Our sourcing
Good coffee starts with a fair price.
First Crack began in 2017 with a 5-kilo roaster in a Hampden garage. Today we roast a tonne a week in an old tram depot, and we still buy most of our coffee from the same fourteen producers.
How we buy
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1
Same farms, year after year
Most of our coffee comes from producers we have bought from for three harvests or more. Long relationships let farmers plan, invest and experiment, and they let us commit to volumes before the harvest.
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2
Paid for quality, not the market
We agree a price per pound on cup quality, never on the commodity market. When the market fell in 2023, our prices didn’t.
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3
Every price, published
The table below shows what we paid for each coffee we sell this season, free on board at the export port. Ask us anything about it.
What we paid this season
FOB prices in US dollars per pound of green coffee. For comparison, the Fairtrade minimum for washed Arabica is $1.80/lb.
| Coffee | Producer | Years buying | Paid per lb |
|---|---|---|---|
| Kochere Lot 7 | Worka Sakaro washing station | 4 | $4.60 |
| Gatomboya AA | Gatomboya cooperative factory | 3 | $5.25 |
| La Esperanza | Marleny Ortiz and family | 6 | $3.85 |
| Marcala Anaerobic | Ana Lucía Mejía | 2 | $6.10 |
| Cerrado Pulp | Fazenda Santa Rita | 5 | $2.95 |
Some of the people behind the coffee
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Marleny Ortiz
Pitalito, Colombia
Runs a 6-hectare farm with her two sons. Her La Esperanza has been our everyday coffee since our second year.
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Tesfaye Gebre
Worka Sakaro, Ethiopia
Manages the washing station that processes cherries from 600 smallholders, and separates the best days into lots like Lot 7.
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Ana Lucía Mejía
Marcala, Honduras
A trained agronomist who started fermenting experiments in 2021. We buy every anaerobic lot she produces.
Come and see the roaster.
Our café is in the front of the roastery. Free public cuppings every Saturday at 10 am, no booking needed.