About Sourcing & Processing Single-Origin Beans
We source from all around the word. As collective members, we source, profile, and roast coffee in a shared operation. The regions our Specialty Grade coffees come from will be outlined here. We will highlight our favorite locations as well.
Regions of Central and South America
Our favorites.....Colombia, Peru, and Costa Rica...
Our Colombian Specialty-Grade beans are from the Tolima region of Colombia. A small group of farmers formed the Cafe del Macizo in 2003 in the countryside municipality of Planadas, in the state of Tolima. With 59 lifetime growers, the group shares decades of knowledge and resources with each other to produce high quality coffee. Located in the foothills of Cordillera Central, the beautiful mountains shape the lush landscape. The coffee is Washed and Sun Dried to produce beans that are medium acidity, with rounded body and cupping profile of Dark Chocolate, Mango, and Peach with nice complexity.
Our Coffee of Peru comes from the northern Amazonian Andes. The coop began with just 35 small farmers in 2003, but now the Asociacion de Productores Cafealeros Juan Marco El Palto (JUMARP), also known as El Palto, contains 40 women in the 189 coop members, with approximately 550 hectares of organic and Fair Trade Certified coffee in production. Their mission is to increase production and profitability in specialty coffee to increase each member family's income. The coffee comes from an altitude of 1,600-1,800 M and is Washed. The beans have medium acidity, smooth body, with lemon, herbal and chocolate cupping notes.
Mallard Express Coffee and Tea sources from Tarrazu, Costa Rica, where the cooperative runs around the clock. With more than 4,650 members from Tarrazu, within the province of San Jose, Cooperativa de Caficultores de Tarrazu RL (Coopetarrazu) is designed to receive cherries from many small farms and consistently process their coffee into a regional blend. Every processing day, a parade of vehicles of all sizes, arrive in the afternoon full of cherries that were picked that day. The cherries are weighed and placed in a large tank with water to remove the less dense beans that float to the top. Then the cherries are depulped and pass through a demucilager that mechanically strips the mucilage from the beans. All done with a recycled water system. The washed beans move down from the wet-mill through a long elevated conveyor belt into a machine that uses forced air to shed any remaining water. The coffee then passes through a series of dryers to gently reduce the moisture to 11 percent. All of this happens in a matter of 72 hours, with zero minutes of delay. Then the coffee is rested for a period of about a month in silos and then milled for export with another series of machinery dedicated to dehulling and sorting green beans by weight and color. Coopertarrazu has an intricate model of income diversification with a profitable agriculture supply store and grocery store. Cooperative members have access to low interest loans and healthcare. The coffee of Costa Rica is from Volcanic loam soil. The cupping notes are of pineapple juice, blackberry, almond brightness, and is sweet and complex.
Africa
Our Favorites from Africa: Uganda and Kenya
Coffee sourced from the Rwenzori mountains of Uganda is 100% Arabica Coffee grown 1500M-2000M above sea level. The farmers who grow the coffee are part of a farmer - owned and governed cooperative called Busongora North Coffee Farmers' Cooperative. Over 500 familes participate in the cooperative as small share contributors. Our farmers are registered and assigned a unique identification number that enables us to trace our coffee back to their farmlands. They are all trained to carry out good agricultural practices which help us achieve a good quality bean. All of the coffee is received, sorted, and processed at two primary wash stations within Kajole, Kithoma & Kaswa Parishes, located with close proximity to our farmers. Once it is optimally dried at the wash stations, it is dry milled in Kases, cupped, and prepared for export. This coffee helps the educated growers to carry out sustainable, organic agricultural practices that produce high quality specialty coffees. All of our coffee is traceable back to the land it was produced. The long term vision is to support a path to break cycles of generational poverty. They are equipped with knowledge to be self-sustaining and forward thinking which helps them improve their livelihood. The coffee from Uganda is full and balanced with notes of brown sugar and caramel.
The coffee of Kenya is sourced from New Runyenjes FCS and Processing Style. The cooperative system of production has members that vote on representation, marketing and milling contracts for their coffee, as well as profit allocation. New Runyenjes Farmers Cooperative Society (FCS), is an umbrella organization that represents 3 factories (centralized wet mills), including Kangundu, Nduuri, and Ena. Their management is consulting on ideal management of diverse farms, including sustainable farming trainings and literature. The society also pre-finances their members for pre-harvest inputs and harvesting labor as well as school fees. At the factory, Ena collects cherry from members daily throughout the harvest months. The cherry is sorted on arrival for ripeness and consistency and then blended together for processing: coffee is de-pulped with a disc pulper (large, impressive multi-channel machines originally manufactured in India), is fermented overnight, washed in fresh water and moved to raised screen tables to dry, a process that takes 2-3 weeks depending on local climate and ambient temperatures. After drying is complete, the coffee is conditioned in large perforated bins on site to allow moisture to stabilize, preparing the coffees for transit and a long shelf life. The established milling and sorting by grade, or bean size, is a longstanding tradition and positions Kenya coffees well for roasters, by tightly controlling the physical preparation and creating a diversity of profiles from a single processing batch. The coffee is fully washed and dried on raised beds. Harvest is April - July and October-December. It has cupping notes of Cherry, Grapefruit, Kiwi, Caramel Bright Acidity, with a smooth finish.
Indonesia and Papua New Guinea
Our Favorites from this region: Sumatra and Papua New Guinea
The unique microclimates of Sumatra encourage slow cherry development, producing coffees with distinctive earthy depth and layered complexity. Coffee is a cornerstone crop in the region, providing income for thousands of smallholder farmers across remote villages. Produced by smallholder farmers who typically cultivate coffee on 1–2 hectare plots, this coffee is part of a long tradition of community-driven agriculture. Farmers often hand-pulp and ferment the coffee locally, using simple methods passed down through generations. Many communities invest in shade-tree planting and soil stewardship to maintain long-term productivity and protect their surrounding ecosystems. This lot is classified as GR1 DP (Grade 1, Double Picked) meaning it has undergone careful hand-sorting twice to meet the highest quality standard for export. It is processed using wet-hulling (Giling Basah), a traditional Indonesian method where parchment coffee is hulled at a higher moisture content than fully washed coffees. This unique step, combined with Sumatra’s humid climate, contributes to the region’s hallmark profile: syrupy body, deep spice notes, and tea-like finish.
One of the most culturally diverse nations in the world with over 800 native languages, the South Pacific country of Papua New Guinea occupies the eastern half of the Island of New Guinea, the world’s second largest island, in addition to 600 offshore islands. 16 PNG coffee producing provinces (90% of production occurs in the Eastern and Western Highlands, Jiwaka, Morobe, and Chimbu provinces) provide income to 400,000 rural households, as most coffee is exported. The coffee grown here has cupping notes of balanced body, medium to high acidity, citrus, floral, Jasmine and Caramel.
