Fairtrade Colombian Expocafe Coffee

Expocafe is an enormous exporting coffee co-operative that has members in seven of the best coffee growing areas in Colombia, these being Antioquia, Risaralda, Caldas, Valle del Cauca, Tolima, Cauca and Huila. They have been established for over 30 years.

Northern Tea Merchants use Expocafe for many reasons including:

1. The commitment shown by co-operative members and directors of the co-op towards quality, service and agricultural technology.
2. They are the only Colombian Exporter (currently) to have an ISO9001-2000 quality certification.
3. Expocafe is BASC certified which empowers them to prevent incidents that relate to international smuggling.
4. Its co-operative purchase system, which is national in Colombia has 500 collection points and 15 mills located throughout Colombia.
5. Expocafe also has a specialty coffee division which assists certain co-operative members who produce the best coffees to have an international platform through which to sell them.

We buy coffees that are classes as supremo 17+ and 18+, with the numbers referring to the size of the screen through which the beans are passed when they are being sorted into different sizes. Screen 18 is 18/64ths of an inch and screen 17 is 17/64ths of an inch.

Expocafes outlook towards Fairtrade is an excellent one with Expocafe being the first Fairtrade co-operative in Colombia. Expocafe say that Fairtrade is based on a partnership between producers and consumers. A Fairtrade licensed co-operative offers its members a better deal and trading terms that are more to their advantage. This allows farmers to plan for their futures and gives them ways in which that they can improve their lives. Expocafe believe Fairtrade offers consumers a direct way to reduce poverty by buying Fairtrade registered products that they consume every day.

For every kilo of Fairtrade coffee that Expocafe sells, social premiums are generated that allow for the quality of life and productivity of the primary producers to be improved and for their communities to be enriched by the application of social projects.

Expocafes customers include Northern Tea Merchants, Nestle, Starbucks and many high quality speciality coffee roasters throughout the world.

With these impeccable credentials also comes coffee with great flavour and taste, our Colombian Expocafe is beautifully balanced with a medium acidity and body, a smooth mouthfeel and fruity acidity. The varietals of coffee used are Typica and Caturra which are farmed at 4-5000 feet and above and prepared by the individual smallholders who wash and then sun-dry the coffee beans. As well as being Fairtrade certified Expocafe co-operative members are also fully certified members of the Rainforest Alliance.