The Story
Azahar Coffee was co-founded by Tyler Youngblood and Keith Schuman in 2010 during a road trip through South America . The founders spent several years learning the coffee business from growing to roasting to exporting, discovering that Colombia is the third largest coffee producer with about half a million families depending on coffee production . The company was established in 2010 and is headquartered in Armenia, Colombia , though it operates with a roastery in Quindío and a couple cafés in Bogotá .
What began as selling roasted coffee with QR codes linking to video interviews with producers evolved into opening their first small café in a shipping container in a parking lot in Bogotá . Often referred to as the Container Café, Azahar is dedicated to serving local brew to a community of coffee aficionados in the 93 Parque neighbourhood . Today, Azahar is roasting, retailing and exporting more than $10 million of coffee per year — nearly 3 million pounds, all traceable to individual farmers, currently purchasing coffee from almost 5,000 smallholder farmers in Colombia, many of whom live in post-conflict regions .
Sourcing & Relationships
Azahar combines science with the senses, spending as much time on the road as in the lab, traveling year-round to some of Colombia’s smallest farms, even to areas that often don’t appear on the map, dealing directly with producers, co-ops and growers’ associations to build transparent relationships . In exchange for farmer’s dedication to producing truly great coffee, they pay higher, stable prices, because regardless of what the market says, good coffee farming should be profitable, believing the commodity market fails coffee producers .
The company has eliminated the entire intermediary supply chain by working directly with farmers, providing technical assistance from an agronomic standpoint, buying coffee directly from farmers, maintaining all processes in house, and acting as both exporter and importer, distributing coffee on a weekly basis . Azahar goes beyond Fair Trade by not pricing based on international prices but instead qualifying coffee and compensating for various levels of premiums, not requiring farmers to be part of cooperatives, and redistributing a portion of export proceeds to farmers as dividends .
A signature initiative is the “Pickers Project” created in 2017 with the threefold goal of ending worker exploitation in coffee, solving farmers’ labor issues, and improving quality . Through their Colombian foundation, Manos al Grano, they train a team of fulltime pickers deployed to partner farmers, paying them salaries with benefits virtually unheard of in coffee picking, while participating farmers don’t have to scramble to find labor and get skilled workers on demand .
Roasting Philosophy
Azahar’s roasting process is a tribute to the hard work of each producer, crafted to bring out the unique character of every coffee, recognizing that no two coffees are exactly the same . Through roasting they seek to honor the work of each producer, highlighting individual profiles by caramelizing sugars just enough, balancing brightness with body and sweetness to ensure an equally satisfying yet unique experience in every cup .
Their coffee is “Farm Fresh” from Colombia, roasted only two weeks to two months off the farm, versus other companies whose beans are up to a year old before roasting . When meeting with representatives, they’ve brought coffee harvested three weeks before and roasted just four days prior, all in Colombia — “Can’t get much fresher than that” . The taste is brighter and pops more, with distinctive flavors where you truly taste a difference between each bag .
Azahar has a lab in Armenia where they cup coffee, searching for exact flavor profiles, often discovering that farmers don’t realize what special coffee they’re producing and the added value of superior quality that could bring increased income, working with them to improve harvesting techniques and bean processing .
What to Try
The signature Arcoíris (Rainbow) blend celebrates traditional, handcrafted producer effort with a diversity of origins, terroirs, microclimates, flavors and experimental fermentation processes, yielding tasting notes of plum, black tea, and panela . Developed at their lab in Armenia, each blend Arcoíris is unique, fleeting and cannot be replicated, like the rainbow itself .
Popular offerings mentioned by regular customers include “rainbow” and “juicy bomb” among their signature blends , though some coffee enthusiasts note they focus primarily on blends with consistent profiles rather than rotating single origin varietals . The company exports micro lots and regional blends sourced directly from producers , offering single origin coffees with specific identity where you can know the exact farmer who produced the coffee on exactly what piece of land, with details available on their website including farm names and locations on the map .
In 2014, Azahar sourced coffee from more than 420 different Colombian farmers, all of whom processed beans on their own land , and they continue to offer meticulously curated selections of top-quality, fresh coffees with full traceability, featuring seasonal delights from Colombian and Mexican lots .