De mensen die onze koffie produceren.
Iedere koffie die we verkopen komt met een verhaald: een verhaal over de plaats waar het vandaan komt en de mensen die de koffie hebben geproduceerd. We kiezen koffies waar we van houden, van de producers waarmee we jaar in jaar uit mee werken. Consitentie en kwaliteit gaan hand in hand, en door langdurige relaties op te bouwen hopen we een een consistente afnemer te zijn van de producenten waarmee we werken, terwijl zij zich bezig houden met de kwaliteit van de bonen.
Dit is waarom we je graag meer vertellen over de boeren en productenten waarmee we werken, en de washing stations die zij dagelijks draaiend houden. Over de koffie die zij verbouwen, en wat zich afspeelt in de heuvels van hun plantage.
Maak kennis met de mensen waarmee we werken
Coffee is farmed, not manufactured
Before it was a bag on our shelf, it was a year of somebody's work. Pruning, picking, fermenting, drying, and watching the sky with more attention than any of us pay the weather forecast. A bad week of rain at the wrong moment can undo eleven months of it.
Before it was a bag on our shelf, it was a year of somebody's work. Pruning, picking, fermenting, drying, and watching the sky with more attention than any of us pay the weather forecast. A bad week of rain at the wrong moment can undo eleven months of it.Most of the people on these pages farm a few hectares or less. Many inherited the land from parents who grew coffee on it before them. Several built the washing station that their whole village now runs its harvest through, which is the sort of thing that does not fit on a label.
Why we put their names on things
Commodity coffee is sold by the sack, with the farmer's name lost about three steps into the chain. Specialty coffee is supposed to work differently, and mostly it does, though "supposed to" is doing a lot of work in that sentence. So we name them. Not as decoration, but because a named producer is one you can ask questions about, and a nameless one is one nobody has to answer for. If a coffee on our shelf has no story on this page, take that as a gap we are working on rather than a secret.
What we ask before we buy
Three questions, every time. Who grew it. What they were paid for it. And whether the person selling it to us can answer the first two without going quiet. We buy through importers and partners we know, we ask for the price paid at the farm gate, and we would rather pass on a lovely coffee than stock one whose chain we cannot follow. It is not a certification and we are not claiming a halo. It is just the version of this job we can look at straight.
Good coffee only stays good because everybody who touches it decides it should. Reading this page is the easy part of that. Have a look around, then go and drink some.