How We Source Our Coffee
On The Ground In Producing Countries
Understanding cultures, developing long-lasting relationships, exchanging knowledge and learning about coffee production is the foundation which Will built for River Coffee during his time living, working and learning on coffee farms in South and Central America. We call this relationship coffee.
We still prioritise making visits to origin and remain committed to ensuring we are connected to the people and places we source coffee from.
We are proud to have direct, personal relationships with producers spanning over seven years, including some producers who welcomed Will onto their farms when he first set foot in Latin American to live, learn and experience the heart of the industry firsthand. We have open communication with these producers and a commitment to a long-lasting sustainable working relationship.
Carlos Montero and his family are a brilliant example of the longstanding relationships we are proud to have with producers. From harvesting coffee cherries and learning from pickers on the Don Eli farm in 2017 to welcoming Carlos and his son to the roastery in the UK four years later and revisiting Don Eli in 2024, you can read the full story in our Photo Essay.
Read A Photo Essay: River Coffee And The Montero Family
Building Relationships with Small Scale Producers
We invest time to visit and develop relationships with small scale producers, helping to find ways to improve quality and export their coffees. We’ve found some small-scale isolated farms are producing amazing quality coffee and we are proud to work with these producers and communities and roast these coffees for you.
Learning From One Another and Growing Sustainably Together
We love listening and learning to producers talk about their journey with coffee, their inspiration and aspirations they have for the future. We really believe that talking and listening is crucial for building long term happy and lasting relationships, resulting in us all benefitting and growing together.
On the ground in producing countries, we are always interested in hearing what producers are doing to farm more sustainably. In Central America, there are some fantastic examples of producers practicing agroforestry, purchasing fallow farms and allowing the land to return to its natural habitat before planting coffee within the forest, improving the health of the land and the coffee that is produced.
On a visit to South India in 2024 we learnt about the practice of shade-grown coffee. Growing coffee under the canopy of trees has environmental and economic benefits including preserving the biodiversity that already exists and planting coffee trees around this, maintaining soil health and improving the climate resilience of coffee trees.
Read Our Origin Report From Our Trip to India
Direct Trade Coffee
We operate a direct trade model to source our coffee, buying only specialty graded coffee and paying a fair and transparent price to coffee producers that is above and beyond the Fairtrade base price. While we are not able to visit, build relationships and source coffee in every producing country, we work closely with carefully selected suppliers who are dedicated to working directly with their producer partners. This way we can ensure the premiums we pay go directly to the producers who grew the coffee. Working with trusted export and import partners lets us explore new origins and bring a variety of flavour to our coffee offering.
We only buy specialty coffee and practice science-based quality control. Specialty coffee is defined as coffees scoring 80+ on the SCA and CQI score sheets and have no primary defect in the cup of green coffee. We aim to source coffees scoring X for all our single origins.
