everywhere.
We believe the artwork on a coffee bag should mean something. Each label in our lineup is a small window into a place we have been, an adventure we had, a moment on the road that we wanted to share. When you hold a bag of Gnome is Where You Park It, you are holding a piece of that particular kind of happiness that only shows up when you have no fixed address and the road just keeps going.
All Traveling Gnome Coffee labels are original artwork. No two blends look alike because no two adventures are the same.
What Is in the Cup
The Anytime Anywhere Blend is a medium dark roast, and it earns that designation in the truest sense. It sits right at that sweet spot where the bean's natural sweetness has developed fully but the roast has not crossed over into smoke and bitterness. The result is smooth, comforting, and endlessly drinkable. This is not a coffee that asks you to pay close attention. It is a coffee that rewards you just for showing up.
The tasting notes are caramel, toffee, and dark chocolate, which makes it one of those blends that feels like a warm blanket on a cold morning outside. The body is substantial without being heavy. The finish is clean. There is a gentle sweetness that carries through from first sip to last, which is the hallmark of well-grown Central American coffee roasted with care.
| What You'll Notice | In the Cup |
|---|---|
| Tasting Notes | Caramel · Toffee · Dark Chocolate |
| Roast Level | Medium Dark |
| Body | Smooth and full, with a clean finish |
| Acidity | Gentle, well-integrated sweetness |
| Origins | Guatemala (Huehuetenango) and Honduras (AMPROCAL) |
| Process | Washed, for clarity and balance |
| Cultivars | Bourbon · Castillo · Catuai · Caturra · Colombia |
Where the Coffee Comes From
We talk a lot about sourcing, and we mean every word of it. This blend draws from two distinct origins in Central America, both selected for quality and both tied to something bigger than just flavor.
Guatemala: Manos de Mujer, ACODIHUE Cooperative
The Guatemalan portion of this blend comes from indigenous women farmers in Cuchumatan, Huehuetenango, a high-altitude region in northern Guatemala known for producing some of the country's most distinctive coffees. The cooperative carries the certification Manos de Mujer, which translates as "Women's Hands," honoring the fact that these women own and steward their own land. In a region where land tenure for women has historically been anything but guaranteed, that fact matters.
Coffees grown at Huehuetenango's elevations tend to be bright and complex, with a natural sweetness backed by chocolate undertones. At medium dark roast, the origin character comes through beautifully. You get all the warmth of the roast development alongside something that still tastes genuinely alive, not just roasted into submission.
Honduras: AMPROCAL
The Honduran portion comes from the Asociación de Mujeres Productoras de Café La Labor, known as AMPROCAL. This is a 100 percent women-led association of more than 300 coffee producers, all committed to sustainable farming practices and the long-term viability of specialty-grade coffee as a livelihood. Honduras has emerged as a serious force in specialty coffee in recent decades, and coffees from the western highlands bordering Guatemala are among the most respected in the region. Full-bodied, with caramel and chocolate character and a smooth, sweet finish, they are a natural partner for the Guatemalan component in this blend.
Paying Farmers What the Work Is Actually Worth
Most coffee certifications were built to set a floor for what farmers get paid. Fair Trade, Rainforest Alliance, and similar programs have done meaningful work, but even with their improvements, the uncomfortable truth is that roughly 80 percent of the world's 12 million coffee producers still live below the poverty line. The floor has not been high enough.
We source through Bellwether's Green Coffee Marketplace, which operates on a Verified Living Income pricing model, a standard developed in partnership with Heifer International and Sustainable Harvest. Rather than pegging prices to a commodities market or setting an arbitrary minimum, the Verified Living Income approach starts with a different question entirely: what does a farming family actually need to earn to cover food, housing, healthcare, education, and savings? That number becomes the floor. Not fair trade. Not market rate. Verifiable living income.
When you buy this coffee, the farmers who grew it were paid a price rooted in what it actually costs to live with dignity in their region. Not a handout. Not charity. Just honesty about what the work is worth.
- Equitable pricing verified by real cost-of-living data, not market speculation
- Women-owned and women-led cooperatives at both origins
- Long-term sourcing relationships that invest in farming community futures
- Standards that exceed Fair Trade minimums by design, not by accident
- Full transparency on the price paid to producers, so you can see where your dollar goes
Roasted on a Zero-Emissions Machine. No Apologies.
We roast on a Bellwether all-electric roaster. That sentence takes about two seconds to read, but what it means is significant. Traditional commercial coffee roasters run on natural gas and vent directly into the atmosphere. Bellwether's electric roaster uses recirculating roast technology, which means the heat stays in the system and the emissions essentially do not exist.
Coffee roasting accounts for roughly 15 percent of the coffee industry's total carbon footprint, which adds up to around 41 billion pounds of carbon annually across the industry. Bellwether's roaster has been independently measured at an 87 percent reduction in carbon footprint compared to conventional gas roasting. That is not a rounding error. That is a fundamentally different way of doing business.
We are not going to pretend that one coffee brand is going to fix climate change. But we are also not going to shrug and say it does not matter how we roast. The all-electric Bellwether roaster is the reason we can truthfully say this is among the lowest-carbon coffee available anywhere, and we think that is worth mentioning every time we talk about what is in the bag.
The Bellwether all-electric roaster reduces carbon emissions from roasting by approximately 87 percent compared to traditional gas roasting. Our coffee is among the lowest-carbon roasted coffee in the world.
Coffee with a Cause: The Care Camps Foundation
Every bag of Anytime Anywhere has always meant something beyond the morning ritual. One percent of every purchase goes to the Care Camps Foundation, an organization that provides fully funded outdoor camping experiences to children with cancer and their families. For kids who have spent months in hospitals, sitting in a tent by a lake and hearing the sounds of the woods can be genuinely healing. Outdoor experiences restore something. Fresh air, open sky, and the particular stillness that only shows up outside.
We built Traveling Gnome Coffee on the belief that being out in the world, moving through it and paying attention, makes life richer. The Care Camps Foundation takes that belief and applies it where the need is sharpest. We are proud to contribute to this worthy cause through our first blend and our signature coffee.
1% of every Anytime Anywhere purchase is donated to the Care Camps Foundation, supporting children with cancer and their families through healing outdoor camping experiences.
The Campfire is Always Open
Traveling Gnome Coffee was born from the simple, stubbornly good idea that coffee and travel belong together. We are the gnomes on the bag. That really is our Airstream. Those really are our dogs. And the places we have visited and the people we have met along the way are woven into everything about this brand, from the blends we name to the causes we support to the way we talk about what we do.
The gnome mythology has always been about wandering, about curiosity, about finding magic in the in-between places. A Â stop on the Navajo Reservation where you buy handmade cookies from a young Navajo girl. A canyon overlook in Utah where the light does something extraordinary right before sunset. A Â restaurant overlooking Santa Rosa Beach where you make new friends visiting the same beach from the MidWest. Those are the moments we are after.
Our virtual campfire is open to every kind of gnome. You do not have to own an Airstream. You do not have to be adventurous in any particular way. You just have to be willing to show up, pour a cup, and sit with us for a while. All are welcome here. That is not a marketing line. It is the whole point.
- Coffee inspired by real places and real people encountered on the road
- Stories from our travels live at the Campfire Stories blog
- A community built on kindness, curiosity, and the universal language of a good cup
- No gatekeeping. No coffee snobbery. Just gnomes being gnomes.
Brewing This Blend Well
The Anytime Anywhere Blend was designed to be exactly what its name says. Medium dark roasts are some of the most forgiving to brew, which makes this the ideal daily driver whether you are working a drip machine in a full kitchen or an AeroPress on a tailgate. Here is how to get the most out of it.
- Drip / Auto Brewer
- Pour Over (V60, Chemex)
- French Press
- AeroPress
- Espresso
- Moka Pot
For drip brewing, a medium grind and water right around 200 degrees gets you the caramel and toffee character without pushing into bitterness. For French press, coarser grind, four minute steep, press slow. The oils that come through in French press are especially good with this roast level. For espresso or moka pot, go a bit finer and expect a rich, chocolatey pull that holds up well to milk if that is your thing.
Wherever possible, grind just before you brew. Ground coffee loses its volatile aromatics within the first 30 minutes after milling. Whole bean keeps those compounds locked inside until the moment you need them, which means the caramel and toffee notes hit harder and the finish stays cleaner. It is the single highest-impact thing most home brewers can do.
Frequently Asked Questions
Why is this called Gnome is Where You Park It?
Because that is the gnome philosophy in four words. Home is the Airstream, the tent, the truck cab, the motel parking lot, wherever you land for the night with a good cup and a good dog or two nearby. The name came naturally. It has been our first blend since the beginning.
What does medium dark roast actually taste like compared to dark roast?
A true dark roast develops heavy smoky and bitter notes that can overpower the bean's origin character. Medium dark stops short of that point. You still get all the warmth and body you want from a bold coffee, but the caramel sweetness and the chocolate notes stay distinct rather than getting lost. This blend specifically is smooth and balanced, not aggressive.
What is the Care Camps Foundation?
The Care Camps Foundation provides fully funded outdoor camping experiences to children diagnosed with cancer and their families. Camp is free to families, and research supports the idea that outdoor experiences during treatment and recovery have measurable positive effects on wellbeing. One percent of every purchase of this blend goes directly to that work.
What does Verified Living Income mean for farmers?
It means the price paid for the green coffee was calculated based on what a farming family in that specific region actually needs to earn in order to cover food, housing, healthcare, education, and basic savings. Not what the commodity market is doing that week. Not a percentage above Fair Trade floor prices. A number derived from real cost-of-living research in the farming community. It is the most farmer-centric pricing model in the industry right now, and it is the standard our supply chain is built on.
Is the Bellwether roaster really zero emissions?
The Bellwether all-electric roaster uses recirculating roast technology that keeps heat and byproducts within the system rather than venting them. It requires no gas line and produces no direct emissions during roasting. Independent measurement has shown approximately an 87 percent reduction in carbon footprint compared to conventional gas-fired commercial roasters. "Zero emissions" as a descriptor is accurate to how the machine operates during the roasting process.
Who are the women behind the coffees in this blend?
In Guatemala, the coffee comes from the ACODIHUE cooperative in Huehuetenango, specifically from indigenous women farmers certified under the Manos de Mujer (Women's Hands) program. These are women who own and work their own land. In Honduras, the coffee comes from AMPROCAL, the Asociación de Mujeres Productoras de Café La Labor, a fully women-led association of more than 300 producers committed to sustainable specialty coffee production. Supporting these cooperatives is not incidental to the blend. It is the reason we chose them.
Is this coffee good for people who find coffee hard on their stomach?
Medium dark roasts are generally gentler on the stomach than light roasts because many of the harsher organic acids mellow out during roasting. The washed processing of both origins in this blend also contributes to a cleaner, smoother cup with less of the sharpness that some people find hard to tolerate. It is not a guarantee for everyone, but medium dark is where a lot of people with sensitive stomachs land.
Come Find Your Spot at the Fire
This is the coffee that started everything for us. It is still the one we reach for on the first cold morning of a new trip, poured into whatever mug did not fall out of the cabinet on the drive. It tastes like caramel and toffee and dark chocolate and somewhere out there on the open road, and it gives something back every time you buy it.
Pack it in your bag. Stash it in the camper. Share it with a stranger at a rest stop who looks like they could use a good cup. That is the whole gnome deal right there.
Peace, love, coffee.
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