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vere enough it could threaten relationships with sellers who you have not even met yet. In
short, treat others with respect and you should expect them to respect you in return. And
of course, always try to associate yourself with integrity as that will build trust quickly.

Have a Process

When I talk about relationships with green coffee sellers, it is easy to think that all
you need to do is talk nicely with them. I wish it were this simple, but there is one thing
that will build your relationship with a green seller more than anything else. That is to
have a process in how you work with them. Organization is highly important, and de-
pending on how you work on a daily basis this might be more or less difficult for you. I
can tell you, however, that the following is crucial to both building relationships with
coffee sellers and for your own cupping methods.First of all, you need to build your
process when it comes to green coffee samples. Before even ordering green samples you
should have planned all of the steps for when the coffee arrives. Once you have ordered
your samples, plan to test, sample roast, cup, and give a response to the seller within a
week of their arrival if possible. Always use a log sheet, either paper or digital, to track
what you have roasted, product numbers, testing data (density, moisture activity, visual
grade, etc), taste score, and any other notes about the sample. A log sheet will give you
the ability to track your tasting, and the ability to find previous samples for comparison.

For example, I will roast a pre-purchase or “type” sample and with my logged data in order to
compare it to pre-ship samples and arrival samples to make sure the quality level is similar to
what I originally tasted. If the arrival coffee is 1-2 points below my original purchase sample, I
may request a small discount per lb/kg. *NOTE: It is common for green
coffee to lose some of its intensity as time has passed in shipping,
so keep this in mind as some importers will not discount their
product unless it is significantly lower in score. They may
be more willing to discount if you have a strong, long
lasting relationship though.

Next, you really MUST communicate with the seller as much as possible
about the samples they sent. This is another test of the relationship between
buyer and seller. Your organization on quickly collecting data should help
you know what to tell the seller, but you must plan to contact them quickly.
If you don’t like the samples, simply saying “I didn’t like the coffees” is ad-
equate, but saying “I didn’t like the coffees. I wanted more acidity and the
third sample tasted sour” is much more useful. It only takes a few short
sentences to give feedback, but this feedback can be incredibly useful for the
seller. They can get you new samples if you like, and they can check the cur- Pete Licata
rent samples for storage issues, defects, or other issues. They should also
make notes about your preferences in coffee, so that the next time they send 2013 WBC Champion. Af-
you samples they can identify the type that you may like best.Another con- ter winning the WBC title Pete
sideration in buying high quality coffees is that the better ones typically get formed Licata Coffee Consul-
sold the fastest. There are many coffees in the world that are both great tants, coaching and advising
tasting and very reasonable in price. If you wait too long in sampling coffees, competitors, including Hidenori
or forget to tell the seller that you like something, it may be sold by the time Izaki the 2014 World Barista
you get around to it. Additionally, some coffees you may taste are not im- Champion. Recently Pete and his
ported yet, but samples to see if there is enough interest in purchasing a team opened a coffee training
container to begin importing to your country. In these cases if you do not center in Qingdao.
show interest or commitment quickly, that beautiful coffee may never even
get imported for you to buy.

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