How we source our coffee beans

Every bag of coffee in our grinder started with a conversation — usually at a wooden table, in a language neither of us spoke natively, over a cup of something that tasted nothing like the product that would eventually reach you.

We've been visiting producers directly since our second year. It started as curiosity and became, quickly, a conviction: that it's impossible to genuinely care about coffee without understanding what it costs to grow it.

Why we travel to origin

The specialty coffee market has a transparency problem. A lot of what gets marketed as "direct trade" or "single origin" involves very little direct contact with the people doing the actual work. Importers are often in the middle. That's not necessarily wrong — good importers do valuable work — but we wanted to go further.

"We pay above the certified fair trade rate on every lot we buy. Not because we're required to. Because it's the minimum that feels right once you've stood on the farm."

Our current espresso blend contains beans from two farms: one in the Yirgacheffe region of Ethiopia, run by Dawit and his extended family, and one in Huila, Colombia, managed by a cooperative of twelve smallholders. We've visited both. We know both families by name. We send photos of the café when we can.

What we look for

Taste is only part of it. We also ask: how are workers paid? How is the land managed between harvests? What does a bad year look like for this farm, and do they have any cushion if it happens? We won't work with farms where we can't get satisfying answers.

The beans on our pourover bar rotate more frequently — we source those through two importers whose sourcing practices we've spent years verifying. When a new origin comes in, Theo tastes it blind before we decide.

What this means for your cup

Honestly, sometimes nothing you'd notice. A great cup is a great cup. But we think the knowledge changes the experience — and more importantly, the economics matter regardless of whether you can taste them.

If you ever want to know where this week's pourover comes from, just ask at the counter. We always know, and we're always happy to talk about it for longer than you probably want us to.