Because we are vertically integrated, we control quality each step of the way.  To put it differently, we can't blame anyone else for quality lapses!  We start by buying coffee beans directly at the farms, by working directly with the farm and its coffee-grower cooperative, if any.  We have a unique system of buying coffee based on price per quality, as measured by the SCAA cupping standards score.  When we purchase coffee from our growers, we start with a minimum price (usually higher than the Fair Trade® price). We then complete payment based on the cupping score of a random sample.  We regularly provide feedback to our farmers as to how to increase their cupping score by teaching them modern, sustainable cultivating and processing techniques, beyond simply gathering and harvesting. This technology-transfer step is one of the most important and for us the most rewarding. There is no better feeling that seeing a farmer beam when his cupping score increases and s/he gets a higher price after s/he followed a recommendation that we made.  We accept coffee from farmers and/or their cooperatives "en pergamino" (in parchment). We store our pergamino coffee in climate-controlled warehouses in Bolivia, Costa Rica & Brazil.

Only when we have enough pergamino coffee to fill a shipping container, and we are ready to export it, we finish processing by removing the pergamino and separating the beans by size according to graded screens and by hand-selecting and removing coffee bags with faults and/or defects and low cupping score. Our coffee, even at our lowest grade, is so good because we use these time-consuming but necessary quality-assuring steps.  Ask your current coffee suppliers if they know how their coffee was harvested, processed, packed and shipped to its final destination.  We follow --and are responsible for-- our coffee beans from the farm gate until they are delivered to our customers.  This is why we can tell you with certainty in which terroir our coffee was grown and who the farmer was who labored and made it its pride and joy.  Cupping is done first by our own buyers and then confirmed in our own cupping labs.

Any coffee with a score below 75 is rejected.  We ask the farmer to replace it with acceptable coffee; we do not ask for our money back.  The higher the score, the higher our price.  Thus, our farmers are monetarily incentivized to improve the quality of their coffee because their coffee will not be blended with those from other growers and averaged down.  Because cooperatives provide important services (technical assistance, short-tem credit, moral support and friendship) we provide coffee-grower cooperatives with grants and percentage of sales contributions when coffee is bought directly from one of their members.  Each coffee lot is then labeled and warehoused separately.  We also pay the cooperatives separately when we use their processing facilities.

Almost all coffee in Bolivia and Costa Rica is grown by small family farms that do not have the capacity to grow the minimum commercial international shipment.  Not so in Brazil, the world's larges coffee producer, where we also only work with small farms or estates.  Because we do our own exporting, we keep coffees separated by grower and grade at origin until we complete a container. Our farmers appreciate our approach and actively seek us when they have an exceptional crop.  Exceptional (cupping scores above 84 points) coffees are kept separate and bagged in 15 kilo vacuum-packed foil bags (or sealed  plastic bags inside a burlap bag) at origin before exporting them to the US, (a technique we pioneered commercially).  Such exceptional coffees are sold as Microlots.  Traditional coffee exporters mix together coffees from several growers until a container is filled, where the quality becomes the lowest common denominator.  We believe ours is a better way to supply quality green coffee beans.  Our vacuum-packed  green coffee, when opened, still has the fresh, nutty and  flowery aroma of "new crop" beans, even after a couple of years of storage. Our GrainPro®-bagged coffee has similar attributes even after one year of storage.