Journal — July 2023

This month’s feature marks 5 full years of sharing coffee from over Yonder (more than 40 roasters in over 30 countries) with our subscriber friends around the world. And I honestly can’t think of a better roaster to share with you to celebrate that.
From the start, my intention was to feature a mix of world-famous roasters and local hidden gems, longtime staples of each country’s coffee scene and exciting new projects that bring something different to their community. I think sometimes in the US (and in a lot of the coffee-enjoying world), we live so separated from coffee as an agricultural product that we kind of forget how so many people put so much labor into every cup we drink.

So I’m excited to introduce you to Medellín, Colombia’s Knowwhere Coffee and its founder Juan Diaz. Juan is a first generation Colombian-American who splits his time between both countries he calls home. Knowwhere started as an eco-tourism company that invites coffee professionals from around the world to come to Colombia on origin trips to meet producers and source coffees. With one foot in both cultures, Juan sort of functions as a bridge between his producer friends in Colombia and his consumer friends throughout the rest of the world. Colombia is the only country where coffee can be harvested all year round. Growers pick coffee all year but exporters and importers only buy a few times a year and a lot gets left behind. That’s the coffee Juan buys.

As we chatted about this feature, Juan told me, “our intention was never to roast for ourselves as a brand, but our friends kept asking us do it. So now we do. We buy the real direct way—go to the farm and buy the coffee cherry before it’s even milled and then worry about the rest. It’s long, hard work but it’s more intentional.” He went on, “we are pretty disruptive, because we do everything. We sell green. We roast. We sell cherry and parchment. We sell roasted coffee. We are cuppers and we are baristas.”

Earlier this year, Juan competed at the U.S. Barista championship, where he finished in third place overall. We became better friends while he trained for competition in Raleigh. It’s rare to get such a direct line to each coffee we’re sharing, so we’ll be posting more about each coffee and the people who helped Juan and his team share it with us. Enjoy!