Swift Coffee Sourcing

Swift Coffee Sourcing A Coffee Importer For the Modern Age

08/20/2026

Bit by bit, I’m learning how the complicated world of coffee hedging operates. It’s so difficult to grasp for me that I resort to diagrams. Physical coffee trading is such a complex world that to grasp how pricing is influenced by these “fake-but-oh-so-real” mechanisms has been rough. However, it’s happening.

06/20/2026

We gathered at Buckman Coffee Factory in SE , many of us old friends and industry veterans and some of us new to the whole cupping thing.

Among other insights from the field, we talked about how pricing manipulation is playing a massive (unspoken) role in how coffee is trading in Ethiopia.

Certain individuals hold outsized power, and use it as bullies. They force cherry prices up—one exporter is paying so much more for cherries that he is putting many competitors out of business, a play which has been attempted by others and backfired so dramatically that it wiped out those who attempted it. Cherry prices starting at 70 birr/kg and ending at 220… his work.

Another, who gets a 35% tax break due to his “smallholder farmer” status (even though he actually exports way too much for that to still apply, doing so through various loopholes and savvy backroom deals) literally sets the FOB price for other smallholder farmers in the area. Once he’s sold his coffees, he allows he other farmers to lower their prices. His father and brothers act as enforcers due to their powerful roles in the area.

These and other dynamics churn below the surface in Ethiopian coffee and affect our global value chain far more than it would seem.

Always, he travels with carefully-calculated roasted coffee and a travel setup. Here in an Iceland layover as we travel ...
05/29/2026

Always, he travels with carefully-calculated roasted coffee and a travel setup. Here in an Iceland layover as we travel to the UK, he brewed us a Colombia from a customer as we gathered our jet lagged wits. Don’t mind our breakfast: coffee is coming!

What’s your traveling setup?

05/28/2026

Our CEO Emily and Sourcing Director Michael are on their way to the UK. Stopping over in Boston, they made time to visit , customers beginning in 2017. It was a great time!

What you see here is the quiet connection that comes from years spent working hard together, weathering storms, and buil...
05/20/2026

What you see here is the quiet connection that comes from years spent working hard together, weathering storms, and building things. In the left, Neptaly Santos and on the right, Angel Noriega. They (with their remarkable wives Lily and Cati, who took the photo) have been our partners high in the collared mountain region of El Corazon (how fitting, the heart) in Chirinos, for years. They created the cooperative and, with us as their exclusive international partners, have slowly added a cupping lab, more partners, deeper practices.

05/12/2026

White Honey Idido—the essence of Yirgacheffe, processed with utmost care. It’s complex, floral, and balanced. Landing July in Oakland - 11 bags available - $7.05/lb. DM with interest!

As we celebrate Swift’s 1-year anniversary this weekend, we process what a remarkable time we had in San Diego at WOC wi...
04/14/2026

As we celebrate Swift’s 1-year anniversary this weekend, we process what a remarkable time we had in San Diego at WOC with our friends, customers, suppliers, team. It was a shocking explosion of joy, purpose, reward for all these years of investment into an industry that still has so much to teach us.

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