What does a green coffee buyer do – part 6: risk management

June 20, 2019

In this final post in the series “What does a green buyer do?” Alex explains the risks and benefits of buying on FOB terms.

What does a green coffee buyer do – part 5: shipping

June 6, 2019

Someone once told me, you have to babysit your coffee. Follow it everywhere it goes and make sure that it has what it needs to get out the door, so that is my main goal in this part of the season. Of course, every other buyer is doing the same, so Ethiopia is absolutely buzzing with anxious coffee professionals trying to be at the front of the line at each point in the process.

What does a green coffee buyer do, part 4: pre-contracting

May 29, 2019

There are many steps to making a purchase decision and flavour is just the beginning. The value chain has many checkpoints and several things can happen along the way. We’re dealing with a fresh moving product after all. It is crucial I understand what a sample represents, and how much of a commitment I must make to secure the lot.

What does a green coffee buyer do – part 3: first selections

May 22, 2019

Ethiopian coffees are renowned for needing some time to open up. One of the key skills a coffee buyer must hone is cupping fresh coffees. Buyers need to be able to taste beyond the astringency and muted flavours, to the coffee it will become.

Part 3 in a series first published on our Tropiq blog: What does a green coffee buyer do?

What does a green coffee buyer do – part 2: reporting

May 16, 2019

Reporting from origin means taking copious notes to capture both the technical details, and the emotions that run high when meeting the people who produce these coffees.

Part 2 in a series first published on our Tropiq blog: What does a green coffee buyer do?

What does a green coffee buyer do – part 1: planning

May 13, 2019

Many coffee professionals hear a coffee buyer talk about travel to exotic countries, and dream of doing the same one day. It is a fantastic job and I feel so privileged to be able to do this work, but there are many misconceptions about the life of a green coffee buyer.

Part 1 in a series first published on our Tropiq blog: What does a green coffee buyer do?

Colombia & the Tarqui Cup

January 31, 2019

As some of you know, this wouldn’t be my first time in Colombia. Until May last year I was Nordic Approach’s green buyer there and visited this beautiful country several times a year. This time, in November 2018, I got the chance to experience this from a client’s perspective. I had met up with Kenji …

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Meet our neighbor: ROEST.

September 27, 2018

“Our goal from day one was to develop and manufacture a state of the art coffee roaster.” In this blog post, I am going to introduce you to ROEST and what is their story with sample roaster. A sample roaster is essentially a coffee roaster that was built with really small volume capacity in mind. …

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coffee cupping

How to choose green coffee for espresso

June 18, 2018

We, as an industry has come a long way from the traditional concept of espresso. It doesn’t have to be something strong and bitter anymore. Or perhaps, more importantly, it can be a lot more than that. Let’s start by acknowledging that all different styles of espresso have its place and that the important part …

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