Building Relationships with Coffee Farmers

[green beans]

So I have looked at a lot of different green coffee suppliers webpages and talked to a few. Some seem to have a stronger connection with the farmers whom actualy grow the coffee.

I want to know how a coffee roaster can make strong connections with coffee growers from all over the world?

Is it that these roasters buy their coffee from the more farmer/origin concious suppliers or that these roasters actualy get the beans dirrectly from the farmers???

If they do get the beans from the farmers how do they make that connections????

Thank you in advance for any insight here.

 

[cafemakers]

Are you buying from farms directly or through a broker? You should make arrangements through them to visit the farm, review the growing conditions, cupping coffees and start developing those relationships.

The best coffee roasters have personnel that spend several months working on-location with these farmers - it doesn't happen overnight.

 

[Alun_evans]

Andrew is right...it takes time. I am bloody lucky because I obviously live and roast in a producing country. Even so, I struggle to spend enough time every year with the farming communities I work with. I need to clone myself about 10 times over, then I think I could just about manage it. My advice would be to schedule time to spend in origins working in a growing community. The trick would be to try and identify communities that currently do not benefit from direct relationships with roasters. Probably best to look at origins that are close by- or ones where you have language skills. In Indonesia for example most farmers speak no english and often no Indonesian! Rather they use one of the 300 different languages that are sprinkled around this vast country.

Anyway good luck. I always like to see roasters establishing direct relationships where possible with growing communities.