If you roast coffee — at home or in a small roastery — you will eventually choose between two ways to buy green coffee: from a marketplace that sources lots from many different farms, or directly from the farm that grew it. Both exist for good reasons, but they are not the same thing, and it is worth knowing the difference before you buy.
What Changes When You Buy Direct
When you buy from a marketplace, the seller is usually sourcing from many farms and cooperatives, and can tell you what the exporter or the marketplace itself knows about a lot. When you buy directly from a single farm, you are asking the people who grew, processed, and selected the coffee — not a reseller describing someone else’s harvest.
Neither model is automatically better for every buyer. A marketplace can offer more origins in one place. A single farm can answer questions about this specific harvest, this specific altitude, and this specific processing decision, because it is their own coffee.
Questions Worth Asking Any Green Coffee Supplier
- Is this coffee from your own farm, or sourced from other producers?
- What variety is it, and at what altitude was it grown?
- What is the SCA cupping score, and who scored it?
- What quantities can you buy — is there a minimum, and can you start small to try a lot first?
How We Work at True Coffee
True Coffee is our own farm in Dota, Tarrazu, Costa Rica — we grow, select, and export our own coffee, in five varieties: Catuai, Caturra, Typica, Bourbon, and Geisha. We sell from 1kg, so a roaster can try a lot before committing to a larger order, up to 45kg, with larger volumes available as a special order. See our wholesale page or our varieties for details.