The purchase of a portion of all of the top 10 competition lots from the 2020 Copa Suaceña is an exciting chapter in the partnership that Passenger has been gradually building over time with the producers of Divino Niño and ASOCAFOR. The first step of the project was the addition of the Divino Niño community blend to Passenger’s Foundational Menu, making it feasible for us to pay fixed prices on an ongoing basis for the majority of the 86+ coffee that these 42 small farms produce annually. The second step was the creation of a home for coffees produced by the same farmers that achieve slightly lower quality scores (in the 84-85 pt. range). With the founding of our sister roasting company, Necessary Coffee, we were able to start buying these coffees from Divino Niño and ASOCAFOR as well. More recently, single producer microlots (such as the present offering from Adriana Gonzalez) and single variety community blends (such as our Divino Niño Pink Bourbon), that we are proud to feature on Passenger’s Reserve and Education Lot menus, are all the more compelling for us because they are grounded in a broad, growing partnership that we intend to continue building with this remarkable coffee producing community.
At Passenger we are committed to the idea that the pursuit of a truly viable specialty coffee supply chain requires that coffees of all quality grades - not merely the highest scoring microlots - be bought at a fair price. While still at an early stage of development, our evolving partnership with the producers of Divino Niño is a project that fills us with pride and optimism for the future.
