Coffee is People
Coffee is a crop, but mostly it's people. Years of work, hard-won skill, and a thousand decisions made on a hillside before we ever see the green. These are some of the producers we work with. The whole reason we do this. Meet them.
Guatemala
Edwin Martinez
In the sixty three years since Don Felipe founded Finca Vista Hermosa, a lot has changed. Electricity and dirt roads have come to the steep mountainsides of Huehuetenango. Most smallholder farmers have their own wet mills. But access to the specialty market is still limited, and most farmers still operate at a loss. Twenty years ago, Felipe's grandson Edwin Martinez had a vision to directly connect smallholder farmers in Guatemala with quality-driven roasters around the world for sustainable relationships. With many failures and a bit of success, Edwin began importing the family's coffee to the US for our first coffee roasting company, and began working with neighboring producers the family knew well. Edwin Martinez's coffee is always impeccable.
Ethiopia
Faysel Yonnis
In the highlands of Ethiopia’s Yirgacheffe, Gedeo zone, more than 800 smallholder families from around Aricha village bring their freshly harvested cherries to the Adorsi washing station, a project directed by Faysel Yonnis and his family. Here, precision and tradition meet: cherries are carefully floated in water to remove underripes, pulped on traditional disc pulpers, then left to ferment for at least 24 hours before a thorough washing. The coffees are dried slowly on raised beds for 10–12 days, allowing flavors to fully develop. In partnership with Testi Trading, led by Faysel Yonnis, the station not only supports high-quality coffee production but also invests in local communities. Through Project Direct initiatives, Testi Trading has funded primary schools and the first-ever high school in Hamasho, showcasing a strong commitment to regional development.
Mexico
BASILIO Cooperative
Founded in 1940 in El Cuarenteño, Nayarit, BASILIO is a family-run cooperative of 33 farmers growing Mundo Novo, Caturra, and Criollo at 1,020 meters. We've worked with them for twelve years, and the quality has climbed every season. At their Sandia Wet Mill they process washed coffees the careful way, sorting and fermenting with the kind of attention that shows up clearly in the cup.</p><p>Nayarit isn't an easy place to farm coffee. Harvests swing between 50,000 and 150,000 kilograms a year depending on the weather, and the cooperative rides those swings by refusing to let quality move with the volume. Good years and lean ones, the coffee that reaches us is held to the same standard. That consistency is exactly why we keep coming back.
Colombia
Jhoan Vergara
Peñas Blancas Coffee Processing Center is led by Nestor Lasso and Jhoan Vergara, two coffee producers who set out to change post-harvest processing in Acevedo, Huila. Their goal was to create a centralized hub where small-scale farmers could access world-class processing techniques, ensuring consistency and quality that meets international specialty coffee standards. Under their leadership, the Peñas Blancas Coffee Processing Center continues to drive change by backing small producers, keeping trade transparent, and investing back into the community.
Guatemala
Juan Diego De La Cerda
We have been working with Juan Diego (aka the Silver Fox) since 2008. El Socorro is one of the most award winning fincas in all of Guatemala and is a coffee farm of unsurpassable beauty in the highlands of Central Guatemala roughly 50 kilometers from Guatemala City. El Socorro’s prized coffees are a result of its high altitude location combined with University trained agronomist Juan Diego’s great attention to detail. He has spurred the farm's focus on quality coffee production with advanced processing techniques including warm water fermentation, which speeds up the fermentation process. In this shorter period of fermentation, the coffee grain keeps its density & maintains the coffee's components intact.
Costa Rica
Francisca Cubillo
Beneficio Las Lajas ranks as one of the most progressive, high-quality coffee mills in all of Costa Rica. Francisca Cubillo and Oscar Chacón are the third generation of coffee producers in Costa Rica and the first ones to process their own coffee. It all starts with their farming practices; Las Lajas is a certified organic farm. These third-generation producers focus on preserving the environment while maintaining the highest quality coffee. We have worked with Francisca since 2009. She is a major force in driving quality improvements all over Costa Rica and beyond. Her processing advances literally changed the landscape of specialty coffee as we know it.
Mexico
Alejandro Martinez
The Martinez family has always lived in the Xalapa-Coatepec area in the state of Veracruz. The farm was established by his great- great-grandfather Antonio Martinez. The dream of Alejandro is to revive the coffee culture in Coatepec. He started to plant rust-resistant varieties always separated by plot so that he can compare the results of each plot both in productivity and quality. His coffee has been resulting very well lately, Marsellesa and Mundo Maya represent high quality with consistency for some years, and his first harvests of Anacafe and Obata represented good as well with more unique characters.
Burundi
Ngozi Station
A new coffee discovery! For years, we noted that there was one coffee from Ngozi Province that consistently scored higher than all the others from this region. Given our founder’s kinship with the area – after all, her mother was born and raised there – we set out to track down that prized source. It took some work, but we finally found the hill where this special coffee grows. The differentiation that terroir can make in coffee is astounding! JNP Coffee now works with the farmers of Bahire Coffee. In Kirundi, Bahire means “be well.”
Burundi has plenty of regions with favorable conditions for coffee production. The altitudes range from 772 meters above sea level (masl) to 2,670 masl at Mount Heha’s summit. Burundian coffee is usually grown at high altitudes between 1,200 and 1,950 masl.
