Green Bean Sites - Where We Get Our Beans

• Café Imports
  Driven by a passion for coffee, they search the world for the very best coffees available. Their quest is a love affair, and their knowledge of all things coffee is invaluable to their roaster customers.
  
  
• Coffee Holding Company
  Three generations of committed, knowledgeable professionals, scouring the globe for the finest beans. Every coffee is roasted and cupped in house to ensure it meets their rigorous standards.
  
  
• Vournas Trading
  Offering a full line of fine, specialty-grade green coffees, Vournas carries more than 70 different coffees from the finest crops available world-wide.
  
  
• Volcafe
  Volcafe began in 1851, engaging in trade between Europe and the Indian sub-continent. They continue today, offering "old world" service, with an emphasis on washed, mild coffees.

Coffee Organizations We Support

• Cup of Excellence
  The Cup of Excellence is a strict competition that selects the very best coffee produced in that country for that particular year. These winning coffees are chosen by a select group of national and international cuppers and are cupped at least five different times during the competition process. The final winners are awarded the prestigious Cup of Excellence® and sold to the highest bidder during an internet auction.
   
• The Daterra Group
  This is perhaps the best example of what a coffee producing region can be, in terms of social and environmental responsibility as well as devotion to producing fantastic coffee. Whenever I meet with Isabel Paschoal, she amazes me with stories of the projects they create to make things better for the workers in the Daterra group.
  
  
• Rainforest Alliance
  A great model for environmental responsibility, this certification group focuses on protection of the ecosystem, and the people that depend on that land. Companies, cooperatives and landowners that participate in our programs meet rigorous standards that conserve biodiversity and provide sustainable livelihoods.
  
  
• Utz Certified
  Utz Certified is dedicated to creating an open and transparent marketplace for agricultural products. They started out as Utz Kapeh, meaning "Good Coffee" in a Mayan language. As the program grew to include crops other than coffee, they changed their name to reflect their expanded mission.
  
  Utz Certified's vision is to achieve sustainable agricultural supply chains where farmers are professionals implementing good practices which lead to better businesses, where the food industry takes responsibility by demanding and rewarding sustainably grown products, and where consumers buy products which meet their standards for social and environmental responsibility.
  
  Utz Certified ensures that coffee is grown with respect for producers and the environment. Their "Code of Conduct" represents a worldwide standard for responsible coffee production, focusing on social, cultural, environmental and economical criteria.
  
  
• Coffee Kids
  An international non-profit organization established to improve the quality of life for children and families who live in coffee-growing communities around the world. Turtle Creek Coffee donates a portion of all sales to this outstanding program.
  
  
• The Hope Cup Project
  This amazing program is in great part the brainchild of the Paschoal family, and the Daterra Coffee group. You do have to translate it from Portuguese (I use the Google language tool). Basically, Daterra donates blank porcelain cups, then Rodrigo - a quadriplegic art instructor - gets his students to hand paint them...the proceeds from the sale of these cups go to keep Rodrigo cared for, and the school running.
  

Fun and/or Informational Sites

• Too Much Coffee Man
  Fun site, with a coffee oriented magazine, mugs, shirts and more! Funny comics, commentary, music and movie reviews, fiction and more. NOT necessarily politically correct, or for the young ones.
  
  
• Coffee Kid
  A coffee lover’s obsession web site – kudos to Mark Prince. This site offers reviews of coffee equipment, and is considered by many to be the very best source of coffee information for consumers, by consumers.
  
  
• Coffee Geek
  Opinions, Reviews, Guides & How-Tos, Resources and Forums. No shortage of content here – you could spend the rest of your life in this site There is ALWAYS something new here.
  
  
• Coffee Index
  Hundreds of coffee related links, divided into ten categories: associations, companies, jobs, people, publications, recipes, references, and more.
  
  
• Coffee Press Journal
  An Online Magazine for the creative writer in us all. The Coffee Press Journal may contain poetry, prose, essays, and other forms of creative writing. CAUTION: Side effects may include 'oohs', 'aahs', laughter, tears, joy, pain, grieving and healing. The most common side effects are encouragement and inspiration.
  
  
• Starbucks Delocator
  OK, I just couldn’t resist adding this one. Find a Non-Starbucks Coffee Shop near you ! Just punch in a zip code, and the delocator will find a non-corporate café near you. And if your favorite “real person owned” café is not listed, feel free to add it to their database while you are there.
  
  
• Latte Art
  A very well done site featuring a wide variety of Latte Art forms.
  Hearts, rosettes, even a Lion! Stills and slide shows.
  
  
• Espresso Porn
  No, it isn’t that kind of site! In this case porn is actually a play on the word pourin’. This site offers some fantastic images of espresso shots being pulled by extremely talented baristas through a bottomless portafilter, letting you see how truly fine espresso shots are formed. A little slow to load if you are a dial up person, but worth the wait.