From Mug to Medicine: Why Every Cup of Keats & Co Coffee Counts
See how your everyday coffee purchases can support long-term TB care. | By Aly Krajewski.
Most mornings, coffee is the least dramatic part of my day. (I say most mornings because I have been known to destroy a kitchen appliance or two in my time.) It happens before the news; before the to-do list; before I fully remember what we said “yes” to yesterday. I fill my pot. I pour Keats & Co Octavia grounds in the filter. I wait, impatiently. I pour. It’s muscle memory. Not a moment that feels particularly heroic. Keats & Co coffee lives in that small, ordinary space, reliable and constant.
Though not a common connection point, tuberculosis treatment doesn’t happen in grand gestures, either. It also happens in routines: in showing up for others, in systems that stay in place long enough for healing to actually take place.
Tuberculosis Is Treatable—If Care Can Last
Tuberculosis (TB) is the world’s deadliest infectious disease, despite being totally preventable and curable. The challenge isn’t a lack of medical knowledge—it’s a lack of follow-through. TB treatment requires months of medication, consistent monitoring, and reliable access to care, especially in countries where healthcare infrastructure is under strain.
In Lesotho, which has one of the highest tuberculosis rates in the world, completing treatment can be particularly difficult. Distance, poverty, and limited access to clinics all raise the risk of interrupted care. And with TB, interruption matters. Missed doses can mean prolonged illness, drug resistance, and a higher chance of fatality. This is why TB programs need sustained and reliable funding.
How Coffee (Somehow) Becomes Part of this System
All of the profit from Keats & Co coffee is donated to Partners In Health (PIH) to support tuberculosis treatment in Lesotho. Not some of it. Not a percentage. All of it. That distinction matters!
TB care depends on systems that don’t disappear after a single donation cycle. It requires steady resources for diagnostics, medication delivery, and community-based support. The kind of work that continues, day after day, long after urgency fades, long after cameras leave and fanfare subsides. Coffee—a drink a lot of us enjoy daily, that is purchased regularly, and brewed routinely—turns out to be an unexpectedly good match for that reality.
No single cup of coffee treats tuberculosis, that is true. But thousands of cups, bought week after week, do help fund some continuity that TB care depends on. Keats & Co becomes a financial rhythm that mirrors the rhythm of treatment itself.
Why This Model Actually Works
There can feel like a lot of pressure to “do more” when it comes to global health. Donate more, care harder, stay constantly informed about everything that’s broken. It’s overwhelming, and often unsustainable. Keats & Co tries to offer a different model: you don’t have to change habits. You were already going to buy coffee. This simply redirects the impact of that purchase toward something concrete: funding TB treatment in one of the world’s most affected regions.
Partners In Health has worked in Lesotho for years because tuberculosis there isn’t easy. Care teams operate in remote areas, supporting patients through long treatment courses and building trust within communities where healthcare access has historically been limited. It’s not about quick wins. It’s about finishing the work to eradicate TB from places like Lesotho, which PIH aims to do, and Good Store aims to help accomplish.
My morning coffee can feel pretty small and ordinary most days. Almost invisible. But scale and perspective can also change meaning. A cup of Keats & Co becomes care not only for me, but for others, not because it’s symbolic, but because it’s repeated. It will show up again tomorrow, for me, and for others. Quietly, reliably, one morning at a time.
