Open books. Real numbers.
This is the record of every coffee we buy, and the page where you check our math. The price we paid at origin, the price you paid us, and the exact dollars that stayed in the country where it grew. Same formula on every line: at least 20% of what you pay stays at origin. Always. We can't change that without breaking the math, so we don't.
The higher the price, the more stays at origin. Our margin holds steady either way, and the Drops follow the same rule, weighted across the blend. Pick any coffee below and run the numbers yourself.
"Without scale there can be no impact. Get this model to scale and the impact follows."
Edwin Martinez — Coffee Producer, Finca Vista Hermosa, Guatemala.
Check our math
Pull up any coffee on our site and see the math in real time.
Select a coffee above to check the math.
Reading the table
-
20% Remains at Origin
The portion of the retail price that stayed in the country where the coffee was grown. It never left.
-
FOB / lb
Free On Board. The price paid at origin, with the coffee bagged, labeled, and ready to load for shipment. This is the number the 20% is measured against.
-
Retail
What you pay for the bag. The FOB origin price sets it: retail can't go higher than the point where 20% still reaches origin.
The books
| Coffee | Origin | Year | FOB/lb | Retail (12oz) | Country of origin kept | % |
|---|
Who Get's the 20%?
Fair question, and the answer is bigger than just us.
Most coffee on the planet comes from smallholders. Families farming small plots, who pool their coffee through a cooperative, a washing station, or a small group, because no one of them grows enough to sell on its own, and most don't want to. That's not a niche. That's how coffee works. The large single-owner estate, the one specialty coffee loves to romanticize, is a microscopic slice of the coffee world.
So "what did the farm owner make?" is a question built for that tiny slice. On most coffee, there is no single owner whose paycheck we could post, and plenty of producers have real reasons not to put a name and an income on a public page. We don't demand anyone open their books. We open ours by choice, and we work to know and watch the numbers at origin as closely as each relationship honestly allows. Reaching past what the truth supports would be performance, not transparency.
Here's the whole idea: tie your dollar to a dollar at origin. You spend here, value lands there, and you can see exactly how much. We're not auditing anyone or grading other roasters. As Edwin Martinez says, "every coffee has a home." Ours go to producers who share in what you pay, and to you, the force that puts them closer to balance.
Check anyone's math
Why 20%, and what equity means
Equity is the right to share in the appreciation in value. Not charity, not a better cut of a bad deal. The producer has a right to share in what their coffee is worth, so 20% of retail is built in from the start.