green coffee buying

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## green coffee buying
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# disclaimer: if you're looking for the marketing spiel, something that reads like an AI splurged some buzz words onto the screen, you won't find it here...the reality of green coffee buying for small time roasters like dialect is not such a beautiful story of sustainability and direct relationships with producers. you can read about the reality in this short article (8 mins read) i recently wrote: "green coffee buying for the professional hobbyist".

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# green coffees journey from seed to cup
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if we consider a coffee's journey from plant to port in the producing country, it's fascinating but beyond our scope as a roaster - we will leave this to the farmers, producers, co-operatives and exporters to generate and add value at the start of the supply chain. 

importing coffee from the port in the producing country into the european network can be a convoluted job and this is another process that we rely on our suppliers for.

mark attended Raw Material's Plant to Port course in Colombia 2025, literally following the coffee's journey from a seed in the nursery, through its growth in the field, harvesting, post-harvest processing, sale at purchase point and preparation for export. mark's working on a write-up as we speak...

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# suppliers
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our roastery is a small operation, we buy less than 30 kg of green coffee every month.

buying decisions rely on importers who have established networks in producing countries - no direct trade here...

there's just no way to feasibly integrate a secondary business at this scale - it's a matter of time, knowledge and skills that we don't have. so, we entrust our suppliers to continue and develop their relationships with exporters and producers and bring in coffees that coincide with the dialect vibe.

These are the importers we have purchased green coffee from:

• Raw Material
• Nordic Approach
• Primavera
• Cofinet
• Omwani
• Falcon (Micro)
• DRWakefield
• Cata Export
• INC specialty coffee

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# current practices
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For each coffee offered, we have:

• requested a sample of green (unroasted) coffee from the importers
• roasted small (50-100g) batches of the green coffee using a standard time-temperature profile using a sample roaster
• tasted each coffee and assigned levels of acidity and fruitiness, as well as a couple of flavour descriptors

Right now, we purchase small quantities of each coffee (approx. 24-35 kg, or 5-10 kg for ‘microlots’). As dialect's evolves, we can have more of an impact, but for now, we do what we can.

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