About 4 years ago we noticed . . .an international mystery

Ethiopian coffee has always been our favorite, but there has always been a weird reshuffle of the business every few years, usually due to a governmental change triggered by something behind the scenes. We wanted to figure out what was going on this time.

What happens when an experimental farm and a micromill work hand in hand for five years?

Finca Juan Martin and Manos Juntas are two different projects, both striving to make coffee production more profitable for producers and consistently delicious for consumers, all under the Banexport umbrella. Banexport is our longstanding partner and friend, sourcing and exporting many of our Cauca, Huila, and Nariño offerings. Their commitment to quality, sustainability, and economic equality for producers is exemplified in their projects, particularly Finca Juan Martin and Manos Juntas.

Introducing our Education Team

We couldn’t be more excited to announce the addition of two new faces to Cafe Imports, representing our Education team.

Ethiopia Purchase Planning

We have designed our purchase planning tools with you in mind to make buying coffee with us smoother than ever.

EU to UK Shipping Challenges & Solutions

As many of you will be aware, the first quarter of 2021 has seen innumerable delays with items shipping from the EU into the UK. With Brexit came the increased demand of new rules and requirements for importing goods, which would be handled by a logistics and customs workforce that had been badly affected by the pandemic.

A Series about Certifications, part 5 – Direct Trade

The mid-to-late 2000s saw the emergence of “direct trade” as coffee-sourcing concept that was designed to be something of an evolution of the certification programs that already existed in coffee at that time, specifically Fair Trade/Fairtrade. The benefits of those certifications seemed evident—organic certs provide environmental protection, Fair Trade provides financial protection—but lacked a component that was especially significant to specialty-coffee companies: cup quality.

A Series about Certifications, part 4 – Non-GMO

This fourth post covers the Non-GMO Project Verified Product certification. While this is not a common certification for coffee products, Cafe Imports has held Non-GMO Project certification since 2016 and we thought it might be valuable to share our reasoning and the requirements for this particular mark.  

A Series about Certifications, part 3 – Rainforest Alliance

In the third post of this series, we’ll take a close look at Rainforest Alliance (also known as Rainforest Alliance/UTZ or RFA/UTZ) certification, so you can explore the holistic nature of this program and its in-depth look at the environmental, social, and economic conditions coffee farmers face.  

Harvest Report: Colombia 2020

At this point, we’re all sick of updates and harvest reports that start with, “What a wild year this has been,” so we won’t make a whole production out of it: Simply put, coffee is never easy work, and these days that’s truer than almost ever before. This year has been a real test of the strength of our relationships, and while there have been a few setbacks, sadnesses, and disappointments, overall we have been shown the true power of commitments, partnerships, and of sticking together—as Cafe Imports founder and green-coffee buyer for Colombia Andrew Miller always says—through sickness and in health, in good times and bad. 

Which is to say, yes, there is some bad news—but it’s not all bad, we promise. (Read on.)

We’re Moving Warehouses!

We’d like to ask for a moment of your time to update you on our plans for the near future. After weighing all of the difficult choices that Brexit has put in front of our company, we have made the decision that beginning 4th January 2021, all of our unsold coffee inventory will be warehoused in Antwerp, Belgium. Aside from this transition, all of our services will remain the same, and our team will remain headquartered in Berlin. 

A Series about Certifications, part 1 – Organics 

If you’re curious about certifications, this series is for you: Over the course of several blog posts, we’ll explore some of the existing certifications that are available for specialty green coffee, including taking a look at their mission, standards, and whatever auditing or other requirements are important for you to know.