Luna

Tunsisa

Daniel Tunsisa grows coffee in fertile land on the edge of the Harenna forest national park, at over 2200 masl in the Sidama region. He inherited his 6 hectare plot from his father, a huge amount of land in a landscape dominated by smallholder farmers. Daniel runs his business more like small producers we work with in the Americas, planting locally distributed 74110 and 74112 varietals, and employing a workforce of around 45 people during peak harvest. Daniel’s natural lot was an excellent find during this year’s rounds of cupping with CoQua in Addis Ababa, with a rich and ripe character of brown sugar, apricot, and dark chocolate.

La Roca

This is our eighth year purchasing from the La Roca micro-mill, located in the Tarrazu region of Costa Rica, at 1900 masl. The mill is run by the three Umaña brothers, Felix, Dario and Juan Carlos. They are the fourth generation of their family to work with coffee, but the road to this point has not been smooth. Previously, the family were selling unprocessed cherry to a local cooperative at a low price. Like many in Costa Rica, the brothers saw that they could take more control of their value chain by processing their own coffees, but simply did not have access to the funds or financing to invest in the infrastructure required. So two of the brothers made the decision to immigrate to the United States, working for several years in order to be able to afford to build the mill. 

La Roca was finally built in 2014, and we were able to visit during its first harvest season. The Umaña family now feel a much greater connection to their coffee; they are able to cup the final results, searching for the best varietals and processes for their farm. They are also able to directly invest in quality, demand higher prices for the micro-lots they produce, and keep more of the profit by consolidating their value chain. The youngest of the brothers, Dario, now wants to train as a barista and open a coffee shop in order to serve their own coffees directly, completing the chain from tree to cup.