Shared Source is a green coffee agency that facilitates robust, transparent and equitable exchange between criteria-driven roasters and small producers. We practice a model that empowers these artisans to farm regeneratively and to make a real living from coffee.

Willington Ultengo’s coffee from his small, 2 hectare farm Los Naranjos in La Argentina, Huila (Colombia!) is miraculously still available at the Green Room. This was a tiny lot- only 3 bags- but it was too good to pass up on, and we’re a committed buyer of Willington’s coffee. This is a great chance for a smaller roaster to pick up a full lot! Willington is a treat to work with- he’s experimenting with processing, planting new varietals on his farm, and actively transitioning away from chemical inputs on his farm. He leaves his coffee cherries to ferment under controlled conditions for 24 hours, before de-pulping cherries and fermenting for another 24 hours in an open tank before drying under shade cloth. This beaut of a coffee is juicy, and tastes like fresh cranberry with a velvety and lasting deep brown sugar sweetness. Have you had his coffee before? Let us know what you loved about it! DM or email to get samples- you know you want to. ✍️

As we receive another container of Colombia farmgate purchases into Seattle, we’re prompted by the many conversations about coffee pricing lately- at Re:Co, throughout SCA, and reflections from importers and others also worried about how to ensure that farmers get a fair price for coffee. This has been a question for Shared Source since our founding, and it informs the core of our business- primarily, our work in Colombia and Guatemala purchasing coffee in parchment, at farmgate prices paid in local currency directly to the bank accounts of coffee producers. Do you want to know how much a producer got paid for a coffee that you purchased from us? Shoot us a message- we strive for transparency. Want more context to understand the number we share with you? We’ll share local market prices when we purchased the coffee as a piece of context to the pricing. When we calculate fair pricing, we consider a variety of factors, including cup quality, agricultural practices and a commitment to transitioning away from chemical inputs, and local costs to continue improving quality. We ask producers what they would want to earn to be proud to see their children continue in coffee, and we rely on others’ trailblazing work to calculate the costs of production in each origin. Like all work in coffee, it’s an imperfect system, but by paying farmgate prices ourselves, we take the guessing out of calculating how much producers earn.

It’s parchment season! Our small team is busy evaluating samples, supervising dry milling, and coordinating transport logistics. In Colombia and Guatemala we pay farm-gate prices, purchasing coffee in parchment directly from producers to ensure that they receive a fair price that reflects quality- both in the cup, and in their sustainable agricultural practices. Buying in parchment means that we manage the dry milling process as well: from density sorting to loading trucks, we’re deeply involved. These bags pictured in Colombia have now been loaded onto the truck, and they’re at the port to ship out later this week. This will be our sixth (and last) container out of Colombia- until the fresh pickings return in fall! Need Colombian coffee before then? Reach out to receive samples!💌

We’re still reflecting after a week in Guatemala, where producers are worried and uncertain about their future in coffee production with low market prices. Those who have diversified income sources without depending entirely on coffee are those who will fare the best- for example, Amelia, Homero and their son Billy process coffee at their home, while their daughter manages a small cyber cafe from inside their home. They were able to save enough to build space in their home for this additional business only after having migrated to the United States to live there for several years, far away from their families. Market prices don’t cover their cost of production, especially not the cost to produce quality coffee- this includes additional paying workers more to only pick ripe cherries, floating to sort out immature and overripe cherries, and carefully calibrating their wet mill to screen out cherry pulp from the fermenting beans (… and the list goes on). If they can earn a profit, they’d love to invest in shade cloth or raised beds to assist with even drying- but for now, whether or not they’ll have money to reinvest in their farms and processing remains to be seen. Here at Shared Source we’re carefully evaluating how much coffee we can buy, so we can let farmer partners know what our purchasing intentions are. Let us know about your volume intentions so we can calculate our purchases even better- feel free to send an email, send a courier pigeon, hire a skywriter- whatever your preferred method, we’d love to hear from you as soon as you can.

⚡️Fresh crop Colombia microlots are in!⚡️ This container represents the best of our work: the cultivation of long-term relationships with producers to pay transparent prices for high-quality lots. We’ve worked closely with Yamid Quinayas and his mother Edilma pictured here for many years now, and they know that they can count on us to return season after season to purchase their coffee. With the confidence that we’ll return to pay fair prices, they’ve taken extra steps to invest in the quality of their production, including processing varietals separately (like Yamid’s 100% Tabi lot that just arrived) and building a new two-story dryer with the help of a zero-interest loan from us. Edilma’s coffee has been added into our micro-regional blend, Amigos del Huila- which happens to be tasting better than ever right now. Coffees from Yamid and Edilma are available now- Get in touch if you want to join us in our support of the Quinayas family.

Amigos! Come join us in a rare opportunity to cup with Andrew and Michelle together during Andrew’s flash visit to Portland. We’ll have fresh hot microlots from Colombia being unloaded in Seattle right now, and a few other surprises too. And amigos in Seattle? The trip down is not far at all. If Andrew can come to Portland from Melbourne (via Colombia at that!), you can travel from Seattle. We can’t wait to share these lots with our friends, new and old. Plan to be there, and see you soon! ⚡️✨🥄

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