Most coffee changes hands so many times that nobody in the chain knows anybody else. Coffee is not a commodity to us. It is the livelihood of a lot of people, and equity across that chain only starts when the person drinking it knows where it came from and how it got here.
So we work the other way. The same producers and the same importers, season after season, several of them going on five plus years. The question at the end of every harvest is the same one: can we keep working together.
From producer to guest
Relationship sourcing usually stops at the farm gate. Ours does not. The producer, the importer, and the person who walks into the studio are all part of the same relationship, and all three get treated like it.
That is why we can tell you who grew the coffee and why it tastes the way it does, without making you feel like you should have already known.
Who we work with
Jorge Misael Ochoa
Jorge Misael Ochoa grows coffee in the Santa Barbara Mountains of Honduras, on farms that sit among native shade trees and protected forest. He builds fertilizers suited to his own land, uses organic fungicides, and is working composting into his practice. He has also set aside a significant portion of his land as conservation space, keeping native trees and habitat for local birds intact.
We met Misael through San Vicente, our exporting partners in Peña Blanca. Siri spent a day on his farm in March 2023, and what stood out was the attention he brought to every part of the work. Asked what he wanted people to know about him, he said only that he always tries to do his best. You can see it in the soil, and in the precision of how each coffee is prepared.
We have bought his coffee every year since. One of the best parts of the partnership is getting to send it to his family here in the United States. Many of them order from us, which makes a small connection between his work in Honduras and the people he loves who live far from it.
Testi Coffee and Adorsi Washing Station
More than 800 smallholder farming families around Aricha village bring freshly picked coffee to the Adorsi washing station in Ethiopia's Gedeo Zone. The station is owned and run by the Yonis family, including brothers Adham and Eskinder. Between the farmers and the station team, these coffees carry the high elevation, fertile land and long growing tradition of Yirgacheffe.
Adorsi is part of Testi Coffee, a family-owned Ethiopian company founded by Faysel Abdosh in 2009. Testi works across several growing regions, connecting smallholder farmers to the wider specialty coffee community while staying focused on quality and lasting relationships.
We were introduced to Testi and the Adorsi washing station through our friends at Hacea Coffee Source. Importing partners like Hacea are how small roasters find coffees like this one. They bring the years, the local knowledge and the trusted connections that let us understand who grew a coffee and how to support their work. It is a reminder that coffee is never the work of one person. Farmers, families, washing station teams, exporters, importers and roasters all carry it for a while.
Valle Inca and Juan José Huillca
Siri has been sourcing from Valle Inca since 2021, a producer cooperative rooted in the mountains of Cusco, Peru. Our importing partners at Red Fox Coffee Merchants made the introduction, on the strength of their own long relationship there.
Led by José Prudencio Vargas Sáez, Valle Inca works with smallholder producers across the remote communities of Yanatile and Lares, helping them improve quality, reach better prices and bring their coffees to market with greater transparency and traceability.
We traveled to Peru in 2023 to spend time with the people behind it. Among them was Juan José Huillca, an agronomist and deeply curious farmer whose small farm sits high in the hills of Yanatile. He develops his own compost, experiments with different varieties, and brings what he learns back to Valle Inca. The cooperative shares what it learns in the cupping lab in return. Both sides grow.
Coffees from Valle Inca have become some of our favorites in the world. They are beautiful expressions of place, and they carry the care and curiosity of the people behind them.
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GO THERE · TASTE IT · GO BACK ·
How it shows up in the cup
We buy nano lots, micro lots, and the occasional rare variety, chosen by season rather than by what is easy to get. Then it gets roasted to show what that particular place does, not to hit a house style.
Knowing the farm is what makes that possible. The lot arrives the way we expected, so the roast can be built for it instead of around it.
Taste the difference
Come sit at the bar and try them side by side, or take a bag home and start there.
Stock our coffee
A small number of shops and cafes carry Color Magic. If that could be your place, we would like to hear about it.