Gute Village, Ethiopia

Falcon Coffees

Falcon Coffees is a specialty green coffee trader, with a focus on sustainability, collaboration, and positive social and environmental impact.

To condense their work into words is indeed a challenge, but in our experience at Tenfold, Falcon is a superlative trader, who embodies their values in all they do. With a robust network of people (85 staff), offices (across 10 countries and 5 continents), and community initiatives (environmental, social, governance), they seek to improve livelihoods across the supply chain.

As they put it themselves;

“Falcon was born out of the conviction that the coffee industry has the potential to drive enormous socio-economic change and harness environmental stewardship across a geo-political landscape that is home to both vulnerable communities and fragile ecosystems. Our purpose is to help drive this change.

We achieve this by focusing on quality. Improved quality increases household revenue through price premiums. Improved incomes are the economic incentive to better social and environmental practices. Higher standards combine with higher quality to drive market demand.”

We highly recommend you learn more about Falcon at their website, falconcoffees.com


Alo Coffee

Alo Coffee, founded by Tamiru Tadesse, was born out of a desire to prove that Sidama’s finest coffees could compete on the world stage. A former university teacher and electrical engineer, Tamiru had worked in coffee for years, witnessing the challenges of an industry that too often can undervalue quality, and leave producers struggling to make ends meet. After Ethiopia held its first ever Cup of Excellence (CoE) competition in 2020, Tamiru and his wife Messi saw the opportunity to contribute to a culture that celebrated and rewarded excellence in coffee.

With their first ever submission to the 2021 Ethiopian CoE, a lot from Tamiru and Messi’s home village of Alo won the competition, solidifying their belief that dedication, not just tradition, leads to greatness.

Since then, Alo Coffee has grown to a network of over a dozen high end processing stations, with just under 900 farmers representing the best of Sidama, and its neighboring region West Arsi. Alo rewards these farmers' dedication to excellence by reinvesting profits into community development projects, such as schools seedling nurseries, and offering quality bonuses to encourage sustained consistency in its network.

Alo emphasizes experimentation in conjunction with its renowned washed and natural profiles. By embracing experimentation through controlled fermentation, with processing byproducts such as mosto and cascara, they aim to push the boundaries of coffee production, while maintaining their roots in traditional methods.

It’s no new idea that quality is the key to economic growth in the specialty coffee industry, but Alo is a great example to follow, for the future of Ethiopian Coffee.

Since Tenfold’s inception, Falcon Coffees have been an invaluable resource for green coffee of exceptional quality, traceability, and consistency. Based in Austin, TX, their North American offices come stocked with people who are always helpful, kind, and resourceful. It’s easy to lean on them as an importer partner, and their dedication to positive change through quality has always resonated with us.