any good recommendation for green beans?

I usually buy espresso blends. For the past couple of years I have been buying various sweetmaria blends which all have been good... but looking for a change. I usually buy 20 lbs at one time.

I have heard great things about Greenline from Metropolis:

http://www.metropoliscoffee.com/shop/category/coffee/unroasted/view/greenline-espresso-p15

It costs a bit more than any of the Sweet Maria's blends, but the owners are really nice people and I'm sure they'd help with roast profiles if you ask. This is the green version of their popular Redline blend.

Depends on what you want to buy. If you are looking for blends, then there is only going to be one supplier for most of them, e.g. the place the sells that blend. An exception would be more widely distributed blends such as Malabar Gold and the Royal blends, which should be available from multiple sources.

If you are looking for single varietals, you need to know that these are going to be hugely variable across vendors unless you are looking for something imported in huge quantities by a big broker such as Royal. I myself look for really special, limited production varietals which I use to make single origin espresso. There aren't all that many single varietals that will work for SO espresso, and in that case you need to know exactly what you are looking for and who carries it. I've seldom found more than two suppliers for any of these limited production varietals. Examples of this sort of SO would include the (now gone) Ethiopian Worka, and the Ethiopian Bonka that has been available the last several months. The Worka (no longer available, and past prime) was sold by Klatch Roasting and by Paradise. The Bonko was sold for a brief while by Sweet Marias and continues to be sold by Klatch.

It is hard to generalize on suppliers without knowing what you are looking for. Sweet Marias certainly has the largest selection of green coffee out there, but you might not like a lot of what they have for sale. I seldom buy from them, but do buy from them when they have something unusual that I want. Klatch is a good supplier but their green coffees for sale tend to be a fairly limited list. I haven't been buying much from Paradise lately, especially since Miguel left for Hawaii.

Finally, don't forget the green bean coop. Most of the time they have nothing for sale, but occasionally they get a good deal on something, and whatever they have for sale never lasts for more than a few hours so you have to be on top of their offerings in order to actually buy anything. You need to register as a member of the coop before you can purchase.

ken

thanks for the replies.

metropoliscoffee looks good but is a little pricey. I generally try to spend less than $5 per pound.

In the early days I always purchased single orgins and played with the blends until I found something that was decent. Nowadays, I roast only once a week and dont want to mess around with the blending. In regards to taste, not looking for anything fancy just your basic espresso blend with good crema and no bitter aftertaste.

http://www.gilliescoffee.com/wholesale/ ... x&cPath=49
HUGE selection, great greens and very nice people..
prices range is $5 a lb +/-
they are here in Brooklyn, but if you order more than 10lbs I think they deliver for free.

HIGHLY RECOMMENDED.

I was wondering if anyone could suggest any suppliers of green beans. I am looking for 3 types of beans and have already been to sweet marias and could not find what I was looking for. I would prefer to get all 3 in one stop if possible. I am looking for a daterra, a sulawesi and a harrar. If anyone could help it would be greatly appreciated.

I would try Theta Ridge (he lists his Sulawesi with the old Portuguese name Celebes):

http://www.thetaridgecoffee.com/green.htm

B|Java

My favorite place is The Green Coffee Buying Club
http://www.greencoffeebuyingclub.com/index.php

Susan

Spresso_Bean wrote:I have heard great things about Greenline from Metropolis:

http://www.metropoliscoffee.com/shop/category/coffee/unroasted/view/greenline-espresso-p15

It costs a bit more than any of the Sweet Maria's blends, but the owners are really nice people and I'm sure they'd help with roast profiles if you ask. This is the green version of their popular Redline blend.

Spresso Bean, what sort of profile do you use on the Greenline? I had a very nice shot of the Redline recently, and would love to try roasting some.

I recently bought from this website: http://www.coffeebeancorral.com

My requirements were:
1) a large collection of origins
2) an international shipping with reasonable pricing and
3) the ability to buy green coffee in half-pound packages so that I can buy as many coffees as I can, which this store provides in the form of half-pound samples.

I think that those half-pound samples are especially appropriate for me at this time because:
1) the roaster I use can roast very small batches of beans which allows someone to discover a certain coffee very well using only half a pound of green beans,
2) because my family's consumption is relatively low so that I cannot generally discover many coffees without buying more coffee than I would be able to consume, and finally
3) because international shipping is expensive, and I wouldn't generally like the shipping to be more than fifty percent of the price of the coffee. In this case I bought 25 coffees with a total weight of 13.5 pounds (slightly less than 7 kilos).

In this case, I bought from nearly all the available origins (Bali, Bolivia, Colombia, Costa Rica, Guatemala India, Indonesia, Java, Hawai, Mexico, Nicaragua, Papua New Guinea, Sumatra, Tanzania, Zimbabwe and Uganda) including the ones whose coffees are usually available to me in Saudi Arabia, such as Yemeni and Ethiopian coffees. My objective was to compare the coffees I am going to receive from this store with the ones available to me (which most of the time are sold with no designations). For example, the fanciest green Yemeni coffee is sold in Saudi Arabia under the name "Kholani" for around $10.7 a pound (80 S.R. a kilo), and so I would like to see how this coffee relates to the "Matari" coffee I am going to receive from this store. There is also a Yemeni peaberry coffee I see around in Saudi Arabia (locally called "Bahri") which I have not seen elsewhere. This is the first time I attempt buying green coffee overseas which I think is interesting.

I just went with a grab bag of 10 1 lb coffees from http://ourcoffeebarn.com/ and was very impressed. Super nice couple that ships in little cotton bags and they have very decent prices. Especially when you get into the 25 and 50 lb sized bags. I've tried half the varieties and a couple blends and they've all been high quality.

SJM wrote:My favorite place is The Green Coffee Buying Club
http://www.greencoffeebuyingclub.com/index.php

Susan

Me, too!