Coffee Sourcing Transparency

UPDATE: We wrote more on the why & how of transparency in Fresh Cup Magazine -- read the full story here!

A few weeks ago we were discussing our current projects with a customer who has been with us since the very early days of barismo. Looking back on where we have come since 2008, they noted one of our defining qualities has been that we've never settled with where we are, and always are working on the next project. That pursuit and advocacy of quality has taken many forms over the years and has helped push our local & national coffee market.

Still, in some ways the coffee market today is harder than ever for a consumer to navigate; alongside genuinely great coffees on the market there are cheap coffees dressed up in the same way, packaged and marketed to mimic progressive quality coffee. No matter how many pictures of farms and slick branding accompanies the coffee, at the end of the day they're still the same "black box" blends that don't tell you what's in them, roast dates hidden or unlabeled, and the coffee itself simply being cheap & poor quality.

The best way we can respond to this is by becoming even more transparent; this year, we are making a move to full pricing transparency for our coffees. We're proud of the prices we are able to pay farmers & how they have increased each year. We fully own that we don't sell the cheapest coffee in the market by a long shot; our business is in quality coffee, and in order to get quality you have to pay farmers more money for their coffee. We have made a concerted effort over the years to build our business in a way so that we can reward producers for their work & the risks they take in pursuit of quality. We've often shared this information casually across the counter when talking coffee sourcing with customers, and we have taken the step this year to fully publish what we pay for coffee.

The coffee prices we paid for this year's arrivals are listed below. The prices are per pound green coffee. Every country we work in and source coffee from has a different dynamic between farmers, millers, exporters and contracts; based on that, we have listed one or two different prices: Free On Board (FOB), which is the price for the coffee delivered in a container to the ship dock, and Exit Warehouse Price, the cost to us once the coffee leaves the warehouse in the United States on its way to us.

After the coffee arrives, we have to pay for the cost of origin travel, truck freight, handling, rent, gas, electricity, equipment, bags, labels, QC, and labor (in addition to extra costs of running a business — accounts receivable/collections, accounting, insurance, taxes, etc). During the roasting process itself, green coffee loses 17% of its mass during the roasting process as water weight. In this light we believe that quality coffee is an incredible value in light of all the hands and expenses that are involved from the coffee nursery to the coffeebar.

Our average Landed Price in 2015 is $3.90 per pound. In comparison the commodity coffee price (C-market price) today ranges from $1.20 - $1.60 per pound, the same price that was being paid in the 1980’s; everything has gotten more expensive over the past 30 years, but the majority of coffee farmers are still making the same amount of money.

Coffee	Relationship	Origin	FOB	Exit Warehouse	Pounds Green Coffee
Buena Esperanza (Hacienda Santa Rosa)	Direct	Guatemala	$4.25	$4.54	3,800
Pena Blanca (Hacienda Santa Rosa)	Direct	Guatemala	$2.75	$3.04	21,432
Cerro Verde (Hacienda Santa Rosa)	Direct	Guatemala	$3.00	$3.29	6,080
Finca Santa Ana	Direct	Guatemala	$4.25	$4.85	3,040
El Xalum	Direct	Guatemala	$4.00	$4.58	5,420
El Bosque	Direct	Guatemala	$3.95	$4.51	10,100
Jardin De Aromas	Direct	Costa Rica	$3.25	$3.60	3,040
La Bandera El Quetzal	Direct	Costa Rica	$4.00	$4.35	2,280
La Lia Santa Rosa 1900	Direct	Costa Rica	$4.25	$4.60	760
Genesis Oscar	Direct	Costa Rica	$4.75	$5.10	760
Meridiano AA	Direct	Colombia		$4.00	3,040
Matahara	Importer Contract	Ethiopia		$4.18	3,800
Abysinian Mocca	Importer Contract	Ethiopia		$4.40	3,040
Gitare AB	Importer Contract	Kenya		$4.10	1,980
Finca Santa Leticia Pamon	Importer Contract	El Salvador		$4.25	1,520
Mario Doroteo Perez AA	Importer Contract	Honduras		$3.90	3,040
Manuel Adan AAA	Importer Contract	Honduras		$4.35	1,520
Tupac Amaru	Importer Contract	Peru		$4.40	1,824
Average Exit Warehouse Price: $3.90

For love of coffee

2015 marks our 7th year offering up fresh roast and per cup.  While a lot has changed (see dwelltime, Cambridge Cold Brew), a lot of our core love of coffee is still there.  The weather is just dreadful right now but it's a great time to look back before we look forward to the rest of the year.

I started in coffee a decade ago at a time when there were nearly all dark roasts being offered at local cafes. Mystery blends without roast dates made it pretty hard to find great coffee.  That doesn't even cover the lack of good tools and equipment back then.  These days, things have changed a bit and the equipment is getting to be a non issue and it shows.  More coffee shops are doing latte art and the execution has become better in our scene.  These days, there are still mostly dark roast blends at coffee shops in town and while you hear and see 'single estate' used a lot, there isn't that much of it actually being served.  Shops and roasters are really laying into 'freshly roasted' but it is surprisingly hard to find whole bean that's less than ten days off roast.  The messaging has evolved but there is a lot of room to grow in terms of the quality.  Meanwhile, the national 'indie' coffee scene is obsessed with venture capital, acquisitions, aggressive expansion, and (quietly) exit strategies but those topics are less discussed locally.  It's easy to be overwhelmed by it all.

In some ways, I am back where I started when I founded this company.  I find myself asking some of the same questions.  How do we (continue to) do what we do in a community of shops where so many shop owners may be pulling in the opposite direction?  After a lot of thought, I realized that we just have to acknowledge that barismo is on a mission.  We love coffee and just happen to also be lucky enough to have found a community of coffee drinkers that let's us be a little nerdy and obsessed about great coffee.  We have a complex business and a bit of an uphill trek but sometimes you just have to focus on what matters.  So, here's a break down of what our core goals are for 2015:

Fresh Roast  We will continue to strive to be the only coffee brand you will consistently see on shelves locally that is delivering coffee 24 hours off roast. We want you to take it home and enjoy it in the first two weeks while it is fresh.

Fresh Brew  We will push for, wrangle up, and argue for the most attentive, detailed, and cared for brews we can muster.  We promise that while you may have to wait a little longer for a brew, it wasn't sitting around all day staling and waiting for you.

Transparency  We will never blend up a mystery bag or serve up a murky 'dark roast' that lacks farm identity.  We also promise to share as much as you can stand to listen to about our farm partners and their stories of quality improvement.  Without transparency, we'd be taking credit for their work and that's not very barismo.

Education  We promise to share our brew methods, offer up classes, organize farmer events, and host cuppings.

Value  We believe that value is built on everything from how the coffee was processed and stored to roasted and brewed.  We will do our best to make the case for what makes good coffee and why we invested in the farms we did.  We don't roast anything dark (nothing goes into second crack) and we will continue to avoid obscuring the quality farms have worked so hard to create. 

Redefine the Regular Coffee  People want to drink good coffee.  We don't assume you want to drink bad coffee.  If you come in our doors, we know you came looking for more and we will do our best to provide that cup.  We want the chance to make your regular everyday cup something special.

While we admit we're on a mission for great coffee, it is a labor of love.  We do all this and more because we think it matters and we hope you agree.  Sure, we might not be willing to compromise, but in the end, we hope you will see and appreciate the effort from seed to your cup.  We want you to enjoy the coffee while we say thank you for the support over the years.

Coffee tree tap handles!

Keep it local Camberville, MA: barismo's founder, Jaime van Schyndel gives a run down on some cool new tap handles at dwelltime.

Coldbrew on tap is the new big thing right now.  Cafes, offices, and restaurants are picking this as a new option for quick serve coffee.  There are pre-designed 'javarator' setups you can buy and even a reddit section dedicated to the kegging of iced coffee setups.  This is the next big thing in coffee!  

To celebrate the last two years of serving coldbrew on tap at dwelltime, I came up with a fun idea back in the spring:

While visiting El Bosque de Parramos in Guatemala this spring, I picked up a section of a coffee tree stump from a plot of the farm that had older plantings.  This was one of 5 branches coming off the main stump and was still alive.  Avelino himself cut the stump off and chose this particular piece of wood.

I brought the wood back and left it with our friends and Somerville neighbors at DGF.  After some curing and resting time, the wood was cut into three sections, sanded and prepped as tap handles for a kegged coldbrew setup.

One of the cool aspects of this old stump is that is was right along the pathway.  It has several scars along it's backside that came over the years.  Over time, different farm workers would sit roadside and have their lunch.  They would invariably leave their machete in the closest stump, to which this little tree was the victim a few times.  Kind of cool to think about how over the years, the scars tell a story.  

Coffee wood grows fast and is typically not good quality.  The older varietals that are less dwarfed can get to 20ft tall and this is the type of heirloom bourbon we ended up sawing off to make our handles.  This particular stump may have had 20 years on this branch to get to this size.  It's color is a bit like poplar but it has a slight tint of green to the bark and wood.  Needless to say, I am excited to see how it ages and colors with time.

While we can't guarantee coffee wood tap handles for your setup, we can help you with a no fuss install and consistent quality product if you are in the Boston/Cambridge area.  If you are interested in serving coldbrew on tap locally or having this in your office, let us know.  We have been refining the process and have a separate division dedicated to expanding this.  We already have offices and clients across the spectrum setup for coldbrew coffee and tea on tap but are looking for some exciting new places to get this concept into while it's still hot outside. 

  

NOW Roasted In Somerville

After some hurdles, we are now roasting in our new space! Our first full day of production roasting was on Monday. While we weren't planning on a few of the hurdles that set back the move until the last few days of June, the silver lining was that the majority of our 2014 crop coffees are just getting to port in the next 2 weeks, so we had to move just a quarter of the amount of coffee from 171 Mass Ave, Arlington to our new home at 14 Tyler Street, Somerville.

We took last Thursday to move over, and brought over some extra hands to help with moving bags of coffee. Among the many positives to our new roastery is the addition of a loading dock; many of our long time customers have seen us in the past having pallets of coffee dropped off on the sidewalk, then carrying them one at a time through the roastery and downstairs to our basement storage. Pallet jacks and forklifts are lightening the load quite a bit.

Along with the change in location, we've switched the actual roaster we use. Our trusty pair of 4 kilo roasters has served us well, but we had reached near maximum roasting capacity. Late last year we purchased a 12 kilo Probat coffee roaster and have been refurbishing it inside & out. We've been happy with the results so far, and you should expect a positive difference in our coffees going forward.

We're spending most of this week and next working out some of the logistics of our wholesale operation here. By the middle of the month we'll have updates with events & classes at the new space. While it's not a retail store or coffeebar, there'll be plenty of opportunity through the rest of the summer to get to see our new home.

Coffee Updates

We've released some new coffees over the past few weeks from this years crop of coffees out of Kenya & Ethiopia; in addition to Doppleganger (on our last blog update), we've released Homunculus (a 50/50 blend of coffees from two different mills in the same region of Ethiopia), and Kochere Grade 1 (one of the components of Homunculus). We have a second wave of coffees from Ethiopia & Kenya already lined up for later this summer.

We're expecting the boat carrying our coffees from Costa Rica to arrive at port in New Jersey on July 8th. It should take another week upon arrival to clear customs, then we'll be able to bring these coffees -- Jardin de Aromas & Bandera de Dota -- up to Somerville!
Confirming more good news & arrival details from Guatemala today; we'll have a further update for you next week!

Local innovation needs coffee, local coffee needs a little innovation: @Clypd #Somerville

Keep it local Somerville, MA: barismo's founder, Jaime van Schyndel gives a shout out to a local tech company that brought support for a local roasting company.

Caffeinate and innovate.  One of the great things about being nestled into this area is that we are surrounded by great ideas and forward thinking companies.  There are some seriously cool people doing the next big thing.  Sometimes, we get to play a tiny role in fueling that!

Over at Clypd in Somerville's Davis Sq., they have a full tap setup of Cambridge Coldbrew.  They started with cold coffee and quickly moved into adding our direct trade coldbrew tea as well.  We were surprised with how easy it was to install as they already had a small kegerator for beer.  The second surprise is how much they go through!  They were up and running in no time, we just had to put an extra keg out there for them.

We want to give a shout out to those folks for being the spark to get us moving on this project.  A big thanks to the folks over at Clypd for bringing us into their family and for tuning us into the ideas driven culture around us.

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NEW COFFEE!!!  

Our much beloved and adored doppelganger espresso is back and fittingly it's to be one of our first Somerville production roasts.  It will appear online and on retail shelves this weekend!

A pairing of two Kenyas, this coffee is lightly roasted to get it to sing some delicious notes of fruit and floral.  It's juicy and sweet, great as espresso, coldbrew, or as a drip coffee.

TEDxCambridge : June 5th 5pm, 

We are a coffee sponsor!   If you were one of the lucky ones to have booked a ticket, we will be right there with you keeping your energy up with great coffee!  (Check out our new espresso cart at this event).

A huge thanks to the organizers of TEDxCambridge for letting us be there to support!  See TEDxCambridge for more details on their spring event.