WHO ARE WE AND HOW Do WE FIND OURSELVES HERE?

The easiest explanation is that we grew out of the coffee buying department of Small Batch Roasting Co., a small team that became obsessed with seeking to buy coffee independently and sustainably. The motivations are easy to recall: we were fed up with being misled and sometimes outright lied to about how much producers received of what we paid in USD/lb. We hated losing continuity with producers we wanted to buy from and support again. Our dissatisfaction led us to set out independently in 2013 with a Spanish speaker under our wing and plenty of pluck in our boots. It was a pretty simple mission to start with.

Of course, we didn’t start exporting and importing coffee straight away. But we saw problems with pricing and producer vulnerability. We saw how producers were in the dark about buyers’ real needs and chased processing fads; that producers were mostly given poor agronomical and processing advice. We saw the importance of our buying volume to the individuals and groups with whom we wanted to meaningfully partner. We saw that it was possible to farm coffee sustainably, without the status quo liberal chemical application. In short, we saw enough of what happens behind the curtain to realize that we didn’t want to be coffee buying dilettantes, and felt an imperative to undertake coffee buying with an activist mindset.

Next came a fortuitous Seattle friendship and through this a bunch of supportive roaster mates in the Pacific Northwest. Roll on a year or so. Then you came along! The rest is still yet to unfold.

“We”, then, are the coffee buying team of Melbourne-based Small Batch Roasting Co., which was founded in 2009 and remains lovingly attended to by a small team led by Andrew Kelly. Michelle Stoler rounds out our green buying team from Portland, Oregon, where she also manages sales and US operations. On the ground in Nariño, Colombia, Frank Torres facilitates valuable relationships and provides insights and trainings in sustainable coffee production. Additionally, we are logistically supported by many great friends and partners in Huila, Colombia. We exist to share the source.