Humanity

Our company identity focuses on the humanistic aspects of specialty coffee. The name cumpa represents companions, friends, people who share the same fate. That’s how we see ourselves. As traders, we share the joys and challenges with our cumpas — the producers and roasteries.

The human element is central to our partnerships. Do we understand each other? Do we share the same values? For a sustainable and friendly connection, these questions are essential. The complexities of the coffee trade require mutual empathy, respect, and transparency. Origin trips play a key role in developing and nurturing genuine relationships with producers.

We build our relationships carefully and thoughtfully. With some of our partners, we share decades of coffee adventures. With our Peruvian partners, we have journeyed deep into the jungle, and we’ve also shared experiences at various coffee festivals and in the roasteries of our customers.

Visits from farmers to Europe are as valuable as our visits to them. The direct exchange with roasters showcases the mutual appreciation for each other’s work. Conversations allow questions to be answered on the spot, and farmers can see how their product, as roasted coffee beans, makes its way into the cups of European coffee drinkers. Experiencing the joy of coffee together is a meaningful and enriching experience.

Direct Trade

Standards are important for guiding consumers. However, we believe that the most valuable transparency arises from qualitative approaches – especially in specialty coffee. Our goal is to bring global value chains closer together, harmonize strategies, and, in doing so, build stable, crisis-resistant relationships. For us, transparency means not only a focus on quality but also fostering mutual empathy. Instead of prescribing more rules, we aim to encourage greater bilateral communication with our partners at origin.

The most effective form of this next-level transparency comes from direct exchanges between roasters and producers—whether through visits to coffee origins or roasteries. Alongside personal interactions, we rely on photos, videos, music, cooking together, and open conversations to create a shared understanding of the coffee world. In this way, the people behind coffee production gain a face and a voice. Digital technology plays a crucial role in documenting and communicating these transparency efforts.

As a partner of cumpa, you gain access to unique relationships and resources that evolve naturally around your needs. You often have direct contact with the producers, and we serve as ambassadors to support and facilitate this exchange, ensuring that it remains enriching for everyone involved.

Support women in coffee

Patriarchal structures are a global issue, affecting even the coffee industry. Through our work, we aim to help address and improve this imbalance.

A key step for us is to ensure that female coffee farmers receive as much visibility as their male counterparts. By carefully selecting micro-lots from individual women farmers, we aim to highlight their success stories, which are every bit as remarkable as those of their male colleagues.

In the Son La region of northern Vietnam, we work closely with the Detech Cooperative, led by Ms. Ngoc Anh Sprünker. This cooperative is particularly dedicated to empowering local women coffee farmers. We were so impressed by their commitment that we not only support them in business but also actively promote them through membership in the International Women in Coffee Alliance (IWCA) Vietnam. Furthermore, in Vietnam, we collaborate with ethnic groups that uphold matriarchal and matrilineal traditions. We are not here to judge whether these traditions are better or worse than the patriarchal structures more common in Europe; however, it is inspiring to witness the different ways gender roles are naturally expressed and lived in other parts of the world.

In the Democratic Republic of Congo, we work with a coffee that is produced exclusively by a group of women at the Ngula Washing Station. In this region, women face disadvantages in many areas, from healthcare and politics to employment opportunities. This exclusive women’s lot is an outstanding example of the productive energy women bring to the economy.

In Peru, too, women are demonstrating their capacity to manage coffee cultivation effectively. We’ve had positive experiences working with women’s micro-lots in Central and Northern Peru. Interestingly, male partners in the region also name their farms and lots after inspiring women from Peruvian history.

Working towards greater gender equality in the coffee industry is a complex endeavor. Gender-sensitive language in our German texts is just one way we aim to underscore the participation of women within our networks.

Environmental Awareness

Where coffee grows today, there once stood rainforest. Coffee is a luxury product with a negative impact on climate change. At cumpa, we aim to explore ways in which, as part of the coffee value chain, we can collectively fulfill our responsibility to the environment and future generations.

Since our founding, we have planted several hundred trees in Peru, Vietnam, and Germany—many of them by hand. Originally, we planted one tree in the coffee’s origin country and one in Germany for each ton of green coffee imported. However, due to scaling limitations, we needed to develop new processes.

Today, we encourage our customers to join us in supporting reforestation projects and tree-planting initiatives at coffee origins. We see reforestation with Robusta coffee as an elegant solution to restore deforested areas with both biomass and biodiversity. Currently, we support these projects:

Organic Robusta Coffee in Vietnam
Organic Robusta Coffee in Peru

We are currently working on measuring the carbon capture progress of our projects using satellite imagery. Soon, we hope to provide concrete data on how much land and carbon have been effectively restored and captured through sustainable Robusta coffee agroforestry. Stay tuned!