In an office in Tepic, Mexico and another in Seattle, two icons of the spe­cialty cof­fee indus­try accom­plished what most want, many claim, but few achieve – real direct trade between grow­ers and roast­ers. James Kosalos and Devorah Zeitlin through their Mexican pro­cess­ing and export­ing com­pany Cafés Sustentables de México and their US import­ing com­pany San Cristobal Coffee Importers are directly involved with all ele­ments of the pro­duc­tion and sale of coffee.

There is a les­son to be learned from their expe­ri­ence and that is that direct trade is very dif­fi­cult, com­plex, and expen­sive. Spending 6 months of the year sta­tioned in Tepic, Kosalos has built the direct trade model from the ground up over sev­eral years of rela­tion­ship build­ing with grow­ers and frag­ile busi­ness rela­tion­ships with local ven­dors. Working with a hand­ful of small coop­er­a­tives clus­tered around the Tepic area, Kosalos has been able to estab­lish sym­bi­otic rela­tion­ships because he pur­chases their entire pro­duc­tion at higher prices. By doing so, he has been able to nudge, lead, and push grow­ers toward higher qual­ity farm-wide. This process has taken years.

Cupping and scor­ing cof­fee con­tin­u­ously, Kosalos estab­lishes a sta­tis­ti­cal basis for con­tin­u­ing improve­ment as well as estab­lish­ing its value and mar­ket chan­nel. Since CAFESUMEX takes title of the cof­fee at ori­gin, and then has to sell it in the States, this process is mis­sion crit­i­cal, albeit time con­sum­ing and dis­tract­ing from the array of other duties required to estab­lish the ver­ti­cal inte­gra­tion nec­es­sary for truly effec­tive direct trade.

Kosalos’ core pur­pose, and pas­sion, is to estab­lish a sta­tis­ti­cal basis for form­ing pre­dic­tive mod­els in order to sim­plify pro­cess­ing and to pro­vide buy­ers with stan­dard­ized com­pre­hen­sive label­ing doc­u­men­ta­tion from crop to cup. Elemental to this process is the intro­duc­tion in the farms he works with of the “PortaCafe” portable lab. Through using this lab, and espe­cially the cal­i­brated sam­ple roaster devel­oped by Kosalos, tech­ni­cians trained on the sys­tem can cup and grade each day’s pro­duc­tion at the wet mill using stan­dard­ized para­me­ters. These results then track the lot through export and ulti­mately to the con­sumer. Through this process, he believes, the high­est level of trans­parency and con­sis­tency can be achieved.

The strug­gle is bal­anc­ing the strict­ness of sta­tis­ti­cal absolutes with the foibles of human­ity because, after all, cof­fee is an indus­try of small busi­ness peo­ple both at ori­gin and else­where. And, in truth human­ity is really what it is all about for Kosalos. Pounding up the typ­i­cal 18km of washed-out kid­ney crush­ing road in one of Kosalos’ trade­mark ancient Volkswagon Bugs, the con­ver­sa­tion is focused on the pros­per­ity and hope this pro­gram is bring­ing to the remote vil­lage of El Cuarenteño whose exis­tence depends on cof­fee. The work of CAFESUMEX has brought fair pric­ing, improve­ments in pro­cess­ing, and access to mar­kets for the Productores de café del Cuarenteño that oth­er­wise would not have been possible.

Travelling with Kosalos is a reminder of why so many of us are a part of cof­fee – to do busi­ness hon­estly and fairly and openly. Jim and Dev are doing this every day. And, as we fin­ish the day drink­ing beer and eat­ing fresh fish with our feet in the ocean sand at Las Gaviotas in Miramar, I am reminded of another rea­son why we all do this gig…