Sourcing Green Coffee Beans in and outside of Sweden

The Criteria for Sourcing Green Coffee

FOB Price

One of the important aspects of specialty coffee is fair trade – farmers produce high-quality coffee, and they should get a fair price for what they harvest. FOB Price is basically what the importer (in many cases, the supplier themselves) pays for the coffee. It’s a great deal of transparency. And while it’s not required, I would be happy to know what the farmers are getting.

Cupping Score

Coffee that is rated as specialty has to be at least 80 cupping score by SCA (it’s not the only criteria, but an important one). If you are paying 200/20 EUR or more per kg for green coffee beans, you should know what you get. While a higher cupping score is not necessarily more expensive, it depends a lot on the supply-demand balance, but I’d be happier to pay more money for a higher cupping score.

Year of Harvest

Green coffee beans have a much longer shelf life than roasted coffee ones. While for roasted, you should finish your bag within 2 months (and some purists might say just 1 month), green beans can be kept for 12 months in proper storage conditions, if not more. But they do not last forever; the fresher the beans = the better, which is why it’s important for the supplier to disclose the year of harvest (or even, month of harvest).

Suppliers in Sweden

I started with White Elk Coffee and Raw Coffee. Too early to tell about the bean’s quality, but I must say I really like White Elk Coffee’s packaging. They are a branch/subsidiary of Kafferosteriet Koppar AB, which has some great coffees.

It is told that almost any roaster will sell your raw coffee if you ask nicely, so you probably ask your favorite roaster if they have green beans to sell. The commonly accepted “rule” is green coffee is 1/2 price of roasted ones, so you might offer that to the roasters.

I would recommend buying from suppliers that focus on coffee beans – they usually know more about their stuffs – than the suppliers that sell general groceries. But you can always try your luck, maybe there is a hidden gem somewhere.

Suppliers outside Sweden

Of course I would prefer buying from Sweden for obvious reasons. But I can’t resist the urge to try some exotic beans, so I have been looking around to see where I can source my green beans from EU.

This is inspired by EU Green Coffee Sources List 2023 (home-barista.com), but with more information you can find in one place. Sadly many of them are not shipping to Sweden, but you probably can arrange some shipping if you ask nicely.