Buy your green coffee at wholesale prices!

[MGLloyd]

Many of the home roasters who hang out on coffeegeek.com have banded together to buy green coffee beans at wholesale prices. We have a website at www.greencoffeeco-op.com.

We have identified several coffee brokers or importers in the Seattle, Oakland, New Orleans and New York areas who are willing to sell green coffee by the single bag. A typical bag weighs between 110 and 150 lbs., depending on the origin of the coffee.

A vote is made to choose which type of coffee to purchase, and people put in for an allocation of coffee in five pound increments. When the bag has been sold, a local co-ordinator pays for the bag, picks it up from the warehouse, and distributes it in person, or by mail, to those people who have ordered and paid for the coffee.

The coffee is sold at cost, plus shipping at cost, with an additional small fee to the co-ordinator to compensate that person for his/her time and effort in picking up and shipping the coffee. The coffees that have been recently purchased typically sell between $ 0.85 to $ 1.75 per pound, as compared to buying the same coffee from a green coffee vendor at $ 3.00 to $ 6.00 per pound. I myself just got 20 lbs. of an excellent Sumatra Lintong for $ 32.00, as compared to the $ 60 to 100 I would have normally paid from a green coffee vendor.

We are looking for new members, so please check out the website if you are interested in quality green coffee at wholesale prices. This is a strictly volunteer effort by the members, and we would be very interested in finding some members in the Bay area, who could provide logistical and distribution services for some of the coffee importers in that area.

Please post to this forum if you have any additional questions. I hope to see some of you on the website!

Edited March 22, 2004 by MGLloyd (log)

[Schielke]

Very cool.

How long does green coffee stay good for roasting?

Ben

[MGLloyd]

Properly stored, which is to say dry and covered, green coffee is good for one to two years. I have about 90 lbs. of coffee out in my garage, stored in individual cloth, burlap or Ziploc bags and kept in Rubbermaid bins.

[melkor]

I'd say you should stick to current crop coffee, less than a year old.

[phaelon56]

I may jump in on this eventually but I need to work down my current stash first - I'm at about fifty pounds of green beans and haven't roasted all winter due to the weather.

[MGLloyd]

I may jump in on this eventually but I need to work down my current stash first - I'm at about fifty pounds of green beans and haven't roasted all winter due to the weather.

Owen, the person who thought up the concept, and runs the website, lives in Rochester.

[scubadoo97]

Sounds great MGLloyd. I just regestered. Got the heat gun on stand by.

[phaelon56]

I may jump in on this eventually but I need to work down my current stash first - I'm at about fifty pounds of green beans and haven't roasted all winter due to the weather.

Owen, the person who thought up the concept, and runs the website, lives in Rochester.

Jeepers Mike..... I'm flattered but not sure what concept I thought up (not being facetious - I really don't know). I was a very active regular in the Coffeegeelk Forums but the credit the entire concept of Coffeegeek rightly belongs to the founder Mark Prince.

Meanwhile.... I'm slaving away at my day job here in Syracuse, a bit east of Rochester... waiting for spring weather to arrive. It was bitterly cold with driving woind and snow yesterday but it appears that things may improve rapidly.

I actually plan to do some roasting this weekend and will try out some version of Jim Schulman's WTC (Way Too Complicated) espresso blend. The plan is to document the blending and roasting process with a pictorial post here in the forum.

[MGLloyd]

I may jump in on this eventually but I need to work down my current stash first - I'm at about fifty pounds of green beans and haven't roasted all winter due to the weather.

Owen, the person who thought up the concept, and runs the website, lives in Rochester.

Jeepers Mike..... I'm flattered but not sure what concept I thought up (not being facetious - I really don't know). I was a very active regular in the Coffeegeelk Forums but the credit the entire concept of Coffeegeek rightly belongs to the founder Mark Prince.

Meanwhile.... I'm slaving away at my day job here in Syracuse, a bit east of Rochester... waiting for spring weather to arrive. It was bitterly cold with driving woind and snow yesterday but it appears that things may improve rapidly.

I actually plan to do some roasting this weekend and will try out some version of Jim Schulman's WTC (Way Too Complicated) espresso blend. The plan is to document the blending and roasting process with a pictorial post here in the forum.

I must have phrased that poorly. I was addressing Owen (you) by your name. I was not trying to intimate that you created the green coffee co-op.

The person behind the green coffee co-op is Buzz, of Buzzroasters fame. He lives in Rochester.

[phaelon56]

Aaaaah - that makes much more sense! I think it's my tendency to read and interpret things in a very literal way that is the crux of the problem

I had no idea that Buzzroasters was up here in my neck of the wods. I was actually in Rochester on Saturday and had a much better than average latte at the Spin Cafe on Park Ave (provided that you request it with extra shots or less milk to achieve the right balance of espresso/milk).

[MGLloyd]

What we are doing over at the co-op is we ask the importer\broker to send us a pound or two of a coffee we are considering buying. The sample is split, sent to several people, roasted and cupped. There have been several lots of coffee we have declined to purchase after the cupping results. In addition, we have found that Atlas, Royal, InterAmerican and Dalton to be very helpful, and provide us with their own internal cupping results as well.

So we have removed a lot of the 'blind shot in the dark' aspect of buying coffee by the bag.

[MJP]

I went to the website and it looks like it's a placeholder or spam site... is the co-op dead?

[scubadoo97]

Here is the new website

http://www.greencoffee.coop/

and a spin off of the original coop

http://www.greencoffeebuyingclub.com/index.php

[jayt90]

I'll give the co-op a serious look-see, although in Ontario I might have to pay duty and extra shipping/brokerage fees. But the idea is attractive, and I was prepared to pay the higher price from Sweet Maria, which would still come in lower than local.

[prasantrin]

I'll give the co-op a serious look-see, although in Ontario I might have to pay duty and extra shipping/brokerage fees. But the idea is attractive, and I was prepared to pay the higher price from Sweet Maria, which would still come in lower than local.

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If the person sending the coffee is willing to send it via USPS marked as a gift with a value of less than $60 Canadian, you won't have to pay duty at all. For commercial packages, the value must be less than $20 Canadian to avoid paying duty.