Sourcing & Sustainability
Direct trade only works if someone actually gets on the plane. Here’s who we buy from and why.
What “Direct Trade” Means Here
We negotiate price directly with each farm or cooperative, without a commodity-market floor price setting the terms. Dev Okafor, our sourcing lead, visits every partner farm at least once a year — you can read about how the relationships started in ourcompany story.
None of this coffee touches our shelves until it’s been cupped and approved by Mara at a publicSaturday cupping session— anyone can sit in.
Why We Visit in Person
A price sheet can’t tell you whether a cooperative is reinvesting in its drying patios or whether last year’s harvest was picked too early to make a shipping deadline. Dev’s farm visits usually run four or five days each — long enough to walk the plots, sit in on a cupping with the farm’s own quality team, and agree on next year’s price before either side is under pressure to sign something quickly.
It also means we find out about problems early. When leaf rust hit part of the Finca Los Volcanes plots in 2022, we already had a standing relationship to renegotiate volume around, instead of just disappearing as a customer.
Our Three Farm Partners
These are the only three sources for every single-origin coffee and house blend we sell — nothing in theshopcomes from anywhere else.
| Farm / Cooperative | Region | Altitude | Process | Partner Since |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Alto Verde Growers Collective | Huila, Colombia | 1,700–1,950m | Washed | 2015 |
| Sidama Highlands Cooperative | Yirgacheffe, Ethiopia | 1,900–2,100m | Natural & Washed | 2017 |
| Finca Los Volcanes | Antigua, Guatemala | 1,500–1,700m | Washed | 2019 |
Beans from these three farms show up in oursingle-origin lineupand in thehouse blends.
Beyond the Beans
- Compostable retail bags, lined for freshness, phased in fully by 2022.
- Spent grounds from all three cafés go to a community garden program on Riverside Ave.
- Wholesale delivery routes are batched by neighborhood to cut down on drive time.
- A percentage of Ethiopia Yirgacheffe sales is set aside for a well-repair fund the Sidama Highlands Cooperative administers directly — we don’t route it through a third party.