the coffee

if you're looking for the marketing spiel, something that reads like chatGPT 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".

%% sourcing partners

When the roastery is small, buying only 48-70 kg of green coffee every month, buying decisions rely on importers who have established networks in producing countries. No direct trade here.

Right now, these are the importers we have purchased green coffee from:

• Raw Material
• Cofinet
• Primavera
• Omwani
• Falcon Micro
• DRWakefield
• Cata Export

Importing coffee takes a lot of work and there's no way I have the time or the skill to do it as well as these do. I therefore entrust them to continue and develop their relationships with exporters and producers. 

%% current practices

Right now, I purchase small quantities (approx. 20-40 kg, or 5-10 kg for ‘microlots’). For each coffee offered, i have:

• requested a sample of green (unroasted) coffee from the importers
• roasted small batches of the green coffee using a sample roaster
• tasted each coffee and assigned levels of acidity, bitterness and fruitiness, as well as a couple of flavour descriptors

As dialect's customer base grows, I will try to roast monthly but for now it's a pretty irregular thing - I'm trying, I promise!