CCS is Hiring a Logistics Coordinator

Logistics Coordinator & Customer Service Liaison

The Logistics Coordinator & Customer Service Liaison coordinates incoming shipments from exporting partners from around the world and distributes these coffees to international roasting clients in a timely, professional and friendly manner. This position interacts with suppliers and clients via email and phone, as well as works with other departments internally to ensure the highest level of professionalism and relationship maintenance with suppliers and customers alike.

The Collaborative Coffee Source is a global coffee trading company based in Oslo, Norway that supplies high-end specialty coffee markets primarily in North America, Europe and Asia, and sourcing coffees from origins in the Americas and East Africa.

This position is open to qualified candidates working from a remote location.

Responsibilities & Tasks

• Leading and coordinating of incoming shipments of green coffee from suppliers by liaising with exporters and their teams, organizing the necessary import documentation and booking of land and sea transport, and/or coordinating with logistics partners to bring in shipments.
• Coordinating the distribution of green coffee to customers around the world.
• Troubleshooting and solving problems and questions coming from both suppliers and customers in an efficient and respectful manner.
• Updating inventory and offer lists.
• Other duties as assigned.

Job Requirements

Education and/or Experience Two (2) years of post-secondary education and/or work experience in the logistics field is preferred. Education and/or work experience in economics is mandatory.

Qualifications

• The ability to maintain confidentiality in all matters.
• Strong attention to detail.
• Excellent interpersonal, intercultural, and customer service skills.
• A demonstrated capability to collaborate with and maintain effective relationships with colleagues, suppliers and customers.
• A flexible nature and ability to handle stressful situations.
• Enjoys working independently with minimal guidance as well as with a close-knit team.
• Both a logical as well as multi-dimensional approach to problem solving.
• Strong computer skills.
• Advanced proficiency using spreadsheet software.

Language Skills Excellent English reading, writing and speaking skills are required. Proficiency in Norwegian and/or Spanish and French are preferable.

Application deadline: 3 April 2016

Send CV and cover letter to: melanie@collaborativecoffeesource.com

*Please note: applications with no motivation letter will not be considered.

A Look Back on 2012 and the Coming New Year

Dear Collaborators, It’s been quite a momentous inaugural year here at the Collaborative, thanks in large part to the support and enthusiasm of all of you. For us, it’s almost a year to the day when this project became a reality and so it is doubly appropriate that we now look back and reflect on all that’s passed and plan for the coming year. Without further ado, here is our look back on 2012.

Visits to Origin Partners

Our main aim is to facilitate long-term partnerships between roaster and producing partners and regular and frequent face-to-face visits to our producing partners are crucial to this process. Just as much for building trust and engaging in mutual exchange as to observe, learn and participate in coffee production of Collaborative lots.

Most of our trips this year were to gain a deeper understanding of the partnerships already established in the 10 countries we are currently working in. For most of these visits, we were present near the end of harvest in order to select the best the harvests’ had to offer. In the case of Bjørnar’s two-month stay in Guatemala, he was able to regularly cup day lots at Bella Vista’s wet mill and this gave him the unique opportunity to skim the “cream of the crop” of that season’s harvest. Also doing a two-month stint at origin was Melanie, who chose Burundi as the site of her fieldwork for her master thesis. At the same time that she interviewed people from all over the coffee sector about how “direct trade” is impacting the livelihoods of coffee producers, she met with and visited the people and coffee washing stations we have purchased coffee from. Burundi is a new origin country for us and we are excited about the potential of this developing origin with its recent focus on producing high quality specialty coffee.

During our most recent trip to Ethiopia, we spent two full weeks in the West and South regions of the country in order to become experts in these areas. Ethiopia, the birthplace of coffee, provides distinct and some of the most sought after coffees in the world and we are as in love as everyone else. Joanna and Robert toured cooperative washing stations we currently work with, met potential future partners and chatted with cherry producers about how coffee quality is determined at farm level.

Events

Just as important as meeting origin partners is meeting face-to-face with Collaborative roasters, current and potential. You drive the work we do. Your drive to obtain and provide better coffee is what inspires us to do the work we do. This is a community of producers and roasters. The goal is to close the gap between producers and roasters, so the collaborative aspect of what we do is foundational to the building of this community.

In London we cupped with some of London’s finest purveyors of coffee at Prufrock’s lovely café. The two cuppings hosted at Prufrock proved to be so interesting and successful that the Prufrock crew decided to continue hosting their own cuppings and involving us via Skype. At SCAA in Portland, we met with and cupped with producer and roaster alike. Robert participated on a panel discussion on direct trade at this year’s Nordic Roaster Forum. Finally, we hosted Le Carnaval du Café in Paris where leading experts and producers coming out of Brazil, Panama and Burundi presented on how varieties and processing techniques impact coffee quality. To round out and provide some context to these theories and experiences, participants cupped representative samples of the very differences in variety and technique that were presented on.

Most recently, Joanna and Robert flew to Korea to attend Café & Bakery Fair, an expo dedicated to presenting the latest and greatest of all things café: coffee, tea and bakery, with a heavy emphasis on coffee. Korea is a rapidly growing and interesting new market for specialty coffee. We were invited by our first Korean partner, Momos, who felt there were good opportunities for us to meet with roasters eager to work with high quality specialty coffee but currently lack access to these producers and their coffees.

Coming Up in the New Year…

Collaborative roasters have recently solidified their commitments for fresh crop Brazils (Carmo and Piatà regions) and Burundis. We are expecting these shipments to arrive in February. Check out our current list of offerings here.

We are finalizing plans for a January trip to Central America. This will be the first of (hopefully) many trips where we will be joined with Collaborative roasters who will meet the producers they buy their coffees from face-to-face! The tentative 10-day itinerary includes stops in Guatemala, Honduras and Panama. In February, Bjørnar and Robert head to Kenya and Ethiopia to finalize this harvest’s lots and to meet with current and potential partners.

We at the Collaborative Coffee Source would like to wish you a very Merry Christmas. May the New Year bring you success and excellent coffee...

Robert, Joanna, Bjørnar, Per and Melanie

Fully Booked

Dear roaster, dear cupper, dear fellow colleague & coffee lover,

The Collaborative Coffee Source event 2012 –  Le Carnaval du Café in Paris  –  is fully booked.

We are thrilled to announce that so many coffee professionals, from so many places, are coming to share this with us and with each other. As we speak, presenters are fine-tuning their presentations and collaborative team members in Africa, America and Europe are preparing samples for two days of education, cupping and fun. So for you who can not make it this time, we are very sorry.

In good collaborative spirit we’ll post the lectures and document all the fun too. Stay tuned!

Intergalactic cupping #1*

´The future has arrived!´ exclaims Jeremy as Robert´s face looms into view across cyberspace: from a cupping lab in downtown Oslo to projection onto a brick wall in buzzing early-evening east London.  The party has assembled, ready to cup six of the best samples Honduras has to offer, a classic Costa Rica and an unparalleled Panama Geisha.

The Line Up:

Honduras, Santa Barbara region

1) Oscar Tinoco         HICAFE 90/Catimor 

2) Don Amado             Yellow Catuaí 

3) Danny Moreno       Pacas 

4) Jesus Moreno         Pacas 

5) Neptaly Bautista    Pacas 

6) Eulogio Martinez    Pacamara 

COSTA RICA, Tarrazu region:

7) Don Mayo. La Loma farm, lot march12th      Caturra

PANAMA, Boquete region:

8) Hacienda Esmeralda      Geisha

Robert introduces us to the coffees one by one, the history of the farm, the successes and challenges of the farmer, the varietal, the terroir, the journey of the beans in each cup.

The Honduras line up is immensely varied considering the proximity of the farms to one another.  Although some are from different micro regions, many are from adjoining family farms, and all hail from the broad, lush hillside of Santa Barbara.

We start with Oscar Tinoco, who has won Cup of Exellence, but struggled with consistency.  We know he has the quality, we have seen it.  And we keep working with him, following his investments in farming and equipment, in the knowledge that there is so much unlocked potential.  This sample is full bodied and clean, but there is a briney tang to the cup we had not anticipated.  But this savory characteristic is distinctive, and while not as floral as that of his neighbours, this coffee has its own character, not to be overlooked.

We proceed to the much loved (excuse the pun) Don Amado.  This is the only yellow Catuaí on the table.  Seen widely across Brazil, most of central America does not favour this varietal above others.  Fresh, clean, crisp, delightfully well balanced with honey, toffee and milk chocolate.  Not for nothing is it extremely difficult to get hold of this coffee.  This farm has world reknown, and we are lucky to has this coffee.

We proceed to Danny Moreno, whose crisp, clean and well-balanced coffee establishes the theme of the Honduras for this year.  A mild burnt sugar finish, improving on cooling, bright acidty with enough supporting body to balance out the cup.

His brother Jesus overshadows him on this table however (well he ought to, with a name like that).  Here we have all the clean, fresh, balanced attributes of Danny´s coffee, but there is an intensity, and a fuller mouth feel which starts to introduce the quality we have come to expect from this region.  Dried fruits mix with caramel and plums, blackcurrants and dark chocolate.  The liquid level rapidly depreciates in the glasses; people nod earnestly while re-dipping spoons.

Neptali Bautista does us proud.  This coffee is juicy and round.  Full bodied and bursting with fruits and that burnt caramel finish again.  People like this coffee.  Some cuppers site this sample as their favourite and it´s easy to see why.  The complexity of this coffee gives it an edge, and has the power to render its excellent neighbours less interesting.

The name of Eulogio Martinez´ farm is Los Yoyos, which makes me like the coffee before we´ve even started.  It good: consistent, well balanced and bright.  But most saliently, it has a beautiful aura of coffee flower.  Not the hefty intensity of his neighbor on the table, but a delightfully delicate contrast.

Today Don Mayo does not live up to the quality we know and love.  We think the roast was off and the beans are underdeveloped.  We examine them.  A slight shade too pale perhaps, 30 seconds more would have done it.  This is an excellent lot and the man is internationally acclaimed, so we are sad not to be able to do justice to the product of his toils.

And now for Geisha! Where to start? Before we reveal what the coffees are, one cupper asks ´what is this coffee? This is not like any coffee I have ever tasted before´.  I nod, and a knowing smile escapes from the corner of my mouth.  Hacienda Esmeralda have been pioneering the Geisha varietal in the area for years, cultivating the little known variety against the advice of their neighbours, and with outstanding results.  We don´t know why the varietal is called Geisha, but its pretty apt.  I imagine an early explorer, a botanist: notebook in hand, braces, linen shirt and Panama hat.  Cupping the coffee for the first time he wonders how to capture all the attributes in one name: beautiful, exotic, floral, demure, accomplished, different from ordinary coffee - Geisha!

From Central America to Oslo, from Oslo to London; these coffees have travelled the world to reach us.  From our friends on the hillsides to the land of the midnight sun, and onwards to Clerkenwell of all places.  What a long old journey for such a little bean.  And who came to join our party?  Cuppers from down-the-road and round-the-corner, from Poland, from France, from Japan, from America.  A veritable United Nations of Cuppers it was.

We had a thoroughly enjoyable evening, and will be back again for more.

- Jo

*ok so it was only really international, but skype was involved, which made it kind of exciting...

Kenya origin cupping in London

On Thursday, Robert and I had the pleasure of sharing some samples of Kenya coffee that will soon arrive in Oslo. We had six short days to pull everything together but with the help of Jeremy and his great colleagues at Prufrock, we were able to pull it off. There were some great and interested participants from all over the London coffee community in attendance.

We had 10 samples of current crop and for comparison, we brought two of KAFFA's production roasts from last year's crop. Interestingly, Robert thought the past crops were tasting best on the table. Goes to show you there's more to cup quality than what prevailing thoughts/theories assume about crop age. Also interesting to compare sample roasts v. production roasts. This was a difficult table, in some ways, as there were pairs/trios of coffees that differed only in picking dates. A great table overall though - we're very excited and eager to get this shipment from Mombasa.

For those of you who weren't able to make it and have expressed interest in receiving Kenya samples, I'm organizing a cupping at KAFFA. Several of you have requested samples (I will email you about this) but we simply don't have enough to send out to all of you. So if you're available to come to Oslo in the next couple of weeks to cup, this will guarantee that you have a chance to taste incoming coffee. Having said that, I will do my best to send you samples if you can't make it. I'll be in contact with you shortly.

To cap this post off, I'd like to send a sincere thanks to the fine folks at Prufrock Coffee. Your café is beautiful, your coffee tasty and your people wonderful. Looking forward to doing this again soon!

Melanie

Upcoming

Surveying their efforts

Friends, we are working on specific pages for each region. Within these pages, look for a breakdown on what we mean by "traceability". It's not only about varietals, soil and microclimate. It's also about who is doing what. Who are the cherry producers? Who is processing the coffee? Who is exporting it?

For now, here is some general information on the regions we are expecting shipments from. Contact melanie@collaborativecoffeesource.com with inquiries.

Brasil

-  two containers from two different regions will ship this month (February)

 Colombia

- first shipment arrives first week in March. This container is sold out but we are in the process of putting together a second container with coffee from a later harvest, starting April.

 Costa Rica

-  shipment in early April

-  cuppings of samples in late February – early March

 Panama

- shipment in April

- cuppings of samples in February – early March

 El Salvador

-  shipment in March

-  cuppings of samples in February – early March

 Honduras

- shipment in April

- cuppings of samples in March – early April

- delayed harvests

 Kenya

- shipments in February and May

- cuppings of samples in February – early March

 Ethiopia

-  Robert will be in Ethiopia this month. News from this region to follow.