Green Coffee Sourcing for Roasters: From Sample Roast to Container

Green coffee sourcing is where a roaster's cup is won or lost. The roast profile can bring out what is in the bean, but it cannot add what the lot never had, and it cannot fix a lot that arrived wetter, older or more defective than the sample it was bought on. This guide follows the path a roaster takes with an origin exporter, from the first offer sample to a repeat container, with the checks that belong at each step. It is written from the exporter's side: we ship green arabica from Ecuador, and these are the points where roaster and exporter most often misunderstand each other.

Start with the Roast Program, Not the Origin

Before asking for samples, write down what the coffee has to do. A lot for an espresso base needs consistency across the year, moderate acidity and enough body to carry milk. A lot for a single-origin filter release needs a distinct profile and a story that holds up on the bag. The two are bought differently: the base is covered by volume contracts and repeat lots, the release by microlots bought once.

Then put numbers on it: kilos roasted per month, how many months of coverage you want to hold, and how much warehouse space you have for green coffee. A roaster using 150 kg a month who buys a full container is financing a year of stock and gambling on how well it will age. Knowing your monthly draw is what decides between spot bags from a local importer, a few bags shipped from origin, or a container.

Reading an Offer Sheet

An offer sheet from origin should describe the lot on two axes: the cup and the preparation. On the cup side you will see variety, process, altitude and a cupping description, sometimes with a score. On the preparation side you should see screen size, moisture, defect count, harvest period and the packaging. If the sheet only has the first half, ask for the second: a lot can cup beautifully and still roast unevenly if the screen distribution is wide.

Treat a score as an invitation to cup, not as a specification. We do not claim a cupping score for a lot without a current Q-grader certificate for that lot, and a roaster should not accept one without knowing who cupped it and when. The meaning of the SCA scale, defect categories and preparation grades is explained in our guide what is specialty coffee.

Sample Roasting: Making the Comparison Fair

Offer samples usually arrive as 100 to 350 g of green coffee, and for a serious evaluation of a volume lot we ship 1-5 kg, case by case, so the roaster can also run a production-style test. The first job is the sample roast, and its goal is not the best possible cup but a fair comparison between lots. The SCA cupping protocol is the common reference:

• Roast within 24 hours before cupping and let the sample rest at least 8 hours.
• Aim for a light to light-medium roast, completed in roughly 8 to 12 minutes, without scorching or tipping.
• Brew at a ratio of 8.25 g of coffee to 150 ml of water, just off the boil (around 93 °C).
• Cup every competing lot on the same day, at the same roast level, on the same table.

Record the green moisture and the weight loss of each sample roast. Weight loss that differs sharply between two lots at the same roast colour is an early sign of a moisture or density difference you will meet again at production scale.

The Pre-Shipment Sample Is the Contract

Once a lot is chosen, the contract should name the approval sample. The offer sample tells you what the exporter has; the pre-shipment sample tells you what is actually going into your bags, drawn from the milled and prepared lot before it leaves the dry mill. Cup it against the offer sample, and approve or reject in writing. This one step prevents most arrival disputes.

The contract then fixes the specification (moisture range, screen size, defect tolerance), the volume and bag count, the shipment window, the Incoterm and the price. For specialty and microlot coffee the price is usually the New York "C" arabica contract plus a quality differential fixed at the time of the quotation; the formats, minimum order and logistics on our side are set out on our page on wholesale green coffee.

Receiving: The Arrival Sample

When the container or the bags arrive, draw an arrival sample from several bags before the coffee goes into production. Measure moisture, check for off-odours from the transport, count visible defects and cup it against the approved pre-shipment sample. A lot that shipped at 11 % moisture and arrives at 12.5 % was exposed to humidity somewhere in transit, and it will not keep as long.

Green coffee shipped in GrainPro-lined jute keeps its quality for around 12 months in a cool, dry warehouse; plain jute in a humid warehouse can fade in weeks. Keep the liners closed until the bag is needed, and do not store green coffee next to spices, cleaning products or anything with a strong smell.

Roasting High-Grown Ecuadorian Coffee

Ecuadorian specialty coffee is grown between roughly 1,200 and more than 2,000 metres, and the slower maturation at altitude produces dense beans. Dense, high-grown coffee generally takes heat more slowly at the start of the roast and can carry a more assertive charge temperature than a soft, low-grown bean of the same moisture. The practical advice is simple: do not import a profile from a different origin. Build the first profile on the sample roaster, then confirm it on your production roaster with a small batch before committing the lot to a full roast schedule.

Process matters as much as altitude. Washed lots tend to show clean, bright acidity; naturals and honeys carry more sugar and fruit on the bean surface and can scorch or develop faster. How washed, natural, honey and anaerobic processing change the chemistry of the green bean is covered in our guide to coffee post-harvest processing.

Sourcing as a Small-Batch Roaster

A small-batch roasting business does not need a container to buy at origin. Our commercial minimum is 250 kg, which in green coffee means five 60 kg bags, and microlots can also ship in 10-20 kg vacuum-sealed boxes. For small volumes, the cost that dominates is not the coffee but the freight and customs clearance per shipment, so it often makes sense to consolidate several lots into one less-than-container shipment, or to share a container with another roaster through your importer or forwarder.

The other lever is timing. Buying once a year, shortly after the harvest you want, and holding stock in liners is usually cheaper than several small shipments. Ecuador's Andean harvest falls at different times depending on province and altitude, so confirm the harvest window of each lot before planning a release around it.

Documents a Roaster Should Receive

Each shipment should travel with its commercial invoice, packing list, bill of lading, phytosanitary certificate and certificate of origin, plus the lot data: farm or estate, variety, process, harvest date and moisture. Roasters in the European Union also need to know where they sit under the EU Deforestation Regulation. Since Regulation (EU) 2025/2650, the due diligence statement is submitted by the operator that first places the coffee on the EU market — usually the importer — while a roaster that buys coffee already on the EU market is a downstream operator and does not file its own statement. A roaster that imports directly from origin is the first operator and files it. Our EUDR guide for coffee importers covers the data that has to come from origin.

Building a Relationship with Origin

The roasters who get the best lots from any origin are the ones who come back. Repeat contracts let the exporter plan with the same farms, the same process and the same preparation each year, and let the roaster keep a profile stable across harvests. Share your cupping notes on each lot, both the good and the bad, and tell the exporter early how much you expect to need next year. Those two habits do more for the quality of the next container than any clause in the contract.

Where to Start

The technical sheet for our specialty green coffee is on the specialty green coffee product page, and microlots have their own microlot sheet. The broader picture of Ecuadorian coffee is on our specialty coffee from Ecuador page.