Andrea Rubi, Operations and Sales Manager at Fincas Ruland

Artwork for podcast Beans Without Boundaries

Episode 11 • 4th October 2023 • Beans Without Boundaries • Elena Mahmood

[: 00:00:02

Well, hello.

[: 00:00:17

Hey.

[: 00:00:18

Andrea. Welcome to the show.

[: 00:00:20

Thank you. Thank you for having me. It's so nice to finally put a face to your voice because I've heard the podcast, but I couldn't picture like a face.

[: 00:00:29

Well, hopefully I didn't let you down on that regard. Yeah. Why don't you just start off by introducing yourself?

[: 00:00:38

Sure. Well, my name is Andrea Rubi, and I'm part of a second generation of my family's business, which is named Rueland. A lot of people ask, What does Rubland mean? Rubland is a composition of my parents' last name. My dad's last name is Ruby, so R-U. My mom's surname is Landa, Landa Verde, L-A-N-D. Well, my parents have been producing coffee for over 27 years now. They started when my sisters and I were very young. Our life has been divided into two big industries. My dad has always worked in mining and my mom has been the one that's been in front of the coffee farms. We grew up seeing both of them work in their industry, helping each other to make us... Because both monies, both incomes were for us to study for our health. That's how we grew up. We grew up in a hometown town called Las Vegas that's in Santa Barbara in Honduras. It's one of the most famous regions of coffee in Honduras.

[: 00:01:55

I didn't expect your mom to be the person who is in charge of all the producing for the coffee and then your dad's the mining. What mining?

[: 00:02:04

Well, in Las Viejas, it's copper and silver because there's a mine in Las Viejas. But he's been in other mines where there's also gold because he's been traveling around Central and South America for minerals. That's really cool.

[: 00:02:19

I figured that'd be exhausting and also slightly dangerous.

[: 00:02:23

He's done this job for over 40 years now. He recently retired of mining and he's back home and now he's learning about coffee.

[: 00:02:32

Well, that's great then. Obviously, you have a lot of extensive background with coffee and having watched it being a part of your family. I think I read that your sisters are also involved with the coffee production too, or in terms of that?

[: 00:02:47

It's the whole family. It's the middle one that I have an older sister called Brenda and my younger sister called Angie. We got into specialty in around 2015. My parents were producing commercial coffee and for us to have direct relationship with roasters, coffee shops and like to connect these two worlds. But we didn't produce specialty coffee at that time. So in 2015, they purchased a second land, which we called Finca Rueland Two, and they started planting different varieties of specialty. At that time, my older sister was already graduated from college, but she was working in banks. She went straight to what her career was. I was about to graduate from college and I went back home for vacations because I was doing an internship with Disney. I was looking to go back and work full-time with Disney. I was doing that research. My parents were like, Andrea, why don't you start working in the family business? There's a lot of things you could do here. We're going to start harvesting our first crop of specialty and we want someone to connect the both worlds, coffee and roasters. But at that time, I wasn't really interested in coffee and I was like, I don't think that's my thing.

[: 00:04:15

My major is in hospitality and I knew things could relate, but at that time I didn't know hospitality and coffee could relate. I was like, I don't think so. The farms are in the countryside. I was like, I don't know people here. What am I going to do with my life here? My mom was persuading me like, This could be a good opportunity for you, professionally, you could grow. My younger sister, she was about to start... No, she was in her second year of college. My mom was at that time alone with the both farms because my dad was still in a mining company in Nicaragua. I said, Okay, I'll give it a try because I really did not know anything about coffee and we'll see what happens. In Honduras, we have a cupping school that is led by the Instituto de Norteño del Cater, which is the National Institute of Coffee here in Honduras. They had a cupping school. I talked with them and said if I could get in because they had already started. They had three months in advance. Well, they said yes. I got into the cupping school and I started learning things about quality, describing coffees, actually understanding because before I really didn't even drink coffee.

[: 00:05:37

I could go by days and not even drink a cup of coffee. I felt very bad once I got into the school because I sat and everyone was like a coffee geek. I was like, Oh, my God. I'm the daughter of one of the biggest producers here in the region and I just don't know how to.

[: 00:05:54

Make a coffee.

[: 00:05:55

Don't drink coffee. I started putting myself together and I'm like, I mean, it's so embarrassing. I'll start learning fast and I'll do what I have to do. But in a couple of months, when I started understanding everything and learning, I started liking it. So at that time, the new harvest of the specialty coffee started. So everything that I was learning in the cupping school, then I was put it in practice in the farms. Like in commercial, we don't do the hand-pick of just the cherry, like the red cherry. It's different how it works. Here it's just the red cherry to keep with the quality. My mom said, You're going to lead this harvest. This is your group of people. This is the people that's going to be with you the whole year for the harvest and you're going to lead them. You're going to tell them what to do. Everything was new for me, like drying, coffee, fermentation, washing, but it was a very small harvest that year. When that harvest finished, we dried that coffee, it was ready. I remembered at that time that when I was at Disney, there was a roaster that distributed the coffee to Disney.

[: 00:07:14

I said, This is the only person that I know right now that I could share my green beans. I traveled, I took samples of what we did that year, and I introduced myself. I said, I'm Andrea, I'm a coffee producer, and I wanted you to cup this coffee. Thankfully for me, the day that I did that, I met the owner of the roaster. He was really intrigued that he never met a producer and never walked into the roaster with green coffee. He was like, I'll be happy to sample your coffee. But he said it's going to take two weeks and I'll let you know. That was fine. I went back home and then I received an email saying that they actually liked our coffee and let's negotiate the price.

[: 00:08:04

Wow! So for me, that was the opening for specialty coffee. I said, I feel that I belong here now because I really liked all the hard work that we did, not just as a family, but all the people that's involved. And hearing a good response of all that hard work, it felt really nice. For me, it was like a huff. I did.

[: 00:08:28

You gathered so much information in such a short period of time. You had just followed what your mom said and learned all about coffee in an intimidating atmosphere of already being like, There's a lot to learn. And then I found it interesting, though, from the beginning of the story, it started with Disney and then it's still connected to Disney by the end of it. And it's like the appreciation for the journey. Do you still work with that roaster with your coffees too?

[: 00:08:57

Yes, and we've got a very nice relationship with him. He bought coffees from Honduras, but he never met producers. The next harvest, he was like, I want to travel to Honduras and I want to go to your farm. Obviously, what they buy most is volume, more of commercial than specialty. When we went to... When he got to Honduras and he saw that we had two farms, commercial and specialty, he was like, How can we negotiate for me to buy the whole harvest of commercial?

[: 00:09:29

Oh, my God, that's great.

[: 00:09:32

It was crazy because we've never done it. We've never sold our whole harvest directly for commercial coffee. And till this year, until this time, we still have a good relationship with them.

[: 00:09:46

That's crazy. That's great, too, to be able to have both ends still work together by the same relationship versus having to weave out good relationships outside of... With different coffee roasters. Yes. What I'm really interested in hearing more about is about commercial coffee versus a lot of specialty coffee. I think a lot of the time this podcast is mainly focused on specialty coffee, a lot of green defects and understanding grading and what the idea of quality even is because it's subjective, right? I feel like a lot of the time it's literally just to put a price tag on some coffee, but a lot of the time we strip the relationship aspect that is coffee. But I think the one thing I don't know much about is commercial coffee. And I think that it'd be great to hear from your perspective specifically, just because you have the side by side and you've been able to see how they both interact in different ways. What have you learned from the commercial side versus the specialty side? And what are the pros and the benefits from either or?

[: 00:10:46

Well, in commercial, the more you sell, the better because the price is lower. But something that we learned that year because when this green buyer said, I want to buy the whole crop from this farm, we didn't feel that we were ready, but I didn't want to say no. I said yes immediately without thinking. And then I was like, Where are we going to dry all this coffee? Because we have no space. And my mom said, Well, you already said yes, and we're going to see how we make this happen. We started cupping because we didn't know we've never cupped coffee from the commercial because the part of selling commercial coffee is way different than specialty. It doesn't go on quality. We started cupping and there were some 80, 81 points of that coffee, which wasn't bad, but I wanted to make it better. We started talking with the hand pickers of that harvest and we said, We're not going to say that it's going to be a crop, a specialty, but we want to do better in the hand picking. We want to have better cherries to hand pick. We started working with that coffee as if it was specialty, but not very high in standards.

[: 00:12:05

We were not so strict. Another thing that we never did with that coffee was doing the depulping and washing of that coffee in our farm. It was always just a specialty because this coffee you dep pulp and you wash, but in a different place and you sell it directly to exporters. After that, you don't know what's the destination of that coffee. But that year, we wanted to do everything because we wanted to have control of the quality of that coffee. The green buyer said, I appreciate that you do all that. I know it's going to be more work. But I wanted to see the difference in a cup of note with that coffee if we treated it better. The results for that coffee, it was 84.5 after doing the whole-.

[: 00:12:52

For commercial? Yes.

[: 00:12:54

Wow! I sent samples to him. First, we set up a price without cupping because we actually thought it wasn't going to be that good. When he cupped, he actually said, I'll offer more for you- Love that. Because it actually... I mean, it's good coffee. Right. For us, it was like... That year we said like, What do we call specialty coffee? Because we've worked with this commercial and we made it special because we did the whole quality control as in specialty coffee, and we found a home for it. It was a good year. After that, COVID came. The next year, we did not sell. We did not sell that way. But I think that if you find the right people in green coffee buyers, you can make really good negotiations with your commercial coffees as well, because in volume is where your business will raise. We did see that if we work very well with commercial coffees, then things are going to have a good path.

[: 00:14:08

That's amazing. Yeah, it seems like you were able to apply a lot of the more important aspects from specialty coffee to commercial coffee and all of that hard work that you did paid out with... It literally paid out through that coffee roaster who saw the value of what you guys were doing. I also want to know. You said you studied hospitality and you were looking to Disney. What did you want to do before you started going back to do coffee?

[: 00:14:35

Well, when I did my intern with Disney, I was working with a resort, but we had to take classes that had to do with Disney, the Disney Company. I loved everything about the marketing area. I was trying to apply for that area. Why is Disney everywhere? Everyone knows about Disney and all the part of marketing. It was something that I was really into it. I was applying and I think that I would have gotten that job. But I don't regret staying in the firm. Everything that I learned working at Disney, I've applied so many things in the farm as well because, of course, it's such a huge company and a lot of things that help for me. That's great.

[: 00:15:22

During your journey, besides obviously the coffee roaster that you've been able to maintain a relationship with, do you have anything that's extremely memorable that stood out to you, whether it's at the farm or if it's been working with Roadsters or the community in the industry?

[: 00:15:38

It's been many things. For example, having my sisters working with me and as a family, we've always been very close. Even though with my dad, because my dad worked in mining for 22 years, that he had to leave the country. He was in Central America, he was in South America, he came back and forth. But we grew up without him having him physically there every day. It was only my mom. But we were always in touch. Same with my sisters. I used to study two, three hours away from home because in Las Vegas, by that time, we didn't have bilingual schools. We didn't study in our hometown. We used to come the weekends or every 15 days to the farm to visit my mom. My mom was always with my younger sister because she never wanted to leave home. By the time that she got to school, there already were bilingual schools in the area. So sheto stay there. She decided to stay there and she was always living with my mom. Then it was my biggest sister and me living in another city studying. We were always close. But one thing that I've loved and that it's been very memorable for me is that we've kept together over the years, and it's not easy.

[: 00:17:02

There's a lot of people that say that family business are not easy. I'm not going to say that they are because of course they're not. But for us, it's really been a huge blessing that I don't know, I think it's my mom because she has maintained us together and kept us together. We really actually love working with the farm. We have a lot of passion. I want to mention working with my sisters like my younger sister, Angie. She studied in a college that has to do with agricultural majors. She got involved in the farm in 2018? No, 2019. Yes. She graduated from college and got back home. My mom has always been the one in charge of production. When my younger sister came, we were like, work. We want to get my mom a break. We want Angie to grab her job and my mom, you could sit aside, rest for a little. You've worked for so many years. My mom was like, If you guys put me to rest, I'll just die. Because I've been working my whole life and I'm not.

[: 00:18:18

Going to sit down. My grandma's like that too.

[: 00:18:20

Because my dad, he was at Nicaragua and he was like, You should put your mom… She should calm down, because my mom, she doesn't stop. My sister has been taking in charge of that area always with my mom on her side. Then Angie left. Angie has a master's in coffee and economic. She did it in Italy.

[: 00:18:44

Wow. She did.

[: 00:18:45

Quarantine in Italy because I was 2020.

[: 00:18:48

I remember those days.

[: 00:18:51

Yeah, she was in Italy at that time. She's been like… Angie has the production line and she has all the administration line of our farm. Also we have a coffee shop that we opened last year in 2022. Yes, we opened a coffee shop in Las Vegas. In 2020, one of our biggest challenges was when COVID hit, we had a lot of coffees that were not sold, a lot of the specialty coffees that were not sold. There were a lot of green coffee buyers that said, I mean, we can't buy the coffee because we're not even moving the coffee that we have here, so we can't buy coffee. We didn't want to sell it to the exporters in the region because we knew it was going to be for very low prices and we didn't want to do that. We had the coffee at our warehouse and we were thinking, what are we going to do with that coffee? As a family who said, why don't we start roasting and creating our brand and selling our coffee and in Honduras and see how it goes? We can start with family and friends. We know it's a good product and it's product that has always been exported.

[: 00:20:07

It doesn't stay in Honduras and we can start that way. That's how my sister, Brenda, the oldest, got into the business. Because she quit the bank before COVID because she wanted to look for another opportunity, but she wanted to be home for a while. Then COVID comes and everything stops. So she was like, well, she's very good in marketing, she's very good in sales. So she was like, well, I think I can help out. I think I can find my way here and I can help out with the sales of the roasting of the coffee. At that time, we did not have a roaster home. Ecafé, the National Institute of Coffee, has a roasting service area. So we started roasting with them. We made a label, like a package, sticker, everything. We designed something and we started roasting that way and we started selling. In Honduras, it's a bad thing, even though we're a coffee-producing country, we're not very good in consuming it. It's a challenge to sell coffee. People won't pay for good coffee because it's a higher price. Right. People will pay for cheaper coffee. That was a challenge. But we started creating this marketing of the coffee from our area, us as a family, staying in Honduras as a family and trying to make our way out.

[: 00:21:39

There's a lot of people that got engaged with our story and started hearing about us. They were like, We want to buy that coffee because these girls, I don't know, there's something about these girls that we like. That's how we started roasting and selling our coffee in Honduras. That's how my two sisters were already with us in the business. 2021, my dad was like... Because we were all over the place. We had to go to San Pedro de Ola, which is in another city, to roast. They packed that coffee, then we brought it back to Las Vegas, which is a two-hour drive. From Las Vegas, we started looking where to distribute. My dad was like, Okay, I think we have some money to buy a roaster. There's several people in Honduras that they do roaster machines. That's what we could afford. We went to see those machines and we thought they worked well. So we bought a roaster that time. In the cupping school, I had some roasting classes as well. I was not an expert, but I always loved roasting coffee because I didn't tell you hospitality is my major, but also I'm a chef.

[: 00:22:53

Okay.

[: 00:22:55

Love that. When I started roasting, I related a lot with cooking. So for me, it was easy. I liked it. And when they bought the roaster, my sister were like, okay, you're the one that's going to roast because we're not going to take that responsibility over. But I always liked it and I said okay. So I started learning about the Roaster. We started meeting each other, seeing what... Because for me it's a she, she's a she. She's a she. And I started seeing how things were going to work for us. Then I became, well, I'm not an expert, but I became the roaster, right? I'm a ruler that had roaster. I always told people, if there's something wrong with the roasting, please let me know because I'm in charge of that and I want that better. I don't want someone to just stop buying our coffee because it's not very well roasted. I think there's something about that that people like that we're very sincere because we're learning and we want to let people know that we're learning, we're no experts and we want to have feedback as well. And if there's like something that someone wants their coffee differently, we're very welcome to do it as well.

[: 00:24:09

We started growing that line and we've been doing good. There's a lot of people now that know about Rule and Coffee and that they buy our coffees. In 2022, we had the idea of having a coffee shop. We wanted for more consumers to drink good coffee. But we wanted to do it in our hometown because we felt like we feel very proud of where we're from and that Rueland is from Las Vegas. The opportunity came for us to open a shop and that was March of 2022. It was funny because we wanted a coffee shop, but we were not baristas and we did not know anything about serving coffee. We knew everything about production, about selling, exporting, roasting at that time, but not to serve a cup of coffee, so we started learning. My older sister was the first one that got a barista certificate. She was like, I'll do this. I'll start learning. Then Angie and me, we started learning. I did with Joe in New York with Amadis. I did a small barista course as well because they carry our coffee as well, Joe. They're another of our green coffee buyers. I started learning, then we opened up the shop and we were serving good coffees and we started putting some of our specialty coffees there.

[: 00:25:36

The good thing is that a lot of people from our hometown, they were really like, Wow, this is good coffee. We've been growing now for a year with that line. There's a lot of people that come from other cities around Las Vegas that they said, We've heard about this coffee and we've heard that there are three nice ladies here in front, and we want to meet them. It's been fun.

[: 00:26:00

My favorite part of everything that you said is how much strength and resilience you and your family have, like just starting already from home and then the dedication that you and your sisters all have. But it's not even just like, okay, we're all going to do this for our mom. It's like, Okay, so each of us have our own strengths. Then even with the challenges, you didn't even back down. You're like, Okay, we'll just learn this and we'll just do this and we'll just do this. Then there's no wonder that people have found that very magnetic that you keep attracting good customers and a lot of a good basis for your coffee line, people will always be attracted to charisma and passion over just logic and finance. I think that in general, this story, it's just constantly perseverance and just dedication to the craft. And that's just so beautiful to hear on all levels from you having a good, close-knit relationship with your sisters, because that's already hard as it is, especially ifIs there big age gaps between you guys? Are you guys also still like close in age?

[: 00:27:04

We're close. My older sister and I were three years apart and my younger sister, she's five years.

[: 00:27:11

Apart from me. I have two older sisters and I can't honestly imagine having a business with them. It'd be such a clash of interests and clashes of responsibility being distributed. Who's been your biggest rock during this time? All of the stuff that you had to constantly take on?

[: 00:27:33

I would have to say my mom. We've all seen my mom work so hard in the farms, and I don't want to take credit to my dad because sometimes he feels like, It's like if I don't exist. But it's like, no. It's like you've been working in another industry for so many years. We've seen my mom. We've seen her alone for so many years struggling with so many things because as a woman, of course, she had to lead men in the farm because most of our hard force is our workforce is men. We've seen her lead them and we've seen how they respect her. We've seen that there's nothing that my mom... My mom is never going to say I can't do this. She's going to try. She'll do whatever it takes, but she's going to try. It's something that we really have learned from her and it's something that we do. I don't like saying, for example, when that Green Coffee Buyer, if I would have had another experience from my life, I would have said, no, we can't sell this because it's too much coffee. But I was like, I didn't know how we're going to try this, but I don't know how we're going to do, but yes.

[: 00:28:41

There was a lot of people that said in the exporter that we were working with, between them, they said that they were saying that we were not going to be able to dry all that coffee because it was the whole harvest. They were like, they're not going to be able to do it. They're not going to be able to sell the whole crop. When we took the last bag of coffee, they were like, We really respect you, girls. It's amazing. It's amazing. All these things, we've really learned from my mother. I can't say it another way. It's all her. My dad has always been our greatest cheerleader because he has never said no to us as well. When we say this project, he's like, Okay, yes, we'll see if we have the money. If not, we can go to the bank. He's as always been supporting us. It's nice to have the whole family. It feels nice. I know that there's going to keep on challenging coming towards, but it's nice that all of us are with a lot of passion and that we really love working in coffee. We've had a good and bad experience, but we really take the good things out of everything.

[: 00:29:52

I love that your dad is also your cheerleaders for everybody else. That makes me happy that everybody's on board and is equally trying to support each other. I know that you said your mom also is leading on the farm. A lot of male workers. Has she struggled with being a woman and owning her own producing farm in Hondores? For her?

[: 00:30:18

Or.

[: 00:30:19

Did she just say, Kick them to the curb too, because she's just this boss ass bitch. Yes. She's a strong independent woman. I swear to God, listening to her.

[: 00:30:29

Yes, it's funny because my mom is really funny. She's like... Because I think also it was other times I think that now with gender equity, things like for us, it was a struggle when we got into the farm because they were so used to see my mom as a boss that they were like, You're too young. You're too young to be our boss. It's always been your mom. But I don't feel that it was because I was a woman. It was just because everyone was so used to my mom. I don't feel that my mom had that struggle because she's a woman. She has no respect or value in leading because my mom is crazy. If she won't take my mom, if she was like, Okay, if you don't want to work with me, you can just leave.

[: 00:31:14

I love that.

[: 00:31:15

I want people here that are willing to work. I'm not going to be here because I'm a woman or not. If you don't like it, leave. Right. That's how it is. And that's how we are now because we've learned. We've learned. So... There's people that have asked if we've had that issue because we're women and if there's been something because of gender equity or if someone has said, Because you're girls, you can't do it. No, I haven't had any experience with that, thank God. But because we really try to... When I stand up and I have to say something, I say it and I'm sure what I'm saying it. I'm trying not for people to say, Oh, she's nervous because she's a woman. Because I've heard things from two other girls, two other people like, Oh, her voice is a little nervous and oh, my God, this is the one that's going to be leading us. So all this experience and seeing my mom, how secure she is when she stands up and she's a group of male, I'm like, I'll do it as well because...

[: 00:32:23

I am my mother's daughter.

[: 00:32:25

[: 00:32:26

Love how it just seems like your mom is the best role model.

[: 00:32:32

Yes.

[: 00:32:33

Hopefully she continues what she's doing in good health and good spirits.

[: 00:32:37

Amen.

[: 00:32:38

I have this little thing on my show that I love to do that I started doing, I think, a couple of episodes ago where it's like a little spicy hot take on the industry where it can either be controversial or it could be a personal opinion about something. I was curious to what your hot take was. The little laugh.

[: 00:32:59

Oh, my God. Well, there's a lot of things in the industry, things that as a producer, we see and we don't like, especially things in price and direct relationships, what people actually think direct relationships are. I've met people that... And I want to mention with name and the company, Joe Coffee and Amadis, this company has been one of the most amazing companies that I've worked with. They really stay true to what they say and to what they believe. When they say direct relationships with the producers, they really mean it. I've worked with Joe for six years now, and I receive emails from Amadis as the green coffee buyer seven, eight times a year before the harvest, during the harvest and after the harvest. She's always asking, How are things doing? How much coffee are you going to have for this year? How much coffee are we going to buy from you this year? The prices? She gives me that confidence because there's a lot of people in the industry that they don't really care how the producers are struggling in origin. They just want to bring in the coffee and that's it. I love it when I can actually negotiate prices because every year things change.

[: 00:34:30

Everything, things go up. And having the opportunity of actually saying, this year our prices are this because of this, this and this because that's something that we've done as a family business. We take the cost of everything. We have them and we show them to the green coffee buyers. And we're like, this is our cost, this is our price, this is our the exportation services and this is what we're asking for. I've had people that... I've met producers because a lot of producers are getting close to us asking, how can you girls sell my coffee? How can you commercialize our coffee? How can you put our coffee in coffee shops and other places? Because we see you're doing good. But one thing that we say is if we're doing good is because we know what we have as a product. We have prepared ourselves. We've been privileged to and blessed first because the language barrier is a huge thing.

[: 00:35:27

Not.

[: 00:35:28

Many producers know the language and not many green coffee buyers go to origin and know Spanish. There's always a translator doing the...

[: 00:35:41

The negotiating.

[: 00:35:42

The negotiation. So there's no word for producers and there's a lot of... There's a producer very famous here in the region that they were like, We've been working with this coffee shop, with this roaster for 14 years. Since we started, the prices haven't changed. And we feel like if we ask for more money, I feel that they're going to leave because they've always paid for the same. Things like that really, it's very frustrating. For us, and I've always said it, I feel that we've been very blessed till this day of meeting the Green Coffee Buyers that we've met. We've really been very transparent in our cost and we've had this good relationship, people that really opens up and really cares about us, producers, as a family, and we have these good relationships. But when I see producers in my area that they've been producing specialty coffee for way longer than what we've done and the struggles that they have because of language, because of not having better prices and not having the opportunity to say it because they don't know how to say it, it's a struggle. We've helped a lot of producers as well to cup their coffees because they say, We sell coffee, but I don't really know what the tastes are, what the notes are.

[: 00:37:09

I don't know. The exporter does that job and they do the negotiation and then I just received my check at the end of the harvest. This year we had the experience that there were five producers that they were like, We want you to cup our coffee and we want you to look for a green coffee buyer for a coffee. It was the first time that I worked with someone else's coffee because I've always been complying with our coffee and we do all those things for our coffee. When they brought me the green samples, I was like, I want you guys to say I'll roast this coffee and we're going to cup it together. For them it was a totally different experience because we've never tried our coffee. No one has ever said, these are your coffee notes. This is what you have and this is what you're producing. There were some amazing coffees in that cupping session that when they started telling me the prices that they sold, it was prices that we had for the commercial coffee when we sold the whole harvest. That was in January. We started working. I started sending the green samples to different places, places that I knew, places that I did not know.

[: 00:38:19

Because for every year it works the same. Every year for us, I send the green samples first to the buyers that we already have. But I always send emails or if I can travel, Itry to travel to take green samples. I did this with them and there was a roaster in Ohio that he was so amazed with these coffees. He was like, Oh, my God! I've never tried something better than this. We got very good prices for these producers. But I tried to keep transparent the whole process. Even though I knew the producers were not going to understand, I sent them the emails because they have kids. I asked the producer, Do you have an email account? They were like, No, but my daughter does. I was like, I want to copy your kids. I want to copy your kids in the emails.

[: 00:39:06

Even though they don't know English, but there's a Google translate and you can do the translate for you to see what the Green Byer is saying. Because I don't want to be the one just saying, this is what he's saying. This is what he's saying. I want you to also read and understand in one way for you to see that what I'm saying is not a lie because it was a huge responsibility for me to carry these coffees for them. And then I invited them to the farm, we talked, we said everything that the Green Byer wanted. I listened to what they wanted and we did a call with the green coffee buyer. We did a video call and I said, okay, the producers are here and this is what they're saying. They felt very happy for that. They said that there's a lot and I understand that exporters and people, not everyone is going to work like this because it's a huge amount of producers and no one has the time for it. But I think if there's more people taking care of what producers want and what their issues in the farms are, a lot of things can change because there's a lot of people producing very good coffees and that they're saying maybe I'll just walk away from coffee because I don't see that I can make a living out of this.

[: 00:40:31

Oh, my God. Jeez, that's really rough. Yeah. See, as somebody who does coffee buying and coffee roasting, I think the one thing that also frustrates a lot of coffee roasters. And I bet since you have such a huge network, I would love to learn Spanish and to be able to cross the barriers to be able to understand the needs and teach and do all those other things. But I love the fact that you took it upon all the other responsibilities. You kept that community of like, I will help you because your coffee is good, or this is worth trying to teach and it'll just become this domino effect. Through that experience, I guess one, do you still do that for them as well, or are they able to do it on their own now?

[: 00:41:24

I think I'll keep on working with them until they... Because I did tell them at one point, I want to step away and let you do your negotiations. But for now, because it's the first time, they were like, No, we're really happy with what you're doing. But I'm like, right, confidence. But I'm like, you have to feel that you are encouraged and that you can do it as well. Because there's no better thing than doing your own negotiation of your coffee because the only one that knows how hard that.

[: 00:41:54

Coffee costs.

[: 00:41:55

Is themselves. Is themselves.

[: 00:41:57

Through that experience, this will also be piggybacking off of what you do currently. Do you ever see a future in education? I guess this is essentially what you were doing in that circumstance with that producer. Are you interested in doing that for different communities? Or what would you like? What you're doing with the whole family business to do in the future? What's the long-term goals that you're looking at?

[: 00:42:24

Yes. Well, right now, what we're doing recently, I'm in New York right now. I'm based in New York, New York, because we want to open up a new line of distribution. We want to start roasting in United States and distributing here because we know it's a big opportunity and for us to grow the business, it's been like a very wild experience for me. Moving here, I legally formed the brand here, and I'm learning right now. Three days ago, I was talking with a roaster, talking about this same topic, about producers, the opportunities that they have, and especially small roasters, when they actually never meet the producer, they don't even visit Origin because they buy their coffees from an importer. It's something that my sisters and I have talked about because last year when we started the coffee shop, there was a lot of people interested because we like to explain a lot. We really want people to leave understanding or learning something new. For us in the coffee shop, it was like talking about Verities. It's not a common thing in people in the Honduras's community. They don't know about the different Verities in coffee.

[: 00:43:42

They just know it's coffee. It's something that we say we should feel very proud because Honduras's has very good coffee.

[: 00:43:50

Yeah.

[: 00:43:51

For sure. But our national consumers really don't know, don't appreciate it. There's a lot of people that you'll see that they don't know anything about coffee, even though they live in one of the greatest production countries in the whole world. For the coffee shop, there's been people that they were like, How can we learn more about farms? Because we've learned here, but we want to see it. We were like, Okay, let's start doing coffee tours. We started doing coffee tours. That line has been growing so much. Every month we have always people that they're writing emails like, We want to book a tour at the farm. We actually explain what each of our jobs are. It all starts with my sister in the farm and productions. My mom is there and they actually tell you what the coffee plant needs, how does it eat and all these things, nutrients and everything. They explain all that in the tour. Then I come with the part of quality control and we try to explain how the whole process works. We have the samples of everything and people to try and this and that. Then we end with my older sister in the part of the coffee shop.

[: 00:45:18

This is where the coffee ends, in a cup. We try to make the tour in a very educating way. They're producers that have booked the tour because they say, You have very nice farms and we want to do the same thing that you're doing. There's a lot of producers that they go to the farm and they tell my sister, Angie, Can you please go to our farm and tell us what to do over there? My sister goes like... We've always said it's like if we are growing as a family and as a business, it's not just us. We want to see it in our region. We want to see that everyone's growing. Thank God we were very privileged of having the education, knowing the language to communicate to green coffee buyers. It would be so wrong from us to not share this knowledge with other people, share the experience because there's a lot of people that can learn from what we're doing, but we also learn from other producers what they're doing. Because I've always said there's a lot of people that say you girls are top of the top and we're like, no, we're learning and we have made mistakes in our way and we like to learn from others as well because from these producers, they have Verities that we have and they have the know-set of those coffees were just incredible.

[: 00:46:41

I was like, What do you do? They're like, The coffee just talks by its own. We don't.

[: 00:46:47

Do anything.

[: 00:46:47

With coffee. So for me, it was such a learning experience because it was like, coffees that I cut 92 points and it was like, I mean, your coffees are just the best.

[: 00:46:59

You speak with such confidence and knowledge and knowing. It's captivating to listen to you talk, even if it's just your own personal story. I love the part that it's essentially like what we give, we give back and what we want to receive. With others, we want them to receive as well. Like giving back to the community and growing the community. It trails along all your lineage from your sisters and your mom, how much you want to help and educate. I also think that I want to cook some of these coffees. I'm like, I want some of these coffees. I love Honduras's coffees. Honduran coffee are delicious.

[: 00:47:41

I can send you samples. I can send you.

[: 00:47:44

Yeah. I actually wanted to piggyback off of the idea what direct relationships were, because I think that I've said this before on a previous episode. And I think I also had someone else, one of the guests, say something very similar, which is the idea that everybody likes the idea and this marketable idea of direct relationship trades through coffee without actually putting forth the work. I think Amariz also talked about this too, is that building relationships is not supposed to be transactional and it's not just supposed to be like a one time thing if you're trying to actually build a relationship. Yeah. I think that's a really good hot take. I think a lot of people should pay attention to trying to build a relationship outside of just what the roaster is needing. Obviously, it's really easy to be able to look at a catalog of all these listed options and be like, okay, so I want this one and I want this one. I want to try this one and this one without actually trying to ask the importer for more information or ways of contacting the producers themselves. I think that that's just a good hot take in general.

[: 00:48:55

Or at least a feedback. Something that I really like is having... It's not just about me selling coffee and that a shop or a roaster has our name and our picture somewhere. It's also that I want to know feedback. I want to know how that coffee behaved in different stages in the different time of months. If there's something that we could do better, that really it's really helpful for producers because working 100 % in coffee, this is what we do. I make a living out of selling a product and I want to know how things are going as well. There's green coffee buyers that you only hear from them once a year and then the other year again. But you never hear something back. You never hear it for everything good. If it's coffee that's been accepted by consumers or what do consumers say about the coffee. It's something that Amadis and Joe have. Each year they sent me a year. This is what consumers said about these coffees. For next year, we're going to buy a little bit more of this one because we saw that there was a lot of acceptance from this coffee.

[: 00:50:02

So I really... Joe is one of the people that I always put as an example because they have the whole package. They really say direct relationships, they really mean it. And by the experience that I have with them that we have, I'm very confident in saying Amadis. I think, for example, in 2020, it was COVID. But at the end of that year, Hondurasas got hit by two hurricanes one week after the other. We knew that was going to affect our harvest. I emailed Amadis and I emailed the rest of our green coffee buyers and I said, We think we're going to have less quality in our coffees because of what's happening. Sent pictures of everything. Amadis was one of the few of the green coffee buyers that answered and that said, Andrea, I know the hard work that you guys put in your coffees. Even though if it's a lower quality, we're still going to buy it. I'm not going to negotiate in prices because it's lower quality. It's this type of things that I say if they do it, why can't others do it as well? Because it's not something hard. Amadis, I've said it in different interviews as well.

[: 00:51:11

She tries to get feedback in a period of one week, two weeks max of the samples that she has kept. I've met some other roasters that passed two months and I don't really know if they kept what they thought. I email them again and they're like, Oh, yes, we cupped and this is what we think. It feels nice when someone really shows respect for what we're doing, even though if they're not going to buy. But at least I know that I want a feedback because I want to know the opinion of other people. You and I think it's good, another one is going to think it's good, but I want something better. I want to know also what he's looking for because, like I said, it's not only our coffees. If I know a producer that has what this person is looking for, then I can recommend as well. Maybe you didn't like your coffee, but I want you to try this one. But they're so hard to find this type of people in the industry.

[: 00:52:14

Yeah, people who are consistent and reliable in that sense and the true essence of even if you're going through a hard time, I have your back.

[: 00:52:22

Yeah. But like I said, until this day, we've been really blessed of finding the people that are buying our coffees. But also when I start a new relationship, I tell them this is the way we work. I tell them, if I sent you an email, please answer back because I don't want to be wondering that you get them or not. The same way I treat you, please treat me back because this is at the end of the day, even though how much passion I have for coffee, this is what I make a living of. This is business and I got to keep it going. Because there's a lot of people, and I talked this with one roaster, he said that there's some green coffee buyers that think that they're making a favor to the producer in buying their coffees. They really don't care about negotiating a price because they're like, They should feel happy because we're buying their coffee and there's people that won't even buy it. I'm like, When people think like that, it's like.

[: 00:53:21

Don't even know where.

[: 00:53:22

We're going. I wish people could see my face right now. That left a really bad taste in my mouth. Yeah, that's-.

[: 00:53:33

You'll see, if you talk to other producers, you'll find out about many stories.

[: 00:53:41

Well, that's what this podcast is for.

[: 00:53:43

I've heard producers saying things that I'm like, I mean, I don't know. I don't know how I would react if I get to have that type of answers.

[: 00:53:54

I don't think I'd say anything appropriate. I were dumb. It sucks too, because I can only imagine that's your whole life and then generations going back and just to be disregarded and disrespected in that way. It's like, we're gifting you this product. We could have just kept this to ourselves. You're the one seeking it. If it wasn't for the coffee regions, most of the world wouldn't be operating the way it is. See, that's the shit that I feel like people do need to hear, though. I always feel so bad when producers can't just vocalize the experiences they've had to endure or when they need help, they can't feel like they have a community to reach out to. Obviously, the language barrier being as an issue as it is, language is always an issue. But it just hurts my heart.

[: 00:54:54

There's some people that I... Because some Green Coffee Bias, they're like, What do you think we should do to make things better? I'm like, Well, learning the language of the country that you're buying coffee would be nice. I mean, you don't have to be an expert in the language, but at least how to negotiate and have that really connection with the producer because it's not just about buying directly the coffee, but you're not having that talk and that relationship with the producer because we have so many things to say and so many things happen in our farms and especially when we have years of relationship. Every year, even though I have my relationship with Joe, has been the longest, I feel nervous every year that I send samples because I know they're cupping our work, our whole year of work, and I always feel nervous. Imagine for those people that actually don't even know how to speak with their green coffee buyers, how do they feel when they don't even get a feedback back and no one tells them this and that is happening? Because I've heard producers say, We've had a relationship for 10 years with this green coffee buyer, but from one day in another, they never came back, they never bought our coffee anymore, and we don't know what happened.

[: 00:56:15

Then there are green coffee buyers that say, What can we do to make a difference? I think that just said a lot. In the nicest way possible, that said a lot. I feel like that's been a reoccurring dilemma with a lot of the guests that I've had that are from the regions where coffee comes from, where it's like the coffee, they don't get to try their own coffee. A lot of the specialty coffee that is stayed, it usually gets exported or they don't have the information on cupping or roasting and knowing the process of doing that. Let alone once it gets to the process where they feel confident, they send it out to importers and then green buyers and importers have the audacity to say some shit like that. Then they don't get feedback or just even ideas of notes for the future to be able to showcase to other importers. I'm frustrated for you, and I don't even do this as my job.

[: 00:57:14

When I first started negotiating my coffee, I remember that when I asked for a price, there was someone from an exporter that was there and he was like, You can ask for that amount of money, Andrea, because they also have their own business. I'm like, Okay, wait, if we can't bring it to the middle because I'm showing them my cost of producing my coffee and the green coffee was there, I was like, This is my cost and this is what the exporter is taking away from my final price to export my coffee. If you're saying that I have to lower my price for you to have more benefit than this, I don't want to negotiate my coffee here. That's the opportunity that not many producers have. Others would say, I mean, it's okay because at the end of the day, I have to sell my coffee one way or another because I can't stay with this coffee. For me, it's been a big learning and growing experience because I used to be very introverted before coffee. And as I said, I've learned a lot from my mom of not taking things from people. And it's something that I've learned and that's something that me and my sisters do it now.

[: 00:58:32

If you're just looking at your beneficial, then okay, no, then go and look for someone that wants to work with you because we don't want to work with you.

[: 00:58:40

I think it's good to have that as your forefront with how you negotiate and build new relationships with people because then the standard is set. I think if there was a standard set for importers working with producers in a way where the framework is negotiable like you have with Joe, it would build so many opportunities for so many other producers that people don't know about that don't get a lot of the ability to showcase the one that you said you cupped with the producers that tasted amazing. Joe sets a good example for, and Amaris also sets a great example for coffee buyers as how you should treat people as people. If you're going to try and maintain a good rapport with producers, you should put in the work to do that.

[: 00:59:29

It is what it is, and it has taken us several years to learn and to actually be in front and decided of what we want. I've met people that they're like, you're like as Rueland because there's people that say you and the region as Rueland, you are teaching other producers the wrong way to negotiate coffee because you just can't talk to people like this is what it is. I've never been disrespectful, but I know what my product has as a value and it has a price. I'm not going to just give it cheaper because I know how much it costs. There's a lot of producers that they're like, You want you, Girls Clues, to negotiate our.

[: 01:00:24

Coffees now. Because of the way you guys carry yourselves. Man. Yeah. I feel like I have my own comments as to why that mindset is really hard.

[: 01:00:36

It's a very controversial topic and not many people bring it to the table, but it's a reality that actually hits us, and it's there and not many people talk about it and it's something that really is affecting so many producers.

[: 01:00:52

I love that we're talking about it. I love that there's a platform to have that for people to feel comfortable to talk about because that's essentially everything I want this podcast to be. Yeah. It's really interesting too, for me, when I run my social media for my Instagram, which is learning curve and the DMs I get. It's really interesting how much people have many opinions to the work that I'm trying to do, and not all of them obviously being supportive. At the end of the day, it doesn't matter who doesn't like what's being said. It's important that things are being brought out and that if somebody genuinely cares, there's going to be another person like me or Amariz where they'll find their niche and try to make a difference to bring more community to help. So I think what you're doing for the region back home, what Amariz is doing for setting an example as a good, genuine person. Gosh, she's so nice. And then just as a. She's just so nice. I loved talking to her. And just obviously as humble as I can, like what I'm trying to do for everyone else. At the end of the day, we need to do better always.

[: 01:02:05

Yes.

[: 01:02:08

I loved listening to you. Literally, I don't think this is the first time in a while where I've been on an episode where I really didn't have much to say. I was like, This is nice. You are so eloquent. You just say everything and deliver everything poignantly that I love to listen to it.

[: 01:02:22

Thank you for this platform.

[: 01:02:25

Thank you for coming. I'm so glad that you are on the show's whole lineage now. I just can't. I'm never going to get over the fact that I keep meeting the most inspirational and strong and hard-work-ethic women in this industry as I have been on more of a personal level than just work relationships. It's great. I have loved having you on the show. I think a lot of people are going to love your story if they haven't already heard it before on different platforms. I think a lot of people, producers, they do listen to the show can really resonate a lot of what you were saying and vocalizing the issues back in the regions too.

[: 01:03:06

Yes, I really appreciate that because I've heard your podcast since day one, and I was always like, every time that I listen to someone else, like, Yes, that's true, and I like the vibe here. When you texted me, I was like, Oh, my God, she knows about me.

[: 01:03:25

Yeah, of course. I'm glad you were excited to come on. I'm always curious to people... You talk about feedback. I'm always curious to feedbacks of people's views on the show and everyone's opinions. I think every time every episode has been a journey for me personally as somebody who interviews other people, but also as a person who, if you've listened to the show, I'm still a newborn infant to learning so many of the nuances that exist. But every person has been just teaching me. I feel like a great student for just absorbing a lot of this information that you've had to learn over the course of years. I'm just learning in the first year, and I'm just like, Great. But I really do appreciate you being so truthful and honest, and I loved learning about you and your family. Honestly, it'd be really cool to have all of you guys, the whole family on the show. I would love to hear everybody's banter and descriptions. It'd be so amazing. Thank you so much and I hope you have a great evening.

[: 01:04:19

You too. Thank you.

[: 01:04:23

Talk about an episode that has so much good information. So much good information. I think her hot takes, it's nothing that we haven't heard before, but I loved her spin on it. I love how interconnected she is to her community, how much she wants the community to also thrive. And I feel like there's a reason why she's doing so well. She's infectious of this like, Honduras is an important region for the coffee world. It's important to treat us with respect. We have the right to determine what our value in our is. And it's like, I want to stand up for that. I also just loved how much it's so interconnected in her life, not even just from when she was younger to her journey to get to where she's at. The Disney jump, the Disney connection, and then her finding her connection back home, her sisters finding their niches and what they do to help their mother. And then her mother. Her mother reminds me of my family, which is like, Oh, yeah, we're never going to stop working. That's not going to happen. If you tell me to stop working, I'm going to die.

[: 01:05:31

I kid you not my grandmother has probably said the exact same thing. Such strong work ethics and I love... They do seem like genuine people, not just for what they have produced as a coffee, which I can't wait to get samples of. Because personally for me, when I source coffee, I try to source women owned and women produced if I can, at least one of the two. And to showcase to have that connection and build that relationship would be fucking amazing. There were so many good tidbits. She's just like, I didn't need to direct the conversation. She's like, I came in here and I know exactly what I was going to talk about. It makes me happy. And there's a reason why I kept bringing up Amarisa on this episode is because if she's out here making a difference, people need to learn from that. And her episodes had so much good information of why it's so important to not be those who are not putting forth effort. She also reiterated the idea of feedback and giving them because that's going to determine that person's livelihood. People, I think, in the coffee world need to actually understand, and these are also for the coffee bros, that coffee is cool and it's cute and it's science, but at the end of the day, it's still a people-oriented thing.

[: 01:06:51

What you're doing and what you're consuming and what you're investing in and trying to learn about is not just a cute little data analysis project. It's about the people and who you're sourcing from and the consumers should be taught that that's the most important thing. Obviously, everybody wants a good cup of coffee, but there's a reason why everyone's attracted to what Andrea and her family are doing. It's not just about the coffee. Sure, they could send, they could have 95 plus graded coffee and win all these awards and still receive as much traction as they do. But I think a lot of what they were doing from their hometown and their home region to receive more about the fact that they highlighted their story and how much that's the heart of it. That's what it's about.

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