Where Our Coffee Comes From: a Look at Coffee Farms

Today we’re revisiting one of our first blog posts. The topic of coffee farms is so important to us here at BonLife, and we wanted to bring back this original blog post for all of our new readers. Here’s why we care so much about coffee farms and how we choose those we work with…

You probably know by now about BonLife’s goal to drink a better story. You may have read about how BonLife was founded out of the desire to bring a better life to others, and you know we choose our coffees based on the farmers because we want to be sure the dollars we invest in coffee have a positive impact on their lives. From seed to cup, we claim to be intentional about our coffees’ origins. Well it’s true, and we want to tell you more of the story of where our coffee comes from.

Coffee beans are actually the seed of a coffee cherry. Like any other fruit it grows on a plant, in this case the coffee tree. And like many other fruits, coffee is an agricultural product. It’s grown, tended, and harvested on a farm by real people. Unlike some other fruits coffee only grows in a certain part of the world- a zone around the Equator with ideal growing conditions known as “The Bean Belt” or “The Coffee Belt”. Some countries within The Coffee Belt are Mexico, Guatemala, Colombia, Kenya, Indonesia… Are these names conjuring up memories of delicious cups of coffee?

The small farms that exist all over The Coffee Belt often have some things in common. Coffee trees love altitude, certain temperatures, and a rainy season. While this doesn’t apply to all beans, usually coffee farms are located at a high altitude or on a steep slope in a place that gets sunny and hot and rainy. The coffee harvests are typically picked by hand. It is an intense manual labor process in intense conditions. Oftentimes the farmers who work so hard to grow this amazing product are long forgotten by the time it reaches the consumer’s cup. BonLife wants to change that.

Due to the economic conditions in many countries in The Coffee Belt, coffee farms often face economical issues as well as difficult farming conditions. When we first opened and still now, BonLife has been determined to make a positive change in this area. We want to be a direct trade coffee roaster who buys coffee straight from some stellar producers, usually in low-income countries.

When BonLife set out to change some lives through coffee, we found some incredible people, passionate about their product. We researched farms (always an ongoing process as we add new coffees to our line up), and found some quality farms to work with in Haiti, Ethiopia, Uganda, Burundi, Honduras, Nicaragua, Colombia, Costa Rica, Guatemala, Kenya, and more. We chose farms that were not only growing a quality product but that were also paying their farmers a living wage. We believe in investing in farms that are positively impacting their own communities.

We do actually visit coffee farms. (These photos are all from different origin trips we’ve taken). We are in contact with our farmers. We do have a relationship with the people growing your BonLife beans.
In short, we know where those beans came from and who grew them (it’s right there on the bag!), and we don’t want to forget the farmer by the time the coffee reaches your cup.

So now you know where your BonLife beans come from! There’s no mystery here. That single origin roast you love so much comes from a real farmer who we’ve carefully chosen to work with. Rest easy: when you’re drinking BonLife coffee you’re drinking a better story & positively impacting people all over the world.
As always, if you have questions about our coffees or farms we work with feel free to reach out to us!