If you've been to Velodrome Coffee Company, then chances are, you've heard of our ONE SPEED. Straightforward and reliable, yet complex and exceptional, ONE SPEED has been the coffee we've served on drip since day one. Conversely, you might have also heard of our other crowd favorite, the after-hours dark roast version of our ONE SPEED, the NIGHT RIDER.
There are a lot of reasons why we like working with this coffee. Grown and harvested on the Sigri Estate in the Western Highlands Province of Papua New Guinea, we find it to be consistent throughout the several harvests which happen year-round. These multiple harvests ensure we are able to keep the freshest lots of this coffee on hand while our other coffee options tend to vary throughout the year, depending on harvest schedules. Most importantly though, this coffee is as directly-traded a coffee as you'll ever find, and it’s even more special because of the connection we have with the entire chain.
Taking it back to 2015, I (Brice) was working my first coffee roasting job for Luna Coffee Roasters in DePere, WI. Mark, the owner of Luna, sent me to the annual Specialty Coffee Association Expo (the Expo is still my favorite coffee event ever, by the way—haven't missed a year yet!). I was just a rookie coffee nerd at that point, amongst thousands of other coffee professionals. I didn’t know anyone but I didn't mind. I walked the Expo floor up and down and went to as many cuppings as I could. The cuppings at the SCA Expo are held for about 3 days, from morning to night, and though many are invite-only, I ultimately ended up in a small ballroom with potentially 100 other coffee experts, where I went around sets of tables tasting a myriad of coffees. It's a strange environment, to say the least. The floor is wrapped in plastic so we didn’t dribble on the carpet, and we were all trying to dangle cupping spoons into cupping bowls whilst balancing spit cups on a clipboard. Oh, and usually, the rule is no conversations aloud while tasting.
First meeting Vikram and Vijay
All said, you can imagine how surprised I was when someone read my name badge and recognized Luna Coffee! It was Vikram Patel, who told me he had encountered Luna Coffee on a vacation to the Door County area in Wisconsin. This was my first legitimate coffee connection! We got to chatting and Vikram began telling me about a Papua New Guinea coffee he was just starting to import. I’d never really heard of this direct style of importing before, and this was also the first time I had met someone with such a central role in the whole process.
A little bit later, Vikram introduced me to Vijay, a good family friend. He described how they referred to each other as cousins, and explained that, while Vijay handled all of the farm and export stuff in Papua New Guinea at the Sigri Estate, Vikram handled the importing and sales, and worked with roasters here in the US through his company called Benchmark Coffee Traders. Shortly after this trip, Luna Coffee bought a few bags of some Peaberry coffee, and the whole process was incredible.
First things first, it was awesome to work with an importer who, in turn, worked so closely with the coffee he was selling. Vikram knew all the little details about his coffee and if there was a question he couldn't answer, he'd ask Vijay at the farm and get the info. Over several conversations, Vikram was able to explain a number of other things about Papua New Guinea, specifically, what makes their coffee so different and how the entire coffee infrastructure works there.
It was also refreshing to work with an importer who was the “do-all” guy for the company. Vikram took my order, kept me updated with current arrivals and coffees, sent the invoice, supplied shipping and tracking info, and was sure to touch base to ask if everything was up to par. In short, nothing but excellent service.
Fast forward to now. I've been buying from Vikram for years, with hundreds of bags of coffee transacted, and that stellar service has remained, plus the addition of a great friendship. We always get together during trade shows, have drinks in Chicago when I pass through, and when I first opened Velodrome, Vikram made the trek up to our shop and helped share directly with our customers how our business models have aligned. The support like this when we first opened the cafe was paramount to our success and brand.
Vijay and I at SCA Expo 2017
Looking back on it now, Vikram has been a huge inspiration to what the Velodrome green coffee sourcing program has come to be. It's relationship-focused and as personal as possible. Vikram now has a few other coffees he works with outside the several grades of PNG, but only after relationships were established and the same mark of quality and sustainability upheld by Benchmark Coffee Traders had been nailed by other suppliers.
We do the same here at Velodrome. There are some origins we simply won't have until we connect with a substantive source. Until then, it's doing the simple things right and working closely with the people we do know.
The concept of a personal, relationship-style buying of coffees is still a rather small part of the entire Specialty Coffee importing market. But the people like Vikram—people doing the little things correctly and consistently—make it so much more accessible for everyone. Coffees that provide full transparency and connection are becoming something that more consumers are looking for, and Vikram was offering this way before the curve because he believed it was the better way to do things.
This idea of doing things a better way when maybe it's not the most popular, or before the market asks for it also extends to the unique ways Benchmark works with coffee. There's enough to be said here for an entirely separate article, but the short of it is, no other estate in PNG takes as much care of their plants from seedlings to harvest as Sigri Estate does. They also carefully process and hand-sort their finished product and prepare it for export. Another unique aspect they have introduced is a resting period for the coffee before it is exported, which drastically helps with water activity and moisture content. This process is a huge factor to how well the coffee will store in the US and how it will behave in the roasting machine. An added step, but again, the better way for an exceptional product.
photo: @Belenphoto
he prime reason I have loved working with Vikram is the people aspect. The deep care Vikram exudes extends to both sides of the chain. I certainly feel it as a customer, and on the farm side, the simple fact that Sigri Estate is one of the major employers for the whole region and provides thousands of jobs and lives for families should be enough proof. Benchmark also uses some of its proceeds to go towards funding social projects on the estate such as, free housing for all pickers, free schooling for children, free healthcare, and free AIDS educational programs and testing. All in all, the focus is on the human sustainability of the operation, and Vikram carries that mission forward through importing this great coffee.
Many more stories could be told but hopefully this provides a glimpse into why we love this coffee so much. It's been a mainstay since day one and it will likely not be going anywhere soon as it's hard to find another coffee buying relationship quite like this one.
So, thanks again Vikram, Vijay and the whole team at Sigri Estate. We'll keep looking forward to serving the next cup of your coffee!
