Marayah Deese is a native Oregonian, splitting her time growing up between Portland and Adelberg, Germany. Many people don’t know that she not only speaks English but is fluent in German as well. Moving around a lot as a kid has given her a great love of travel and adventure. She has come to deeply value various ways of life around the globe, and has been on staff with several international non-profit organizations over the years. During one such time away from the Pacific Northwest, she met her husband Lane. When she is not making beautiful drinks, Marayah can usually be found on a bike. Having injured herself as a snowboarder, she took to cycling to rehabilitate her knee and fell in love. She has spent time in Uganda, east Africa and hopes to return someday, putting her three big passions into one job, combining her love of bicycles, coffee and people into one organization.
Marayah first got into coffee as a way to earn an income while in college. She enjoys coffee as a beverage, but stays in the industry because she values the human interaction both in the shops as well as at the farm level. There is such a collaborative effort required to ensure that the quality from the seed is maintained all the way to the cup of coffee you hold in your hand. She thrives in helping to shrink the gap between the two worlds and loves knowing that through drinking high quality coffee, she can help make people’s lives better.
It’s not just the people involved in coffee that catch Marayah’s interest, but also the vast complexity within coffee itself. “You can take the same beans, roasted by six different roasters, and have six completely different and amazing cups of coffee. There’s so many different aspects inherently in each batch of coffee and it’s so fun to get to see how roasters interpret those profiles.” Originally introduced at a mutual friend’s birthday party, Marayah loves working for Christine and Wes. She knows that at Case Study Coffee, she is not limited by the title she works under as a barista. She loves the space for creativity and growth. “We’re not expendable here. Everyone is valued for what they individually bring to the table. It’s such an amazing place where the staff get to actively participate in the growth of the company.”
Marayah is slated to begin apprentice roasting in the near future. Until then, when she's not traveling the country to race her bike, you can find her slinging coffee at the Sandy and Alberta stores.
