I’ve used Sweet Maria’s Coffee as my green coffee supplier since I began roasting. Not only do they provide a wealth of information about coffee and home roasting, but I love their approach to coffee buying! Most coffee buyers find out how low of a price they can pay for their beans and then find a farm willing to sell for that low. Sweet Maria’s takes an entirely different approach. They travel around the world to find good, small farms that have high quality beans–and then pay them what the beans are worth, which ends up being 50-100% higher than Fair Trade minimums. They maintain relationships with the farms and are able to verify that the good prices they pay are making it to the people who do the work and also being used to reinvest to improve bean quality even more in the future.
I like knowing that a product that I enjoy consuming every day is ethically sourced and high in quality, and I’m looking forward to passing that part of the story on to you!