coffee business noob question

[IndoBrewer]

Hello all fellow coffee enthusiasts,
I'm a total newbie in coffee business, but recently I stumbled upon coffee business which seems promising.

I recently stumbled upon access to many coffee farmers in Indonesia region which is Sumatra, java, bali and flores.

So I was thinking to export raw coffee bean to U.S market, but since I'm a newbie I have no idea where to start especially on grading the coffee bean etc.

Is there any course or literature or anything that I should take?

 

[ensoluna]

hello freddy,
how are you?

"TO EXPORT RAW COFFEE BEAN TO U.S. MARKET & NO IDEA WHERE TO START ON GRADING THE COFFEE BEAN ETC"

I can write about this virtually all day long, but it will be too long, no one will ready it. so i will make it short and sweet. (still it will be longer than normal posting of others)

1. you need to hire yourself a coffee expert who can Cup and tell you how good the coffee is COMPARED TO OTHER COFFEES AROUND IN INDONESIA. also he need to be able to make cupping report to US customers. (US customers will ask for cupping report, price per kg/lb and farm/region information...etc) Caution * many of cuppers are being sponsored by association or farms, so they are not being objective at all. and since you do not know about coffee much, basically, you will have to trust what he says. that could be dangerous. ..... if you know what i mean. you got to find very good and honest cupper...And good luck to you on that)

2. coffee position in terms of quality vs. buying pricing.
you need to find out (whomever farm coffees you will be representing to sell to USA) where your coffee bean quality/price belongs.... this means that you must know from other companies, what kind of quality and pricing being offered to USA based on grade of coffee, regions of coffee...etc You do not want to undersell too much or oversell too much. So, in order to decide that you need to see what other companies are offering their coffees at.. you need to buy their coffees for your own testing and find out how much they are offering to USA. Getting the coffee there might be easy, but finding out the pricing will be very difficult. you need to set up one person in USA side to help you to find out the pricing from those farms. (which means you need some sort of partner in USA to get this going fast and properly)

this is "Grading the coffee beans" in marketing point of view.
there is other "grading" which is cupping and writing the reports about the coffee. (this is also needed to provide to your potential customers)

3. need to form a company for export and find out what other licenses you need to export out from Indonesia. Indonesia is very "politically & economically corrupted" country (sorry to say this, but I have had a plenty of experience) and if you have some one connected in coffee industry, getting the right papers should be very easy.

4. Now, looking for potential customers in US.
there are thousands of roasters in USA. 20K of coffee houses. and hundreds of coffee importers and probably Handful of big coffee importers.
forget selling to 20K coffee houses. and 10 big coffee importers. those big guys already have relationship with exporters for few decades, that they will never give you a time of the day. Zip! then, roasters and small green coffee importers. you can not sell to each roasters. they won't buy much which means the freight charge will be more expensive than the coffee itself. your best bet will be SPECIALTY SMALL GREEN BEAN IMPORTERS. You need to do your own research and then convince them to take your samples for testing.
they WILL NOT GIVE YOU their international courier # for you to send coffee collect. you have to send them on your own cost. That would be A LOT. so, please set the money aside for this because 95% of the sample+ freight to USA cost WILL BE A WASTE DOWN THE DRAIN. Also, you have to screen your potential buyers, because 80% of them, just say "yes" even without much interests because you are paying for everything. so you have to ask them a lot of important questions to decide who are good and who are bad.

Let me stop here. it is getting too long.

"Is there any course or literature or anything that I should take?"

first, there are some literature, but absolutely no use to do this. This is 100% hands-on process.
any course?!! Ideally you should have worked in a coffee exporting company for few years and then do your own things. but if that is not the case, you have to go into some coffee farm (ESTATE, I should say. because coffee farm only grow coffee tree. But Estate has complete coffee bean processing machines and separate companies inside of the Estate. and they even export directly to oversees) to learn as much as you can.

I do not know about in Indonesia, but in Guatemala, our company offers apprenticeship programs for people like yourself. you can stay in our company as long as you need to learn about all the basics of coffee business, buying, inspection, roasting, cupiping, barista work, export documentation, sample sending procedures, working with other export organizations to get your beans to be exported...etc. However, since you are in Indonesia, I do not know whether that is possible or not. You can first visit our website link in this forum. Ensoluna Coffee Academy and you will get some ideas what you need to do.

Anyway, well... it got too long. sorry. if you have any questions, just let me know. I will tell you whatever I know.
take care.
my name is Alex

 

[peterjschmidt]

freddy,

I'd be willing to offer you my services as far as cupping samples and writing reviews/cupping notes. I've been doing this for many years for my own roasting business, and on a fee/per sample basis for an Indonesian exporter as well as a few other roasting businesses stateside who simply don't want to bother with roasting and cupping samples.

The exporter in Sumatra sends me samples from the various farmers and villages they work with in Sumatra, Sulawesi, and Java, and if we find something of good quality (I'm extremely picky and hard to please and demand the coffees be great before I'll give them a thumbs up) they'll send a container full, and then they'll have me cup the arrival samples to make sure the same coffees they contracted for were the coffees that shipped, as well as making sure nothing happened to the coffee during the journey.

Feel free to send me a PM if you'd like to pursue this.

 

[IndoBrewer]

hello freddy,
how are you?

"TO EXPORT RAW COFFEE BEAN TO U.S. MARKET & NO IDEA WHERE TO START ON GRADING THE COFFEE BEAN ETC"

I can write about this virtually all day long, but it will be too long, no one will ready it. so i will make it short and sweet. (still it will be longer than normal posting of others)

1. you need to hire yourself a coffee expert who can Cup and tell you how good the coffee is COMPARED TO OTHER COFFEES AROUND IN INDONESIA. also he need to be able to make cupping report to US customers. (US customers will ask for cupping report, price per kg/lb and farm/region information...etc) Caution * many of cuppers are being sponsored by association or farms, so they are not being objective at all. and since you do not know about coffee much, basically, you will have to trust what he says. that could be dangerous. ..... if you know what i mean. you got to find very good and honest cupper...And good luck to you on that)

2. coffee position in terms of quality vs. buying pricing.
you need to find out (whomever farm coffees you will be representing to sell to USA) where your coffee bean quality/price belongs.... this means that you must know from other companies, what kind of quality and pricing being offered to USA based on grade of coffee, regions of coffee...etc You do not want to undersell too much or oversell too much. So, in order to decide that you need to see what other companies are offering their coffees at.. you need to buy their coffees for your own testing and find out how much they are offering to USA. Getting the coffee there might be easy, but finding out the pricing will be very difficult. you need to set up one person in USA side to help you to find out the pricing from those farms. (which means you need some sort of partner in USA to get this going fast and properly)

this is "Grading the coffee beans" in marketing point of view.
there is other "grading" which is cupping and writing the reports about the coffee. (this is also needed to provide to your potential customers)

3. need to form a company for export and find out what other licenses you need to export out from Indonesia. Indonesia is very "politically & economically corrupted" country (sorry to say this, but I have had a plenty of experience) and if you have some one connected in coffee industry, getting the right papers should be very easy.

4. Now, looking for potential customers in US.
there are thousands of roasters in USA. 20K of coffee houses. and hundreds of coffee importers and probably Handful of big coffee importers.
forget selling to 20K coffee houses. and 10 big coffee importers. those big guys already have relationship with exporters for few decades, that they will never give you a time of the day. Zip! then, roasters and small green coffee importers. you can not sell to each roasters. they won't buy much which means the freight charge will be more expensive than the coffee itself. your best bet will be SPECIALTY SMALL GREEN BEAN IMPORTERS. You need to do your own research and then convince them to take your samples for testing.
they WILL NOT GIVE YOU their international courier # for you to send coffee collect. you have to send them on your own cost. That would be A LOT. so, please set the money aside for this because 95% of the sample+ freight to USA cost WILL BE A WASTE DOWN THE DRAIN. Also, you have to screen your potential buyers, because 80% of them, just say "yes" even without much interests because you are paying for everything. so you have to ask them a lot of important questions to decide who are good and who are bad.

Let me stop here. it is getting too long.


my name is Alex

Hello again from halfway around the world Alex,
Excellent writings by the way.

On quality issue I agree with you. I still have to look for people who I can trust.

on the export paper-works consider it done. feel free to say bad things on my country I feel the same way anyway

As for the potential customers on the US, I was thinking about importing it myself. Get a good grade coffee in my region then send it to US. then after that the selling process will begin . Feel free to rip my idea apart.

 

[ensoluna]

As for the potential customers on the US, I was thinking about importing it myself. Get a good grade coffee in my region then send it to US. then after that the selling process will begin . Feel free to rip my idea apart.

hello fredy,
if you want to import to USA and distribute by yourself from your USA warehouse, that will make things much easier than selling from Indonesia.
if that is the case, you can sell to everyone except green bean importers. (even green bean importers if your pricing and quality are exceptional)
also setting up this sort of distribution center is another business matter you need to look into, specially you need to hire some employees.
Not as easy as you think.... but well ... nothing is that easy.

by the way, if you ask me and if i were you, I rather look for few partners in USA (let's say small to medium size roasters) who can help you to distribute in certain exclusive states, and share some profits. and they can also use your beans for their own roasting and sales which you can give some extra discount on...etc

for me, in the future, that is what I am planning to do.
more questions, just let me know.
thanks

 

[friedcoffee]

Using this thread, my mind was also flicking about exporting beans from India as I live here and a lot of coffee is grown here too. Does anyone knows about as where the Indian coffee is consumed the most.

 

[ensoluna]

USA. Mostly as espresso blend.