ST. PAUL, Minn. -- This time last year, Lee Carter was unemployed and unsure what a longtime barista fresh off a shattered dream could do with those skills.

He found the answer in a new St. Paul coffee shop that’s giving away its product in hopes of raising money to build a business tied to a bigger mission. The mission has become the name of the shop: Take Care. In addition to serving a new kind of brew, it will invite a sense of community.

The coffee is made in a revolutionary way, using real ingredients (no flavor syrups or extracts) and a sous vide technique to brew the ubiquitous beverage. The result is a beautiful cup of ready-to-pour coffee, sans bitterness.

A co-founder of Five Watt Coffee, Carter spent his career building purposely affordable shops with a hefty dose of whimsy. As the company grew, Carter bought out his original partners and joined forces with Sencha Tea Bar, a relationship that soured and left Carter on the outside of what had been a big dream.

Without income or the money he had invested, Carter found himself lost, grieving and searching for purpose. That’s when he connected with Andrew Kopplin, one of the originators of the Twin Cities’ third-wave coffee movement, which treated roasting and brewing as a craft. Kopplin’s namesake coffeeshop had never fully reopened after COVID, and he closed it late last year. Carter had asked about the possibility of moving into the Marshall Avenue address — it was time to make the move.

But how could he build a whole new business without capital investment? The answer was at the core of a question Carter had been asking himself, one written on the wall of the bare-bones shop: “How do you take care?” Responses written on sticky notes cover the wall, with advice like taking a walk to more personal responses.

“Care is something that makes you whole,” said Carter. “It supports and nourishes you. So, that’s what we are now able to offer as a place.”

With the help of an investor who has offered to match donations, Carter has been gaining steam and funds to fully open (it’s now open just two hours a day). He’s also shared his journey on social media — one video utilizes Play-Doh to visualize the capital breakdown of the project. He said hitting Take Care’s financial goal will pay for the equipment necessary to open and to hire baristas at a livable wage.

“The process has showed me that people are ready to be thinking in a different way and we all care,” he said. “We can share that care here,” said Carter.

The shop will open soon and charge a reasonable amount for the coffee they painstakingly make. On a recent day, there were small cups of cold or hot coffee infused with flavors like an orange-pear-lavender combination that tastes like a summer meadow smells, or a seasonally appropriate honey-rhubarb mix. Another is steeped with bananas and Minnesota maple syrup and swirled with oat milk for a banana pancake sip inspired by a Jack Johnson song. Because all the flavors are slowly steeped in, the drinks are ready to serve as customers file into the shop to grab one at no charge (for now).

The opening will also allow Take Care’s larger mission of community building to continue. That might be in the form of workshops for other coffee shop owners, pancake feeds or sharing cups with people who could use a bit of kindness.

Carter also wants Take Care to be a part of the larger community of coffee fans and Minnesota, infused with the neighborliness demonstrated during Operation Metro Surge, when being a neighbor was an active verb of support.

“We have everything here,” Carter said. “We don’t need to wait for someone to come save us. It’s kind of the opposite. We get to decide how we want to be that care in the world — and how we want to receive it.”

And that might just be a cup of coffee that tastes like banana pancakes.

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2038 Marshall Av., St. Paul, takecare.coffee . Open daily from 10 a.m. to noon.

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