My entry into the coffee industry didn’t begin in a cafe behind an espresso machine. After a brief stint helping with a roaster start up in college, I kinda entered backwards, or maybe forwards. It began by working at the beginning of the supply chain from the ground up. And through that, I got to (and had to) quickly understand all that it took to farm, process and export coffee. And I’m still understanding just how hard of a job the beginning of the supply chain really is. It’s high risk, riddled with geo-political infused economics, often impacted by historical strife, and after all that it’s still an agricultural product. The rain has to fall, and the sun has to shine for coffee to properly grow. But then you have relationships, trust, and equity minded partners to be the glue. 

Farm Team is our commitment to sourcing coffee effectively from our network of farmers, producers and exporters through buying larger volume lots at an equitable price for all involved. We find most of these lots from our partners in Latin American and and some in East Africa that serve as a great fit for our Homestead, 3Peat, and Brute coffees. These are darker roasted style offerings to serve the vast majority of the market’s desire, served alongside our Core line of more sparkly offerings as well as our Seasonals - the pinnacle of our sourcing work and the top end of what specialty coffee is and can be.

To go a bit more into the brains behind this…

‘Economic junkies’ are what some have called us types. We’re talking economically minded solutions to historically skewed systems. Like most agricultural goods, there’s always going to be a spread of top grade, middle grade and bottom grade qualities from each harvest. This is how it works for most coffee farms or producers. 

So what are we going to do? Do we only buy the top % and say with our buying practices, ‘figure it out with the rest of your crop’? No way. That’s not being a real solution. Of course, we have to make sound decisions to run our business and won’t be a solution for all of these issues, but our vision and hope would be that if more and more equity minded specialty coffee buyers and roasters actually made these types of impactful decisions, we might be able to move the needle toward greater sustainability. 

Example: Coffee Farmer Produces 100 bags of coffee. 

• 30 Bags are High Grade 
• 50 Bags are Middle Grade
• 15 Bags are Lower Grade 
• 5 Bags are Lowest Grade or Defects

Questions we need ask to ourselves:  

• What problem are we solving if we go and buy 20 bags and claim we solved producer equity by buying and roasting just that top lot that scored nice, tasted the best, and not buy anything else? 
  
  
• Are we more concerned with cupping notes or farmer/producer equity? 
  
  
• Are we paying equitable prices for the middle grade coffees to ensure our partners meet their needs as a business?  
  
  
• Are we afraid to offer darker roasted coffees because it’s not as cool or doesn’t scream quality? 
  
  
• What is quality? 
  
  
• What is specialty coffee? 

What we do know is that for us, it’s coffee built on equitable relationships where everyone thrives and operates a sustainable business model for all involved. And we can supply that roasted coffee to customers who dig that style. 

Acknowledgements: 

Do we personally know the people or supply chain equity of every single coffee we buy? No - Not yet! But it is a central goal and what we are building to as we grow and bring greater order to our buying practices. 

Do we expect to be the solution for everyone? No way. We have to run our business and stay in our lane. 

Farm Team is our effort at being solution-minded for all involved. Liaise Coffees is roasting the finest coffees for everybody - Which includes the farmers, producers, and exporters that we couldn’t get these coffees without.