Back in 2014, Natalie was volunteering at her first Expo (short for the Specialty Coffee Association Exhibition that happens each year and brings together thousands of the world’s coffee professionals, snobs, and enthusiasts). 

Anyway - she was volunteering and washing dishes alongside one of their coffee traders. She was immediately drawn to how friendly and welcoming they were. Natalie was relatively new to the coffee game and was inspired by the work that Sustainable Harvest was doing. 

She started off buying a little bit of coffee each year and began to foster a close relationship with the trader ‘assigned’ to her account. Sustainable Harvest does an excellent job of getting to know their roasters, so when a coffee comes around that is truly special - they know who to share it with. Like our coffee from Liliana Lozano!

You know the story (hopefully, or you can read up here) of our importer calling us and telling Natalie she had a coffee that she knew would fit well with Treeline. It was an exquisite Colombian coffee that was naturally processed. We took a chance and bought up her whole lot the first year. 

The ‘chance’ paid off. As Liliana grew her production and had more to offer, we were also growing and were able to purchase more from her. This type of relationship is one of the reasons Natalie and Deejay got into coffee, something Sustainable Harvest recognized and has been working with for the past several years. 

We have now had the opportunity to visit Liliana in Colombia and are heading to Mexico to meet our producers there. Sustainable Harvest has become more than just an importer for us, but a catalyst for future relationships with some of our favorite coffee producers around the world and our friends.