Intentional Buying Practices
Carefully Selected Beans
Make The Best Blends
We source delicious coffees for our blends that could be proudly served as stand alone offerings. These blend components are selected for sweetness, balance, and a big mouthfeel so that our blends taste consistent throughout the year even though we're changing the origins to maintain freshness. In our blends, we prioritize organically grown coffees, focusing on community lots from cooperatives. Given the quantities we purchase and the impact on these communities, we try to have a stable relationship and buy from the same communities every year.
Mindfully Sourced
Micro-lots
We are a bit more eclectic when sourcing single-origin coffees: we love crowd-pleasing and comforting coffees, fruited and naturally processed coffees, bright and beautiful washed coffees as well as more experimental coffees with wild and exciting flavor profiles. We have years-long trade relationships with a limited number of sourcing partners and maintain several direct-trade farm partnerships.
We Practice
Sustainable Production Methods
We pay significantly above Fair Trade pricing for our coffees — in many instances multiples of the market price — and prioritize meticulous producers that pursue low-impact practices. We roast on a Loring S-35, a recirculating convective roaster that uses a fraction of the gas of a comparable conventional roaster set-up. Locally, we donate surplus coffee to charities including homeless shelters, and contribute to NGOs supporting small farmers in East Africa.