Where our coffee comes from

Omwani are a small team of East African sourcing specialists who started in 2018. They work across twelve countries - Burundi, Ethiopia, Kenya, Mozambique, Madagascar, Malawi, Rwanda, South Sudan, Tanzania, the DRC, Uganda and Zambia - and they describe what they do as sourcing "great coffee at fair prices, with none of the corporate smoke and mirrors". We have seen that first hand when working with them.

What sold us is the relationship-driven element to their work. Omwani keep a record on every coffee they sell, open to all their roasting partners, so we know exactly where a coffee came from, who grew it and what their story is. They also run producer-led projects where they ask producers what their community actually needs - coffee nurseries in Uganda, a water system at Kinama in Burundi that could supply around 5,000 people, a youth cooperative in Rwanda with Rwamatamu, and climate-resistant varietals in Kenya.

Majestic are an exporter and a group of farms based in La Plata, in Huila in southern Colombia. They put it simply - they're "people in love with coffee, who believe in sustainable business for producers, buyer and earth".

Their network is made up of people we can name. Yiver Vargas in La Plata, the Asmequidad women's association in the centre of Huila, Andrés Quintero in Palermo, and the Coffee Origen group in the south of the region. Majestic produce coffee themselves, work with those farmers on quality, handle the export, and put money back in.

We're in direct contact with Fernando at Majestic, which is about as short as our supply chain gets. If we've got a question about a lot we ask him and he tells us.

For us they're the Colombian backbone. Regional blends or microlots, conventional or organic, washed through to the more experimental processes, and cup scores between 84 and 88. Caturra, Bourbon, Pink Bourbon, Geisha and Pacamara all come through them.

Covoya are a specialty green coffee importer with a UK warehouse at Bury St Edmunds and European distribution out of Hamburg. They've been trading in this country a long time under different names - the company was Schluter, then Olam Specialty Coffee Europe, and became Covoya in November 2022. The name is collaboration and voyage stuck together.

Covoya carry a large range of origins, from Bolivia and Brazil through to Yemen, Laos and Papua New Guinea. They hold stock here in the UK so we can see what's actually available and where, and they run spot lots and a sample programme, so we can cup something before we commit to it. Their catalogue also carries certified, organic and women-produced lots.

Falcon Coffees is a specialty green coffee trade house based in Lewes in Sussex, and Falcon Micro is its microlot arm. Falcon work in sixteen countries, trade twenty-six origins, and say they're working with around 550,000 farmers on behalf of more than 1,300 roasters.

We buy through both. Micro comes packed in 1kg and 5kg units, which means we can buy a single interesting lot, roast it, cup it and put it in the shop without committing to a pallet. A lot of our more interesting coffees have started life as a single 5kg bag from Micro, including the Fazenda Pinhal further down this page.