Sourcing
"Traveling the world to visit producers reminds us of the differences in every region, every farm, and our approach to sourcing and roasting aims to highlight and honor these distinctions. It’s humbling to be welcomed by producers with generosity and hospitality; this is also something we try to honor and reflect, in turn, to our customers."
—Shauna Alexander,
Vice President of Coffee and Sustainability
Since our beginnings, Stumptown has searched the world for the best coffee which grows in mountainous regions of the tropics—farms perched at high elevations with warm days, cool nights, and distinct rainy and dry seasons. Microclimates, soil composition, coffee cultivars, and post-harvest processing methods each contribute distinct dimensions to the cup.
Our coffee team travels regularly to these parts of the world, meeting directly with producer partners on their farms, at their mills, and in their cupping labs.
The effort is worth it. We’re not doing it the easy way by buying bulk, mid-quality beans anonymously from a trading house. Instead, we go right to the source of the best coffee. We hike through fields, stand among coffee drying decks, and sit down to share a meal and talk about the crop with producers we’ve met many times.
We understand that our coffee demands more work—hand-picking each cherry at ideal ripeness and processing it with great attention to detail –– and we routinely work with producer partners to pay a premium price for these efforts.
Direct Trade is a sourcing model in which a roaster buys coffee directly from producers rather than through anonymous intermediaries. Unlike Fair Trade, which is a third-party certification with standardized minimum prices, Direct Trade is relationship-based, with price premiums tied directly to cup quality – and typically well above Fair Trade minimums
Stumptown pioneered Direct Trade in 2003, and the model has since become widely emulated in specialty coffee.
Stumptown’s approach is built on three principles:
- Quality-based pricing — we pay prices tied directly to cup quality, assessed using the internationally recognized Q-Grading methodology.
- Full transparency — we work with producers we know, so both sides of the supply chain stay visible to each other.
- Long-term partnership — we sustain these relationships over many years to build truly collaborative partnerships.
Stumptown pays price incentives directly linked to a coffee's quality. As described in our Direct Trade principles above, that quality is assessed using the internationally recognized Q-Grading methodology, a standardized scoring system that gives both roaster and producer a shared, transparent framework for discussing quality.
Producing great coffee is expensive, and we never expect to get it on the cheap. We pay stable prices across multi-year partnerships, so everyone along the supply chain can focus on what matters: producing, roasting, and serving some of the best coffee on the planet.
From the beginning, it's been critical to us that we know where our coffee is coming from—the regions, the farms, and the people. Stumptown founder Duane Sorenson pioneered this approach in 2003 when he began our foundational direct relationship with the Aguirre family of Finca El Injerto, whose coffees are, to this day, vital and beloved menu offerings. Other early Direct Trade partners include Los Delirios (Nicaragua), El Puente (Honduras), and Bella Vista (Guatemala). We’ve steadily grown our relationship network for more than two decades.
Every region and producer is different. When many producers come together to form a community lot, as in the case of farmer associations or cooperatives, we negotiate with a representative of the producer group. This is the case with perennials like Colombia El Jordan, Indonesia Sumatra Ketiara Bies Penantan and Ethiopia Mordecofe. This level of transparency allows us to negotiate prices, whenever possible, directly with producers.
In all cases, our coffee team aims to visit the producers regularly to walk the farms, visit the mills, choose the lots, and focus on our common goal: high quality, delicious coffee.
Direct Trade is our way of saying “we’re in it for the long run.” We don’t call a coffee Direct Trade until we have sourced it for at least three consecutive years with the intention to continue purchasing from that producer.
That commitment shows up in the numbers. In 2025, over 90% of all coffee Stumptown purchased came through Direct Trade relationships of three or more consecutive years, and 100% of our purchases were verified by Enveritas. This international non-profit monitors and evaluates coffee supply chains across 30 sustainability criteria.
We invest in relationships with suppliers who produce exquisite coffees. We both get better results as we invest and grow together over many years. In 2024, over 90 percent of all the coffees Stumptown purchased were through Direct Trade relationships of three or more consecutive years. In addition, 100% of our purchases were verified by Enveritas––an international non-profit organization that specializes in the monitoring and evaluation of coffee supply chains across 30 different sustainability criteria.
