Sourcing trips make up the bulk of our travel this year and every year, as we spend several days in cupping labs, visiting farms, and speaking directly with producers and exporters about the year’s harvest and what is available for purchase. Experience is not required to attend these trips, but they are designed around roasters’ intent to identify and pre-book coffees for their upcoming menus.
Coffee 101 is open to any student of coffee who is curious, committed, and learns by doing. Brand-new baristas and seasoned roasters alike come away from this trip with new information, insight, and context for coffee production, and we see and taste the entire process up close and personal. No experience necessary; purchasing coffee is not a primary focus, but there will be opportunities to identify and contract lots.
Coffee Auctions are also on the horizon for this year, and we’ll start the auction season with an exploratory trip to El Salvador, in the interest of developing a cupping competition and auction with a group of smallholder producers with whom we have partnered in Chalatenango. This will be our first time pursuing this type of experience in El Salvador, and we’d love to bring a large group of roasters along to build enthusiasm and provide support for the event, which has the potential of directly affecting and improving the lives and the coffees of several dozen farmers.
