About Us
We are a family business based in Brooklyn, NY. Our connection to coffee comes from our family history of farming. Our family originated from the city of Saint Marc, Haiti, which is located in the lush valley of the Artibonite river, a fertile agricultural region where coffee thrives along with mangoes, corn, rice and many other crops.
Growing up in Haiti, coffee is very much part of people’s culture from children to the oldest people, drinking Haitian coffee from as early as they can hold their own cup. I grew up in a community where farmers like my grandfather were respected for their contribution to the community, and crops like coffee, cotton, and more made the local economy flourish. Now we are proud to introduce this coffee to you and share the unique flavor of this special place.
About Haitian Coffee
Haitian Coffee is a national treasure in Haiti and has been a source of empowerment and independence since the early 1800s. Under colonization, Haitian coffee was prized throughout the world and Haiti supplied over half of the world’s coffee. In the wake of the Haitian Revolution, colonizers fled to nearby Jamaica with Haitian coffee stock which became the world-famous Jamaican Blue Mountain coffee. Newly liberated Haitians used coffee as the basis of their economy and currency and continued to be the third-largest coffee producer up until the late 1940s, coffee continued to finance public works and community development. Trade embargoes against Haiti and racism towards the country as the first Black independent country in the western hemisphere hurt the coffee industry and ravaged the Haitian economy in general.
Much coffee farming in Haiti is done as a collective. A coffee farming community will all harvest their beans within a local region and collect them together to pool resources for processing and export in which many people participate. We pay better than “Fair Trade” to Haitian farmers, usually between $3-$4 per pound for green beans. All of our coffee is shade-grown, meaning it is co-planted with other fruit trees which provide additional sustenance and income for the community. Haitian coffee farming is organic by default, using only natural pest control. Haitian coffee farmers are active in the reforestation effort and they plant one new tree in Haiti for every pound of coffee that we import.