Team

Luis Arocha

Senior Green-Coffee Buyer

Luis was born and raised in Guatemala City, where he lived until 2014. He studied commercial engineering and worked for seven years at the family company. He was not focused on coffee until 2010, when he started having business meetings with coffee producers and exporters on behalf of the company he was working for at that time, as he was in charge of commercializing moisture absorbents as packaging material to protect green coffee during shipments. These constant meetings with coffee people woke in Luis a huge interest in the coffee industry, and soon he was learning as much as he could. He always had a passion for agricultural products and business; in coffee Luis found the right combination of doing business and working among amazing people.

 In 2013, I studied the “Master in Coffee Economics and Science” with illycafè at the University of Udine and the University of Trieste. For seven months, he lived in Italy and had the opportunity to experience the Italian coffee culture. This experience changed my perception about the coffee world and made him certain that he wanted to work in the industry. 

After finishing his degree, Luis returned to Guatemala for a couple of months, and then was in contact with Cafe Imports after seeing an open position on the sourcing team advertized on Twitter. He instantly sent his C.V. After a Skype meeting and an interview at the headquarters in Minneapolis, he got the job! In May 2014 he joined the Café Imports crew, and took his first sourcing trip to Africa. Now he is part of the sourcing team with the goal of acquiring the best coffees in the world.

Luis is also known as “Lucho,” which is a nickname for Luis. 

You can follow me on Instagram @luis_arochau.