HATUHEI

It was in 2020 when Carlos de Deus (lead farmer) first invited Karst to visit the remote region of Hatuhei to explore opportunities of working with us to open up new opportunities within the international speciality coffee market. Located in the extremely remote, difficult to access, south-easterly part of Letefoho meant opportunities for the community to sell coffee were limited and farmers only option was to sell their cherries to commercial buyers who were purchasing at very low prices. After this initial visit we were adamant that we wanted to partner with Carlos and the farmers of Hatuhei to see if we could offer an alternative to that of the commercial route.

6-years on, and we are incredibly proud of how this relationship has developed; as the quality and reputation of this easy drinking, fully-washed coffee has increased, so has our purchase price and as farmers have become more confident with their processing so have the volumes that we are buying. To put this into context, in 2020 we purchased 1,200 kilos of parchment from the Hatuhei members at a price of $2.90 per kilo which had a total value of $3,480. Fast forward to 2025 and Karst purchased a total of 12,406 kilos of parchment at a price of $4.00 per kilo seeing $49,624 paid directly into the community. Naturally, this increase in volume would not have been possible without the trust and confidence of our partner roasters in the UK, many of whom pre-ordered their coffee prior to the harvest, so a huge thank you to you especially!