The people behind the cup
Coffee is grown by people. The names below are the producers — multi-generational families, Cup of Excellence winners, and cooperatives — whose work makes everything we sell possible.
Specialty coffee — only about 5% of global production — exists because individual farmers refuse the shortcuts that commodity coffee depends on. Selective hand-picking of ripe cherries instead of strip-picking. Controlled fermentation instead of generic processing. Drying that takes weeks of careful watching instead of days of brute-force heat.
That work has a cost. The price we pay reflects it: not the commodity ("C-market") rate, but a number negotiated against cup score, lot characteristics, and the specific farm's standards. Our coffee hunter, Jordan Dabov — an international Cup of Excellence juror and licensed Q-grader — has been on the ground at most of these farms over the past fifteen years. The relationships are direct, the prices are documented, and the names of the people doing the work are ones we'd like you to know.
"Most of these farmers are not chasing the next big buyer. They are chasing the perfect lot. Our job is to recognise that work and pay for it accordingly."
27 growers across 13 origin countries — sorted alphabetically.
Panangan Mata
Christian's coffees, distinguished by their participation in the prestigious Cup of Excellence competition, are grown at Panangan Mata, in the Takengon region of Indonesia.
The location is exceptionally favourable for coffee, helped by elevations reaching 1,700 metres. That altitude contributes to the gently expressed acidity these coffees are known for — coffees that have placed in the Top 10 at Cup of Excellence.
Jamaican Blue Mountain specialty coffee enjoys global recognition among coffee lovers — and Clydesdale Estate is one of the companies responsible for that reputation.
Located in Jamaica's beautiful Blue Mountains, the company brings together small farmers across the region to deliver coffee renowned for its absence of bitterness, well-balanced body, and intense aromatics.
Clydesdale Estate is the oldest company of its kind on the island, in continuous operation since the 1970s.
Café Exótico de Altura
Café Exótico de Altura, the Cooperativa de Caficultores de Antioquia, became Fairtrade-certified in 2010. By 2013 the cooperative's farmers had sold more than 776 tonnes of their coffee under Fairtrade terms — generating substantial Fairtrade Premium revenue: more than €281,000 paid on top of the green coffee purchase price.
That Premium has allowed the cooperative to make significant community investments — but it also carries enormous responsibility, because the projects must reflect the wishes and needs of more than 10,000 farm members and their families across more than 50 municipalities.
To raise quality across its membership, the cooperative uses a 'Train the Trainers' method to disseminate knowledge throughout the entire team. The association also runs 'Cup of Antioquia' — a competition to recognise the highest-quality coffees. Seven labs and drying shelters have been built across various municipalities to support coffee drying.
Finca Santa Rita
Dariusz is a fifth-generation coffee farmer. Finca Santa Rita was founded in the 1870s by his great-great-grandfather, and today the farm is recognised for its specialty coffee carrying multiple international certifications for organic production and environmental stewardship.
The continuity of one family across five generations on the same land is itself an argument for what slow, deliberate farming can accomplish — and the cup that comes out of it. Try the Guatemala San Miguel — Bio for a balanced, vibrant expression of the work.
Pantan Musara · Gegaring team
Dr. Hamdan manages the collective coffee plantation in the Gayo mountains, in the village of Pantan Musara, Central Aceh. After harvest, processing is led by his son Hendra Maulizar.
With his Gegaring team, the young Hendra processes every cherry of Gayo Avatara coffee using a natural anaerobic post-harvest method — a relatively rare technique that yields a distinctive cup. The natural anaerobic process unlocks aromatic potential most other approaches miss, enriching Gayo Avatara with a fresh fruited bouquet and intensely sweet finish.
El Pino
El Pino is managed by Edilberto Bermeo and his family. The farm covers just over a hectare, planted entirely with the Geisha variety, in conditions purpose-built for the cultivar's demanding profile: high elevation, microclimate diversity, and rich volcanic soil.
Production at El Pino began in 2018 under a contour-planting system. The first beans appeared in 2020, and in 2021 the farm produced its first ton of parchment Geisha. That coffee scored between 88 and 90 points at Cup of Excellence, reaching the global Top 30 of the world's largest specialty coffee competition.
In 2023 the farm expanded production, and today harvests over 2.5 tons. The coffee is grown at 1,850 metres and washed-processed.
Finca Fatima
Ernesto's family has a long history that runs parallel to the history of Mexican coffee itself. Together with his sister Jivette, Ernesto acquired Finca Fatima in the 1970s.
After completing his studies in the United States, he returned home to Veracruz to lead the family specialty coffee farm. In 2019, Finca Fatima placed in the Top 10 at Cup of Excellence Mexico — a defining moment that confirmed what the family had been building toward for decades.
Finca La Virgen
Gabriela Hueck is the driving force behind Finca La Virgen — winner of 6th place at Cup of Excellence Nicaragua 2018.
For years the farm has done two things in parallel: produce some of Nicaragua's best coffees on a model of sustainable development, and invest deeply in the local community. Permanent workers are provided with housing, men and women receive equal pay, and healthcare and education are provided free of charge to entire families.
The farm's social architecture is the foundation of its quality — not a marketing afterthought.
SAMTFMACS Cooperative
The Small Farmer Organic Cooperative Society (SAMTFMACS) in India's Araku Valley now counts 10,500 farmers as members. The producers of its highest-quality coffees compete in the Gems of Araku specialty coffee competition — a regional showcase that has put Indian arabica firmly on the world map.
DABOV has been bringing winning lots from Gems of Araku to Bulgaria since 2020.
Fazenda Samambaia
Henrique Dias Cambraia owns Fazenda Samambaia and represents the fourth generation of the Cambraia family — long-standing producers of specialty coffee.
His coffee has repeatedly placed in the international Cup of Excellence competition, the most significant contest in the specialty world. Through his work and the passion of his entire team, Fazenda Samambaia placed at the top in two consecutive years (2000 and 2001), and again in 2014. A multi-generational consistency that very few farms can claim.
The Brazil Samambaia is a benchmark cup — sweet, layered, and unmistakably the work of a family that has been refining its craft for a century.
La Nena
Ingrid Alejandra Hernández López leads the Mexican specialty coffee farm La Nena. The production happens in mountainous terrain with volcanic soil — geological context that translates into the cup as a distinctive, specifically Mexican character. The farm sits at 1,100 metres elevation, and the coffee is washed-processed.
Ingrid shares that her love for specialty coffee began 20 years ago, when she happened to visit a farm in Mexico and fell in love with the landscape and the entire process from cherry to cup. She calls her farm 'her child,' tending it day after day with the same care that name implies.
Monteverde
Johan Gutiérrez Falla is a fifth-generation coffee farmer. At his farm Monteverde, he works alongside four living generations of his family — knowledge passed down and refined with each iteration.
Johan combines the older generations' wisdom with the advantages of modern technique, an approach that has enabled him to compete in some of the most prestigious specialty contests, including Cup of Excellence. The family's proudest moment came the first time they were selected as finalists, earning the right to participate in the international auction.
Monteverde grows the Geisha variety and processes it using the honey method — a combination that yields a sweet, complex cup with the floral lift Geisha is known for.
Finca Santa Cruz
José Argüello Enríquez and his family run Finca Santa Cruz, adjacent to the celebrated Triunfo Biosphere Reserve. The farm takes pride in a methodical approach to specialty coffee, built on documented protocols for selective picking, fermentation, storage, and every step in between. Repeating those protocols every year is what produces consistent quality, harvest after harvest.
José is the youngest member of the family, but already a family man himself — happily married with three children. One of the missions of his working life is to prove that world-class specialty coffee can be produced in his native Mexico, and that his country can compete with the best on the planet. The first-place finishes his Geisha has earned at Cup of Excellence over multiple consecutive years are the proof.
At Finca Santa Cruz they believe quality is not a matter of luck but of method and discipline. The processing method is natural, the coffee grown at 1,700 metres above sea level.
Finca El Cabuyal · La Ortiga
The coffee from Costa Rica Finca El Cabuyal La Ortiga is grown on a family farm in La Ortiga de Copalchí, Corralillo province, Costa Rica.
Manuel Carranza Navarro and his wife María de los Ángeles Molina Navarro received the 5-acre farm El Cabuyal as a wedding gift from María's father. For the last ten years the couple has worked together on specialty coffee production at the farm, which has its own micro-mill — enabling meticulous care at every step: cherry selection, pulping, fermentation, and drying.
The income from El Cabuyal helps the couple raise their two sons, currently 8 and 2 years old.
Ecoagricola
Brothers Marcelo and Roberto Flanzer are the managing partners of Ecoagricola. They previously ran the business alongside their father Enrique, who has since retired. Marcelo is responsible for production; Roberto handles administration.
Ecoagricola's history started in the 1970s, when the family acquired land in the Serra do Cabral region for forestry projects. At the turn of the new millennium they began considering diversification — and specialty coffee was the natural fit, given the region's elevation, climate, water, and terroir. The first plantings went in the ground in 2006; the first harvest came in 2009.
In 2014 and 2015 the farm was named Sustainable Supplier of the Year and shortlisted as a finalist for the Ernesto Illy Award. In 2016 Ecoagricola took a major step in its development by launching a direct-trade programme, establishing relationships with key customers in Europe, North America, and Oceania. Their coffees are used not only in blends but offered as single origins.
Water used for irrigation and wet-processing comes from the farm's own springs and is one-hundred-percent pure. Coffee residues are composted on-site to produce the farm's own organo-mineral fertiliser. Among Ecoagricola's biggest achievements are first-place finishes at Cup of Excellence.
Finca Apipias
Mario Alberto Ako Gómez and his father tend Finca Apipias with patience and care, sustaining a three-generation family tradition of coffee growing.
In 2022, their coffee earned 25th place in Cup of Excellence — a recognition that placed a small family operation alongside some of the most decorated names in Mexican coffee. The kind of result that proves the programme's promise: a smallholder competing on equal terms with the largest estates, judged purely on the cup.
Finca El Puente
Marysabel Caballero is a legacy farmer and the owner of the specialty coffee farm Finca El Puente in Honduras, alongside her husband Moises Herrera.
In 2016, the two won 1st place in Cup of Excellence Honduras — the country's most prestigious recognition for coffee quality. They are notoriously selective about the roasters they work with, and DABOV is one of only a handful worldwide whom they entrust with their lots.
Our role is to faithfully present the work and dedication that Marysabel and Moises pour into every cherry — and let the cup speak for itself.
Blue Baron Estate
Nestled in a gorge of tropical splendour and perched on a slope between 600 and 900 metres above sea level, Blue Baron Estate has been producing the highest-quality Jamaica Blue Mountain green coffee for many decades across its 67 acres.
Owned by the Minott family, who have been growing and processing coffee for more than 68 years, the Blue Baron trees are picked up to 20 times during the harvest period to ensure only the most perfectly ripe cherries are taken — then pulped and fermented with natural spring water.
Peaberry is a naturally occurring mutation of the normal coffee cherry that produces only a single bean. These smaller, rounder beans are famous for their concentrated sweetness and richer flavour.
Karamo Coffee
Karamo Coffee is one of DABOV's established partners in the birthplace of coffee — Ethiopia. The company has been on the market since 2017, founded by Nigusse Gemeda Mude, an entrepreneur and devoted specialty coffee enthusiast.
Karamo's coffees are grown at 2,380 metres in the Sidamo region of southern Ethiopia. The breakthrough came in 2020, when the company won Cup of Excellence with an extraordinary score of 91.04 points — placing it among the very highest-scored Ethiopian lots in the programme's history.
Finca La Gloria · El Jefe
Norberto Suárez is the definition of 'the boss of coffee'. He eats, breathes, and sleeps coffee — literally, his house sits at the base of one of his farms. His passion shows in every harvest he brings in, and his knowledge of the land is undisputed.
Even in his late sixties, he walks his farms' steep terrain and varied topography with the ease of someone half his age — exactly like the boss he is. His presence is so commanding that the decision to call his coffee Finca La Gloria El Jefe was an easy one, honouring his 'boss status' and his year-after-year dedication to crushing the harvest.
Norberto brought a coffee cultivation system he learned in Brazil, meticulously planting each tree at perfect spacing from the others — and the result shows in the impeccable rows of beautiful coffee trees. The Typica, Caturra, and Catuai varieties yield a characteristic flavour matched to the region: bright and refreshing.
He has trained his niece Nadya in that same dedication, and together they have produced phenomenal Panama coffee year after year.
The farm was founded by Osvaldo Pérez and his brothers in 1940, starting with 5.6 hectares of coffee. Years later Osvaldo Pérez Ramírez took over the family business and began applying new and improved cultivation techniques that drove higher yields.
He worked steadily with new varieties — Catimor, Catuai, and Pacamara — and the operation grew. Today the farm spans 105 hectares of coffee and 35 hectares of virgin tropical forest, a balance that reflects the family's commitment to producing exceptional coffee while preserving the surrounding ecosystem.
The Othaya Farmers' Association is located in the highlands of Mount Kenya, an environment that produces some of the world's most distinctive coffees — bright, intensely fruited, with the unmistakable structure that Kenyan arabica is famous for.
Othaya is one of the largest certified estates for the production and trade of specialty coffee in the country, representing thousands of smallholders who collectively give Kenyan coffee its reputation on the global stage.
Rachel Samuel was born in Ethiopia. The coffee industry became her personal mission when she returned to her homeland in 2007 to film a documentary about Ethiopian specialty coffee.
The project changed the trajectory of her life: together with her husband Adam, she began searching for land where they could start their own specialty coffee enterprise — and ended up building one of the more thoughtful operations in a country whose coffee is the global standard against which others are judged.
El Indio
Ramón Alfredo Presiga Tangarife is a professional agronomist and certified Q Grader — qualifying him as a recognised expert in evaluating coffee at the highest international level.
His farm El Indio in Colombia is surrounded by protected territories rich in natural resources and biodiverse flora and fauna. That ecological context translates directly into the cup: a coffee with depth and complexity that comes from a healthy environment, not from manipulation in the mill.
Fazenda Aliança
Renato Ishikawa is the son of Japanese immigrants to Brazil. After purchasing Fazenda Aliança in 1996, he transformed it into a singular destination for specialty coffee production in the Mogiana region of São Paulo state.
The farm exemplifies the careful, methodical approach that Japanese-Brazilian growers have brought to the country's specialty sector — a quiet, rigorous tradition that produces some of Brazil's most distinctive cups.
Don Danilo
Coffee growing is a family tradition for San Cristóbal del Llano, who runs Don Danilo in Costa Rica. Sixty years ago his grandfather planted the farm's first coffee trees; today his grandson continues that path with his team.
Love of coffee is passed down generation to generation in the San Cristóbal family, and the farm is fully committed to the entire process — from seedling preparation to drying at the mill. To strengthen its specialty coffee production, Don Danilo opened its own micro-mill.
The objective at the farm has remained constant across decades: produce specialty coffee good enough to put Costa Rica firmly on the world map.
Fazenda Planalto
Fazenda Planalto is a plateau oasis nestled in the rugged heart of South Minas, Brazil. The farm covers 910 hectares between 1,097 and 1,188 metres elevation.
Nearly 300 hectares of those are fully mechanised, covering every aspect of cultivation from planting to harvest. The cultivated varieties include Mundo Novo, Catuaí Red, and Yellow Catuaí. Production exceeds the country average, with annual yields of around 14,000 bags.
Fazenda Planalto operates one of the most modern facilities in Brazil for processing and preparing high-quality export-grade green coffee. The farm is run by Sergio Mantovanini and Cristiano Mantovanini.
Every coffee in our catalog comes from one of the producers above — sourced directly, roasted to order, and labeled with the farm and lot it came from.
