Hi, I’m Prunella from “Le Piantagioni del Caffè” and I will explain how roasters buy coffee when they don’t travel to the countries of origin to choose it themselves.

Coffee is bought only on price lists. Roasters receive those lists from the raw coffee traders they work with. The prices are based on the stock market: New York for arabica and London for robusta.
So one chooses on the basis of price and not on the specific coffee quality one wants.
Another way of buying coffee is to request it from the trader only when needed.
But it can’t be done with Specialty coffee, because it has to be booked in advance.
Thus all those who don’t travel to the countries of origin and don’t have specific requests, they work with commercial coffee.
When they ask for a specific coffee from the trader, but it is not available, they just choose another one.
Therefore they are not strictly bound to the organoleptic profile’s consistency that, instead, we demand from our Specialty coffee every year.