What is the coffee supply chain?

The coffee supply chain is the sequence of actors, processes, and transactions through which coffee travels from the tree to the cup. In its simplest form: farmer → cherry picker → wet mill → dry mill → exporter → freight → importer → roaster → retailer or café → consumer. In practice, many of these roles overlap, are skipped entirely, or involve additional intermediaries at various stages.

Understanding the supply chain matters for two practical reasons. First, it determines price: every actor in the chain adds margin, and the longer the chain between farmer and buyer, the more of the final retail price is absorbed before any reaches the producer. Second, it determines traceability: each link in the chain is a point where information about the coffee's origin, processing, and quality can be preserved or lost.

Specialty coffee's defining ambition - traceable, transparent, equitable sourcing - is fundamentally a supply chain project. Shortening the chain, documenting each step, publishing prices, and returning to the same partners repeatedly are all supply chain decisions with real consequences for who earns what and what information survives to the roaster and consumer. When an offer sheet describes a lot as coming from a specific farm, varietal, and processing batch - that's a supply chain that has preserved information at every step.