WHY WE'RE DIFFERENT.
RIPENESS TEAM & REFRACTOMETERS
Our ripeness team totes sugar-measuring refractometers (usually used in wine vineyards) and red-wine-colored wristbands that we designed. These tools and others ensure member farmers and their pickers select cherries that are at optimum ripeness for sweet, complex cupping results. This team is a continuous presence on farms of member farmers, achieving results through constant and ubiquitous verification.
NEXT-LEVEL COFFEE FARMING
Gold Mountain Coffee Growers has a flagship demonstration farm (Finca Idealista) and connects members of our farming group with roasters directly—from farm gates to your roastery. We are on the ground, all the time, because we are the farmers and quality control staff. Producers earn the right to connect with your roastery when their coffee makes the grade in the cupping lab, consistently. They are rewarded with prices that beat certifications and allow a dignified standard of living. We encourage roasters to visit the farms with which they work to foster direct roaster/producer relationships, and we're open to experimentation with varieties and processes.
QUALITY PROCESSING
Everything we do depends on high-cupping coffee. Our coffees have won the Good Food Awards for roasters several times, Golden Bean medals every year, and other distinctions. Licensed Q graders on staff separately cup every lot broken down by day, producer, parcel, variety, process (including washed, honey, natural, carbonic maceration naturals, wine yeast processes), and more. Both light sensors and people pick out imperfections, ensuring that when our crop reaches you it reflects the hard work and entrepreneurship involved in growing it during an entire year.
FINCA IDEALISTA
Our flagship demonstration farm, Finca Idealista, is an example for coffee production, and source of seeds, for member farms. It sits next to our private nature reserve, whose trees are a natural air conditioner for coffee. Idealista's cool microclimate lengthens the coffee cherry maturity process, allowing beans time to absorb natural sugars and attributes for a sweet, complex cup. Finca Idealista's live coffee museum/seed bank provides high-cupping varieties to producers worldwide and an educational experience for roasters. Its entrepreneurship and friendships with roasters and even yeast companies result in new processes that change the paradigm of what coffee taste can achieve.
SOCIAL IMPACT
We reinvest in our communities through sustainable-development projects based on true need:
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Access to credit in a country where access to credit is nearly non-existent
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An operation for a young girl so she could walk for the first time, and a handicapped-accessible house
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Running water in schools far from utility grids
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Water catchment and filtration systems to protect people and the environment
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Improvements to wet mills on individual farms
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Free coffee and shade-tree seeds and saplings for member farmers
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Income from coffee that beats existing structures
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Roasters are encouraged to get involved in sustainable-development projects.
OUR RAINFOREST
Some farms and companies decide to purchase certifications intended to show that they protect the environment or workers. We go further than certifications. We purchased a rainforest for the sole purpose of protecting endangered and at-risk wildlife and plants living there, including three-toed sloths, howler monkeys, tree frogs, toucans, orchids, and finches. Coffee roasters verify our efforts through direct relationships. We encourage them to visit both our private rainforest reserve, our flagship demonstration farm, and the farms of member farmers whose coffee they roast.
SUSTAINABILITY
On our flagship demonstration farm (Finca Idealista), volcanic filters clean water run-off from washed coffee, and we compost coffee cherries for fertilizer. We produce many natural- and honey-process coffees with member farms, which cuts water use and creates jobs, in addition to catching rainwater to lower the need to pull water from local streams. Combine these efforts with our purchase of a tropical rainforest (see above) for the sole purpose of protecting it, and you can know your high-cupping specialty coffee also has a positive environmental impact. Gold Mountain Coffee Growers was given the excellence award for sustainability by the Specialty Coffee Association of Europe (SCAE) in 2016.
TECHNICAL ASSISTANCE
Having our flagship coffee farm allows us to share experiences with farmers in our group. Together we prevent crop diseases, ensure crops have proper nutrients, obtain high-cupping seed varieties from our living seedbank, and ensure all beans are picked at their peak of ripeness (giving you sweet cups of coffee). We give access to credit and ensure farmers receive premiums so they can invest in improving their farms. When coffee leaf rust hit the region, we created this free guide to combat what is a national emergency in some countries. Our full-time agronomists travel from farm to farm daily on motorcycles to give advice. We constantly strive for new levels of excellence on our flagship farm (Finca Idealista) and on farms of other members.