Have you met Mike Safai?
Maybe you’ve seen Mike Safai, Founder of Safai Coffee and Master Roaster, in the coffee shops, at a trade show, or during his travels. His high energy and passion for coffee are infectious and multi-layered. In the next few blog articles, we’ll be sharing his personal story from influences in his early life that lead to his passion for coffee, his immigration story, entrepreneurial journey and then his current shenanigans.
Mike Safai and his father on their last coffee origin trip.
Mike was heavily influenced by his father’s work when he was young. His father was the Agricultural Secretary for Iran prior to the late 1970’s revolution. With a Masters from Montpellier SupAgro in Agricultural Engineering and Wine Making, Mike’s father traveled around the country and world, consulting on farms and their agricultural challenges. Mike would ride with his father throughout the country, visiting farms during his youth. “My mom would have enough of me and send me off with my dad. We would travel in this bumpy Land Rover in these remote areas.”
Although he worked to develop multiple agricultural crops for farms, his father’s passion was winemaking. Mike and his father both share the supertaster gene, giving them the ability to hyper-detect flavors in foods and beverages. Incorporating his engineering training with his natural talent of flavor detection revolutionized wine development in Iran. Mike remembers, “We lived in a government agricultural testing area for farms with all types of fruit trees and vegetables. Living in the midst of the research, I saw the hard work it took for farmers. My dad would graft wine vines, grow them and meticulously record the results, over and over and over, until he got the perfect balance between crop output and taste.”
Mike was one of four kids. “We were all hellions. My poor mom”, Mike says with a laugh. After multiple school changes, Mike’s parents made the difficult decision to send him out of the country for schooling when he was 14. “Of course I wanted to come to the US. Some of my buddies had moved and started school here. I had my parents convinced and even had my plane ticket. The last night at home, I stayed out late, and upon coming home to very upset parents, they ripped up my ticket and that was it. No more beautiful United States. I was going to Paris, not a bad second choice, but still. I wanted to live in the wild west like in Bonanza. ”
Growing up in Iran, Mike watched US television shows, including his favorites, Bonanza and Columbo.
“The shows were dubbed in Farsi, and you honestly couldn’t tell the actors were speaking originally in English. They dubbed them with a lot of sarcasm and humor in Farsi. “
Even though Mike’s father was a winemaker, he made Mike swear he wouldn’t drink while away in school. “It was difficult because, at the time, they didn’t serve water in France. Lunch and dinner were served with either beer or wine. Eventually, he relented, and I was able to drink like everyone else.”
In the late 1970's, the situation in Iran began taking a turn. “Iran in the ’70s was extremely liberal. If you saw a picture of people, you wouldn’t know if they were in the US or Iran. Women wore mini-skirts, big sunglasses, big hair, and everyone watched dubbed tv shows and movies from the US.” Mike’s parents, not knowing where the political winds would land, decided it may be better for all the kids to immigrate and go to school out of the county. “Hello, United States!,” Mike grins, “Finally!”.
Iran Fashion Before the Revolution
“Iran was heavily influenced by western culture. I couldn’t wait to go to the US.” Mike said.
With relatives in Salt Lake City Utah, Mike’s parents arranged housing for them, brought them to the states, and left a few months later. “I was in my senior year in high school, raising my sister, and two brothers,” Mike said, “it’s crazy to think about that. We had cousins that we could call, but for day-to-day living, it was just us. And my brothers were constantly in trouble,” he laughs.
Mike’s father would wire money for them to pay the bills, “And one day it just stopped. It all stopped. We couldn’t get calls through to them, and we didn’t have any money coming in. My car was repossessed and we were kicked out of our house. I was 18 and we were homeless. My sister stayed with friends, but me and my brothers would sleep in apartment stairwells when we couldn’t find a couch to crash on.”
“We didn’t hear from my parents for a year and a half,” Mike says, tearing up. “We just didn’t know what was happening. We would see the revolution aftermath on the news, the deaths and trials of people, and of course with the new religious government, my dad was a target because of the wine. I’m still not sure what happened. My dad was arrested, there was a trial, and he was miraculously let free. They burned all of the vineyards. All of his vine research, gone, across the whole country. My parents finally were able to leave the country with whatever they could carry.”
“My father eventually went back to Iran, 12 years later to see relatives and my parents visit Iran yearly now, but my dad was never the same after that.” In fact, he’s still cautious, which is why his dads name hasn’t been mentioned throughout this article. “You just never know,” Mike said.
“To have these experiences with my dad throughout my life, growing up, watching his relentless pursuit for his passion, even watching him lose it all has made me grateful and passionate. His work with farmers hand in hand, often having them over for meals and honoring farmers' hard work has become the foundation of who I am as a person and pillars of my professional life.”
In recent years Mike’s father has joined him on bourbon tours in Kentucky and traveled with him to Honduras to coffee farms. “I love to hear his questions and even his advice to farmers as we visited. It was wonderful to have that experience with him again. His passion has never left him.”
MIke Safai with His Father visiting coffee farms in Honduras.
