Avec Amour: Lawrence roastery Repetition Coffee leads by example
Courtesy Amy Pope
Nestled in a corner of East Lawrence is Repetition Coffee, a roastery and incubation office space where founder Amy Pope has created a safe haven for the community, as well as fostering direct relationships with coffee growers all around the world.
In a culture of latte art and syrupy sweet drinks, Pope aims to put focus back on the coffee itself. As she puts it, a barista is just the very last person in a long, yet invisible, line of workers to have an effect on the coffee we drink. Repitition Coffee is brewed and sold in over 20 Lawrence, Kansas City, and Topeka area cafes and retail stores.
After completing her Master’s degree in International Relations in Paris, France, Pope toured a farm in Brazil hosted by FAF, or Fazenda Ambiental Foraleza. Pope then came back to the United States looking for a way to combine her love of travelling and coffee, as well as her passion for social justice.
As Pope recalls, she was inspired by different countries’ approaches to the coffee business and the farmers she worked with along the way.
“When I was doing my master’s program in Paris, I made a lot of friends who were mostly Brazilian, and a lot of them were there learning different agricultural practices in school. After we graduated, I was pretty sure I wanted to go into coffee,” Pope says. “I got invited to FAF in Brazil, and it was the very first boots-on-the-ground experience that I had. It made me realize there’s so much more for me to learn on this side, but also so much that needs to be featured in the end product.”
Courtesy Amy Pope
Repetition’s mission is to highlight the growers, as well as the roasting process. Spanning more than a decade of close relationships with the farmers she met abroad, Pope continues to put into practice what she learned during and after her international experiences.
“Now I’ve got multiple different families that I work with, where I go and visit them and get to check in and create long-term loyal relationships. That’s the other aspect that’s really big for me,” Pope says. “If I were to just flippantly buy the best coffee that was on the table every single time, that might be great for my clientele here, but that doesn’t help to actually sustain–economically–a family or a farm. Because we buy responsibly, or I like to think that we do, those relationships are actually really important for me in the same way that keeping my coffee shop relationships are important here.”
Repetition Roastery // Photo by Emma Goulding
In addition to Pope’s passion for working closely with coffee farms, part of her master’s program was looking at trickle-down economics and how this affects women in the coffee industry. As Pope says, “The weird thing about women in coffee is that it’s actually predominantly women in the industry until you get to management.”
A special relationship Pope has curated over the years is with a woman-owned farm in Colombia called ASMUCafe, or Asociación de Mujeres Agropecuarias de Uribe. They have fought hard to ensure that women are not just doing all of the cultivating but are also active participants in management positions within the industry.
When Pope was working on farms in Central and South America, seeing the women with their children strapped to their backs, picking the coffee beans, she started to ask the question: How can we feature the reality of the coffee industry, so that women are actually showcased rather than pushed to the sidelines? Her answer led to Repetition.
“One takeaway from my grad program is that money made by women is more likely to stay in the communities, and it’s also more likely to go towards education and nutrition for families,” Pope says. She works to put money in the hands of women both via the farms in other countries and at home. “We try to walk the talk; I have a predominantly women-based team. It’s an acknowledgement that we can do it just as well.”
Repetition Roastery // Photo by Emma Goulding
Since the establishment of the business in 2015, Repetition Coffee has become not only an active participant in social change but a pillar of the Lawrence community, with the roasterie hosting numerous events such as concerts and KU French and Italian club coffee tastings. These coffee tastings are held biannually, and they give both domestic and international students a space to break the ice with each other, as well as try different kinds of coffee.
This emphasis on the importance of community is also evident in Repetition’s roastery space, where art from local artists lines the walls. Pope and her employees share the space with several people, including artist Molly Murphy and jeweler Margo Jane.
Repetition Roastery // Photo by Emma Goulding
A highlight of the space is Repetition’s cupping table, created by KU woodworker Garrett Brown. Pope and her team gather around the cupping table to try samples of coffee. Brown designed the table using different types of wood to represent the colors of a coffee bean before it is roasted.
“We like to call the cupping table the heart and mind of the business. That’s where the rest of the world just kind of fades out,” Pope recalls. “We go into the room, and we close the door; it’s quiet. It is a moment where we get to taste this bouquet of flavors that come from other places, and it feels like you can travel with your palate. For me, it’s become this very zen place, in the sense that as I approach the cupping table, I try to clear my mind.”
Repetition Coffee is starting the summer season out strong, with their newest blend created as a nod to the Algerian team coming to Kansas City for the FIFA World Cup 2026. The Three Africans Olé blend is Repetition’s first dark-tan roast, and it will be available for sale online throughout the World Cup. Keep your eyes peeled for the bag with a little fox on it, inspired by the Algerian team’s jerseys. If Algeria wins, be on the lookout for a 50% off sale.
