Behind every coffee we roast, there's an importer who builds a relationship of trust and connects us directly to producers.
Partners since 2018
Crop to Cup From Uganda to Brooklyn — a friendship since the very first cupping.
It all started in New York in 2018, when Simon met Maya during his Q-Grader course. Ever since, we've bought all of our Brazilian coffee and the vast majority of our Ethiopian coffees from Crop to Cup — it's with them that we built our Brazilian and Ethiopian programs.
Founded in 2016 — the same year as Zab! — by Jeff Fleming, Apex Coffee Imports is a 100% Canadian importer, based in Montreal and Calgary. Day to day, we work with Jeff and Julie to track down the lots that make our coffee.
Especially strong on Peru, Bolivia, Colombia, Guatemala and Ethiopia, Apex is built on quality, transparency and traceability. In 2023, we even travelled to Colombia with them — an extraordinary trip that led to new partnerships at origin.
Semilla Alongside producers on the margins of the specialty market.
Founded in 2019 by Brendan, an OG of the Montreal coffee scene, Semilla is a "relational" importer: it represents groups of small producers with little connection to the specialty market and helps them move from the periphery to the heart of the value chain. We were among its very first customers.
It's through them that we buy coffee from the Lemus family, a long-time fixture on our menu. And in 2025, we contributed 50/50 with Semilla to building shade beds on Jesus Galeas' farm in Honduras — a concrete gesture that motivates us to do it again!
