It starts with a seed

Our Mission

We aim to represent specific groups, for better or worse, as they move forward along the value stream from periphery to core.

We commit to specific groups who lack market access with a long term vision of building reliable relationships centred around deep traceability.

With localized goal-oriented actions, we're focused on a new horizon where smallholder agency cultivates new skills and generates autonomy.

Welcome to Semilla Coffee

Click here to find our latest spot offerings including fresh arrivals from Monkaaba in Colombia, and some special offer options on Rwanda and Colombia past crop.

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What Path Forward?

For Semilla, coffee is more than the seed of a tropical fruit that can be transformed into a delicious beverage with proper care along all stages. It's a material that connects history, society, politics, culture, international policy, philosophy, and more. It contains years and years of hard work, and it directly affects the livelihoods of millions the world over.

So, the question becomes, how do we maximize the specialty market so that we can make the biggest impact on the most amount of people, while also bringing forth a high quality product to the end consumer?

In our small part, we can commit to specific communities who have the energy and passion to connect to the specialty market and we can broaden and deepen our commitment to them rather than buying only the top lots. We can speak about coffees as the product of people rather than only for its sensory attributes. And we can work in close collaboration with these groups to listen to what they need to succeed - from meeting the prices they request, to investing in a physical and intellectual infrastructure that will allow them to thrive in this market.

In short,  we commit to the slow and steady work of buying solid coffees from producers without access, and seeking to see the rising tide float all boats.

This isn’t common, and it doesn’t necessarily mean it’s better, but we choose our paths for a reason — what’s yours?

Guatemala

The producer group around Mataquescuintla - known locally as Cafe Colis Resistencia - face perhaps the most adversity of any of th ...

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Honduras

Despite their status as the 4th largest exporter of coffee in the world, Honduras tends to fly under the radar in specialty. From ...

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Rwanda

Semilla’s relationship with Baho Coffee operates slightly differently than others, largely due to differences inherent to coffee p ...

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Colombia

In 2018, Brendan of Semilla had the pleasure of meeting and travelling for two weeks with the young producer Esnaider Ortega-Gomez ...

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Support a Smallholder

Our Semilla Micro-Finance initiative is your to chance to get involved in crowd-funded financial support that we redistribut to the Global South coffee professionals who make our work possible.

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