C o l o m b i a

C a u c a

A l f o n s o

P i l l i m u e

This fresh crop washed lot from the Pillimue family is deep and complex, with the signature bright sweetness reminiscent of honey and yellow pear. Both Alfonso and his family are dedicated coffee farmers both on the production side as well as the milling and logistics side, where they aid in streamlining warehousing and logistics.

Colombia uniquely offers a diverse array of coffee varieties and processing methods. Known for innovation and resilience, Colombia's coffee history dates back to the early 19th century, with smallholder farmers being key contributors. Despite challenges like weather and conflict, Colombia consistently produces high-quality specialty coffee. For over a decade years, we've partnered with both large and small-scale producers from all five main growing zones, fostering close relationships and friendships.

1900 MASL

Elevation influences coffee cultivation, impacting flavor and quality. Higher elevations offer cooler temperatures, slowing the growth of coffee cherries, allowing more time for complex sugar and flavor development. This results in coffee with brighter acidity and a nuanced flavor profile. Additionally, cooler conditions at high altitudes reduce pests and diseases, making these coffees highly prized for their superior quality and distinct taste.

Chiroso

The Chiroso variety, despite its recent spike in notoriety, has been around longer than many realize. Before its appearance in the 2023 World Barista Championship, it was crowned almost a decade prior by the Colombian Cup of Excellence panel in 2014. In a small municipality known as Urrao in southwestern Antioquia, Colombia, Chiroso’s rarity is starkly contrasted by its local renown - to the extent that a local cafe has been established under the very name. Producers prize the variety for its aptitude for productivity at high elevations, yielding sizable harvests despite the cooler temperatures and challenging growing conditions. While higher yields are a desirable factor, Chiroso has gained considerable popularity among specialty coffee roasters for different reasons. It has developed a reputation for its bright acidity and delicate florality, paired with an occasional herbal characteristic that brings a unique dimension to an already captivating profile. These traits have been correlated by genetic studies tracing its true origins back to Ethiopian Landrace varieties.

Colombia

Colombia has a unique harvest schedule, thanks to the varied topography and proximity to the equator. Between those two variables, Colombia harvests nearly year round across the five main coffee growing regions. Each region has fairly reliable harvest times that conveniently stagger, providing fresh crop coffee all year round.

Raised-Bed Dried

Raised-beds are scaffold like structures that elevate perforated trays that hold coffee parchment or cherries. The holes in the structure allow for airflow on a near 360 degree level, ensuring that the coffee dries evenly when proper bed turning is practices. Some even go as far as covering the beds with a partial block from the sun, which extends drying and ensures the cell structure of the coffee goes largely undamaged from the UV.

Diedrich CR-35

Prior to production, each roast goes through a rigorous dial-in process, where we fine-tune our temperature curves. We roast to tight tolerances, with no more than 1° deviation from target temperatures, ensuring quality and consistency in each batch.

Moderate

Referring to medium as moderate is an intentional choice to highlight the roasting process, which is also referred to as development. Coffees within the moderate range exhibit notes in line with terroir, with a hint of sugar-browning. These characteristics are backed by a medium to high perceived acidity with a balanced tactile and sweetness, and they adapt easily from espresso to filter preparation.

-516 LBS

Day after day, producers, roasters, and cuppers alike all spend countless hours of work to produce and roast small, traceable lots that we within specialty coffee call microlots. Ranging anywhere from a few lbs to many pallets, this nebulous category refers to a traceable single-origin, producer or even specific picking date. Is all that hard work keeping things separate worth it? That is up for you to decide...

Filter, Espresso

Our Education Team, guided by a commitment to quality, uses a blend of sensory skills and technology to brew the best coffee in our cafes and brew guides. We strive for vibrant and mouthwatering acidity, complex and approachable flavor, persistent and clear sweetness, and structured and pleasant mouthfeel, ensuring you're getting the best coffee experience.

The name Pergamino coffee has been synonymous with high-quality Colombian coffee for years. We’ve long partnered with Pedro Echavarría to purchase coffees from their family estates, and over the last four years we’ve partnered with Pergamino on the Allied Producer Program, which we’ve utilized to source coffees for not only single-origin usage but also for our staple blends when washed coffees are needed. Through the network of the Allied Producer Program, we’ve sourced excellent full container lots for our blends, and while cupping through these coffees we find micro-lots that are higher quality: with marked delicate florals and higher acidity, which we separate out to feature as a single origin offering. We pay 10-20% more for these lots as they're separated out from the larger regional blends, yielding the producer anywhere from two to three times the C-Market price. This lot is the first of many lots we separated during our last visit to Pergamino.

This lot comes from Alfonso Pillimue, a small-holder coffee grower in Inza, Cauca. We have a long love for coffees from this region, with their vibrant citrus and mineral-forward sweetness. This coffee is grown on the Eastern slopes of the Occidental range of the Andes. Coffees grown in this region are shielded from the influence of the Pacific Ocean, with cool and humid nights influencing the slow maturation of coffee cherries. This slow growth produces dense sugars, transforming the sometimes more herbal forward Caturra Chiroso to a complex and heavily sweet cup, reminiscent of unrefined cane sugar and pear. We love this coffee brewed as a filter offering.

Alfonso's family is wholly devoted to coffee. His eldest son, Robinson, has been a leader of the Asorcafe association and is a distinguished coffee grower in his own right. His younger son, Nilson, has also inherited part of the farm and is actively involved in coffee production. At 65, Alfonso continues to manage the main part of the farm while also running the grocery store located at the front of their house. The Pillimue family exemplifies the traditional Colombian coffee-growing family, and we are proud to represent their coffee.

INZA, CAUCA, by Pergamino Coffee
On a typical trip to Inzá, we are usually expecting to get a small public transportation van at 10 in the morning at the Neiva bus station center, a city whose average temperature we are unfamiliar with, but it seems to be around 40 degrees Celsius in the shade with 100% humidity! To achieve this, we woke up at 4 a.m. to catch the first flight to Bogotá, and after a couple of completely normal delays at El Dorado, we managed to get the Avianca flight to Neiva on its way. In the small, packed van, we had some achiras (local snack) with water for breakfast, sat down next to 6 other passengers, prayed for the air conditioning to work reasonably well, and set off at a not very safe speed to La Plata, a large, incredibly chaotic town, on the border between Neiva and Cauca. There, Nilson, a great friend and young community leader with whom we work in Inzá, awaits us to assist with the last and probably the most beautiful and entertaining leg of our journey to our final destination: the village of San Antonio up high in the mountains that make up the municipality of Inzá.

Leaving La Plata, we feel like we are getting farther away from everything. On a lonely road, we cross the Páez River Canyon, a beautiful but dangerous river that can, during the rainy season, do justice to the group of fierce indigenous people who inspired its name. Looking east, we search in vain for the Huila snow-capped mountain at the end of the mountain range. We know that it can only be seen a few days a year and very early in the morning; seeing it at midday would be a miracle. As always, and even though we see mountains every day of our lives, the ones in this region continue to impress us. Sharp, steep, and unfortunately, many of them are deforested to raise cattle in their lower parts; more than seeing them, you feel these mountains.

After crossing a long high bridge built years ago in an unsuccessful attempt to build a major road connecting to Popayán, we turn left and start our final ascent. After 40 minutes on an unpaved road, the reality of the area begins to unfold: a network of small farms sustained by their owners. Gone are the large extensions of Antioquia or the coffee axis; here, the average size is 2-3 hectares per farm. After passing 1500 meters, all we see is small coffee plots, with the occasional dairy cow and scattered chickens among the farms, but predominantly planted with coffee. As with every region in Colombia, Inzá has also its own rural façade design, with specific colors, and patterns. Although many houses are still made of clay and wood structures, almost all of them here are painted with geometric patterns and fluorescent colors.

The urban area of San Antonio consists of a single street where most of the houses and the school are located, which is a fundamental center of the community. The other hub is the Pillimué family's house, which, with its coffee collection warehouse and a small reception room for customers (those coffee farmers who come to sell their coffee), is an absolutely essential community center. María Rosa, the family matriarch, waits for us at the door and greets us with a warm hug and a shy kiss on the cheek. Her petite figure and her smile, reminiscent of a little girl's sweetness, don't deceive us; behind that, there is a woman who, at 55 years old, leads by example with her tenacity, concern for every community member, and endless capacity for work.

It was in this area of Inzá, with the Pillimué family, that our project of allied producers gained strength over 10 years ago. Leo, our coffee and quality director, had worked in this region at the beginning of his coffee career and had become a close friend of the community and the Pillimué family. Years later, they mentioned to him that their projects with another exporter had fallen apart and they were looking for an ally to help them connect with specialty roasters. This was the beginning of what is now our strongest allied producers program: we work with over 250 producers in the area, and the Pillimué family helps us coordinate the work and conduct quality analysis in a cupping lab built with Pergamino's support.

Inzá is one of the largest municipalities in the country in terms of land area and is located in the eastern part of the Cauca department along the border with Huila. This region is also known as Tierradentro, home to two indigenous groups recognized for their resilience in battles against Spanish conquerors. Although the Guanacas and Páez still have a presence in the region, it is primarily an agricultural municipality populated by small-scale farmers and not an indigenous reservation. Part of the Gran Macizo Colombiano, the country's main water source, where rivers as significant as the Magdalena, Putumayo, and Cauca originate, this region offers a beautiful view of the Huila snow-capped mountain and enjoys a unique climate and soil for coffee cultivation.

Bio factory Project:
Inzá is also home to a project that excites us greatly and fills us with optimism, our first community biofertilizer plant. Leveraging a tradition of organic agriculture still present in the region, we decided to start a project to support those who are already organic producers or want to be either completely or partially. In total, we work with 80 producers that are fully organic but also with dozens of others that are not certified but can benefit from purchasing from the bio factory. With the support of other international roasters who buy coffee from this region through us, Pergamino financed the construction of the plant and the purchase of the initial inputs. The sustainability of the project will depend on selling the products at cost to continue functioning. It now produces organic fertilizers, pesticides, fungicides, and herbicides that are difficult for individual farmers to produce on a small scale. This way, we use the group's economies of scale to promote organic or mixed production in this region.

Green Cost

The subject of paying for green coffee is inherently complicated. While the amount paid is very important, the payment terms and type of contract negotiated during the purchase are also paramount. Paying $5/lb of coffee can be a great price, but could be detrimental to a producer if the payment terms exceed that of their needs. Here we will dive into not only what was paid for the coffee, but how the coffee was purchased. There is a glossary of terms to be found below which will aid in your understanding of industry terms.

Farm Gate - This reflects what is paid to the producer of the coffee at the farm level. Oftentimes in terms of our relationship coffees, FOB is fairly close to the farm gate price, except for countries like Ethiopia and Kenya, when it is very difficult to trace back all the way to the producer.

FOB - Free on Board. This means that the seller is responsible for any overland fees that happen before the coffee is on board the ship. This is our most frequently listed green cost, as it is the most simple way to present what we pay a seller, but it does not reflect what the person growing the coffee was paid.

EXW- This most often reflects the 'spot' price that we paid for a coffee. All of the cost is paid by the importer, and more often than not the FOB price as well as the transport costs are unknown.

Transportation Cost

This number represents the cost we incurred while the coffee was moved from the producing country to our roastery in Arkansas. The amount of information we supply here is correlated to the transparency grade we issue the coffee. The better the grade, the more we can break down this information.

The price listed below is the cost we incurred while moving this palletized coffee from New Jersey to our roastery in Arkansas. All other import and export fees are unknown at this time and included in the Green Cost.

Production Cost

The following list includes many of the costs associated with producing our coffee. We have always maintained transparency as a principle but have lumped these things under the label of “production costs” without going into detail. While the following list isn’t exhaustive, hopefully it gives you a picture of the work, expense, and investment involved in executing coffee at the level that we do. At this time we are listing our cost of production for each pound of coffee at around $4.85. There are obviously many other aspects to running a business such as shrink, mistakes, new equipment and maintenance, but this works as an arbitrary cost associated with making one box of coffee. 

Fixed Costs
These are costs associated with simply having a business. Things like utilities of internet, natural gas, phones, rent, business licenses, fees, etc. These things increase every year. For example, most commercial leases increase by 2% every year. We periodically look at these costs and try to reduce expenses, but work in this area are small moves of the needle as these are mostly the same and usually increase every year. In 2019, we invested in a solar energy system for our roastery. It was installed in 2020 and we are seeing a great return in terms of monthly costs of electricity. 

Packaging
This is all the things that go into packaging the coffee from the roaster to your house. There’s the biodegradable bag, the recyclable box, the compostable mailer, different boxes for bulk shipping, the paper that pads the coffee, tape, and a few odds and ends. (Read about our new retail packaging HERE). These costs are separate from the green and roasted coffee but a part of the cost of producing coffee ready to ship and consume. We want our coffee to arrive in a secure fashion, looking like it did when it left our roastery: with style and design but also keeping the environment in mind. Shipping packages inevitably has waste associated and we’re working towards sustainability at each step. 

Labor
We are proud of our team and the way they are so thoroughly dedicated to excellence and to being the best at their respective roles across the industry. We work to make coffee jobs both sustainable and celebrated. We pay salaries, provide health insurance, and give regular raises. Our coffee doesn’t taste the way it does without all of our team working had and performing at a high level. Often we have a handful of staff that get celebrated, but everyone on our team contributes and is valuable. Our roastery production crew has earned a small commission on coffees sold since 2017. Onyx is not just a brand or a design or a café, we are truly made by every person on our team.

We all know it takes work to make anything. Our approach has more labor involved than you may think. Because we visit every Relationship Coffee producer, that means our green buying team of Jon and Dakota typically spend a total of six months traveling. We’re committed to visiting and cupping on the ground, this inevitably is an investment of time, of money, of long lay overs, of encountering government coupes and protests, and forging some of the greatest friendships and seeing some of the most beautiful landscapes imaginable. 
Another place we are highly invested in labor is in our coffee quality control. Our QC manager literally cups every single batch of coffee that we roast, scores it, makes notes, gives feedback. These records can be found in Find My Roast. This is essentially a full time job. This is something that we technically don’t have to do, but in chasing our goal of having the world’s best coffee we can’t know exactly how each roast measures up without cupping it. 

We have more roasters than we technically need. We roast in small batch size, meaning we don’t max out the capacity of our roasting machines. This translates into us roasting more actual batches and necessitates more time. This concept is driven by our desire for quality.
 
We have a creative team that helps create all things visible, digital, and print. These folks are very talented and have really helped push the dream of Onyx to the next level. We believe that coffee can inherently be great, but having something that looks and feels good helps inform expectations, helps bring value, and tells the stories in coffee in a way that is tangible and important.

These are a few of the jobs we feel really have more involvement than might be imagined, but throughout Onyx there are touch points of intentionally positioned team members to help create the best possible coffee experience. 

Coffee Roasting
Roasting itself creates loss in coffee. There’s the straightforward fact that when coffee is roasted it loses between 7% and 8% of its weight, meaning that if you bought 1000lbs of a lot you end up with 920lbs of roasted coffee. We also use what’s called an "optical sorter" which sorts all of our coffee after its roasted and kicks out 2% of all coffees. Sorting just creates an overall cleaner coffee, eliminating any outlying beans that are discolored, are quakers, etc. This totals around 10% loss of coffee before it even is bagged for retail or wholesale. We donate this rejected coffee to local food banks, non-profits and halfway houses.

Then there’s profiling the coffee. We roast test batches before we release coffees to dial in roasting profiles, and we often make multiple tweaks. The coffee is then cupped multiple times, used to create brewing recipes and guides and used in training. We also pull a sample of each batch of coffee to quality control. 

We are committed to shipping only the absolute best coffees to our customers, and these measures—although costly—are in place to help create trust between you and us.

Taxes
We all know what this is. We set aside and submit money every quarter for taxes along with paying all of the weekly and monthly taxes we are obligated to pay. This can be tough for a small business as there are ebbs and flows in cash flow, and taxes are often not paid in conjunction with the sales season.

Fair Trade Minimum

Since coffee was first sold, producers have sought to increase or maintain the price of their product. In 1988, the first certified Fair Trade coffee was sold in Holland as a partnership with a cooperative in Mexico. This was a major stepping stone in coffee trading, as it promised farmers a safety net when the volatile commodity market of coffee plummeted. Fair Trade ensures that farmers will be paid a minimum price for their product, which serves mostly as a safety net when all other prices drop. As the specialty market has grown, criticism for Fair Trade has grown alongside it. Consumers and coffee professionals alike have misunderstood Fair Trade Certified coffees to be the answer to a growing coffee price crisis. Many have used these ethical labels to continue to pay coffee producers a minimum price for a product that has exploded in popularity through the years. We are careful not to minimize what Fair Trade and other certifications have accomplished through the years, viewing a set minimum price as a stepping stone to a larger conversation about how the industry treats valuable producing partners. As we avoid settling for the bare minimum, we always pay at least double Fair Trade minimums based on the quality of coffee we purchase.

In a recent decision, Fairtrade International made a historic raise to its coffee prices. The new Fairtrade minimum price for washed arabica coffee will be $1.80/Lb, an increase of $0.40/Lb. Additionally, the guaranteed premium for coffee sold as both Fairtrade + Organic (FTO) is increasing from $0.30/Lb to $0.40/Lb. These changes bring the base price for FTO to $2.40/Lb, up 26% from the current $1.90/Lb level. The new Fairtrade prices will come into effect for contracts issued from August 1, 2023, onwards.

C Market

In the modern world, coffee is valued as one of the most important agricultural exports of developing nations. Most coffee in the world is produced as an ubiquitous green seed to be roasted by large roasters and sold on a shelf with little information about where it comes from and who grew it. Like other agricultural commodities, coffee is traded in future contracts on many exchanges. This price is dictated by global economic forces such as supply and demand, which is set by the largest suppliers and the largest buyers. The price of commodity coffee has been in major decline since the collapse of the International Coffee Agreement, and also due to forces outside the coffee industry as a whole. The minimum price that a producer has gotten for their product since the collapse of the ICA has hovered around $1.20/ lb, but within the last few years it is most frequently found to be under $1.00/ lb, which many industry experts consider to be under the cost of production. The commodity price of coffee never dictates the prices we pay for coffee, due to the precedence that quality takes in the specialty industry. We factor in cup score, variety, process, country of origin, and other factors when drawing up our private contracts with producing partners. Choosing to list the commodity market price at the time of our purchase shows the distinct difference in markets, as we strive for a more holistic and honest approach to the way that coffee is purchased.

Cup Score

As we travel the world and taste coffees, we evaluate all the coffees we taste on a scoresheet developed by coffee professionals around the world. Through this, we can participate in and use the language of an industry standard set of guidelines. This allows us to honestly assign a numerical score to any coffee we taste, creating the ability for a starting point in a discussion of the quality of each coffee. We list the cup score of each coffee we purchase as part of our ethos of transparency, not as an end all be all statement of drinkability. Many of us agree that we’d rather drink an 86 point coffee rather than an 88 point coffee. We list it because the cup score serves as a reference of quality, allowing producers to negotiate higher prices based on the hard work they’ve done to achieve this quality. This is the imperfect industry answer to the commodification of coffee, which can be bought and sold based on economics, rather than the nuances and sweetness in the cup…

For more information on coffee sensory science, check out the Coffee Quality Institute.

Lot Size

Lot size is seemingly straightforward when taken at face value, but it gets more convoluted as you look closely at the vernacular of the specialty coffee industry. Terms such as micro-lot and macro-lot get awfully blurry as we buy coffee from different parts of the world. Like many other things in the coffee industry, there is not one catchall term that will tell you if your coffee is indeed a micro-lot. The size of a lot rarely informs us of the quality of that lot, which is a difficult concept to shake coming out of the early years of specialty coffee. Lot size informs us of one thing: the size of that lot. We can, however, take this time to talk about how coffee is separated at the production level, and how we make sense of it from country to country.

The first way we see coffee divided up is by region. These lots are often built up of many farms, Coops, or washing stations. This often signifies that the lot was built to reflect the flavor characteristics of the region. Colombia comes to mind when we think of regional blends, and these blends can often be very valuable to roasters and producers if transparency is upheld and fair prices are paid. We partner with friends like Pergamino Coffee to build regional lots, where within we seek to uphold transparency and quality.

The second way we see coffee represented is by a cooperative, farm, or washing station. Oftentimes this is where you begin to see 'micro-lot' sized offerings, which can often be built from several parts of each farm, or a few farms in one area. (Sounds a bit like a regional blend, doesn't it?) These lots represent an entire harvest, where individual day lots are blended to form an offering that is of a decent exportable size. This ranges from just 100-300 kg all the way up to several full containers of exportable green. One thing is to note, forming a single farm lot can often take just as much cupping and profiling as the large regional blends, due to each day or weeks pickings being separated and cupped to ensure they fall into quality standards.

The final way we see coffee represented is by day lot. This is where terroir comes into play, due to organic variations in the environment such as shade, soil type, tree age, and many other factors. Nearly any quality control program that is on a farm level will evaluate harvest this way. This allows producers to isolate parts of the farm or crop that is facing some challenges, as well as to select truly remarkable day lots to represent the pinnacle of their work. These small offerings range from just a few kilograms up to several thousand. We see these lots most often during auctions such as Best of Panama and Cup of Excellence, where they fetch high prices. Each one of those lots not only represents the hard work of each producer, but they also represent the amount of coffee that was filtered out during this quality control stage. This focus on the minuscule may seem like semantics to some, but as you zoom back out to your cup you realize just how many decisions were made before it arrived in your hands.

Pay Structure

These ratings do not signify the “ethical grade” of a purchased coffee, instead they are created to show data to everyone. These ratings simply signify how much we understand what the grower of our coffees actually make. This is not an “us” vs “them” mentality of Roasters & Producers against Importers & Exporters or Farmers vs Customers that narrative can be damaging and usually full of fallacies. All parties are needed for this beautiful industry to thrive and our position is that sharing data has no moral position. It is simply numbers and math. We’ll leave the morale high ground to others even if this data is filtered through preconceived notions.

A+

This rating signifies we have published the price and payment went directly to the producer as well as all parties involved in logistics. Money exchanged was only though Onyx and producing parties. No procurement payments or bank financing were made. Mills, Exporter, and Importer are all known and quality scores are published. Farm gate, FOB, Milling, Logistics proven.

A

This rating signifies we have published the price and payment went directly to the producer . Money exchanged was only though Onyx and producing parties. Importer was hired to move coffee in the United States. No procurement payments or bank financing were made. Mills, Exporter, and Importer are all known and quality scores are published. Farm gate, FOB, Milling, Logistics proven.

A-

This rating signifies we have purchased directly from a cooperative or association and published price of FOB and wire to the head of a Cooperative or Farmers Association who pays members we are working with at Origin. We ask and publish what farm gate price was that is reported from farmers. Mills, Exporter, and Importer are all known and quality scores are published. FOB, Milling, Logistics proven.

B+

This rating signifies a published price of payment that went directly to a producer but producer also buys cherry from other neighboring farms. Verbal confirmation and published prices of Farm gate are acquired for coffees, but we only pay producer in contact. Mills, Exporter, and Importer are all known and quality scores are published.
FOB, Milling, Logistics proven.

B

This rating signifies we have published FOB price and pay directly to Cooperative or Exporter at Origin. Farm Gate price is proprietary or lacks of records of payments. Mills, Exporter, and Importer are all known and quality scores are published.

B-

This rating signifies we purchased this coffee from an Importer and visited farm, cooperative or exporter with the importer. We negotiate the contract with the importer representative and not the producer or cooperative. We pay directly to the importing company, Farm Gate price is provided by importer and published. Price, Logistics and Quality scores are published.

C+

This rating signifies we purchased this coffee from an Importer. We pay directly to the company. FOB price was provided by importer and is published, Farm gate price is unknown or proprietary information and unshared. Price and Quality scores are published.

C

This rating signifies we purchased this coffee from an Importer. We pay directly to the company. FOB and Farm Gate price is unknown or proprietary information and unshared. Price and Quality scores are published.

F

This means we pillaged the farm and stole their most precious Gesha lots only to fatten our wallets and eat at prefix restaurants on the weekend.