Coffee History

Peter Rogers is our green coffee buyer who spends up to six months of each year visiting coffee farms; overseeing and supervising the coffee sourcing process.

Each year, Pete Rogers visits dozens of coffee farms – from Mexico to Rwanda - not only to ensure a source of the world’s finest Arabica coffee beans but also to see firsthand that the Rogers’ partner farms are meeting Roger’s standards for socially and environmentally responsible coffee production. He tours all of its partner farms as part of a 20-plus year commitment to permanently improve the quality of life for thousands of coffee farm workers and protect nature in the world’s premier coffee growing regions.

You may be wondering how Pete communicates with the coffee farmers? He is fluent in Spanish and culturally sensitive to the workers in the South American regions, enabling him to have a close working relationship with the Roger’s coffee famers and their workers.

Pete helped launch the Rogers Estate Coffees “Community Aid” program in 1986 when he vowed to address the “appalling” poverty he witnessed on his first trip to Guatemala to source coffee beans.

From its first small project – supplying pencils and paper to a struggling school – Community Aid now turns the company’s Fairly Traded coffee into houses, schools, medical clinics and food while focusing on education to break the cycle of poverty at farms in over 10 countries. Once described by a reporter as a “mini-Peace Corps,” a Community Aid program starts with paying farmers enough to ensure they meet the cost of production and then its contribution to the farm goes up.

Community Aid has completed hundreds of social and environmental projects, including modern houses as well as medical facilities, schools and day care centers for thousands of coffee farm workers and their families.

Community Aid also provides permanent educational programs and scholarships, doctors, nurses, teachers, food and clothing, clean drinking water and energy systems and also protects native plants and animals including endangered species.

To read more about the community aid programs take a look at the case studies here: http://www.rogersestatecoffees.co.uk/index.php?id=82

Coffee trees were discovered growing wild thousands of years ago in Ethiopia by tribesmen. Legend has it that a goat herder named Kaldi could not find his goats one night. The next morning, he noticed his goats near a small bush with red berries, jumping and running about. Upon trying some of the berries himself, he felt revitalized and was soon dancing with his goats. All coffee trees, the world over, are descended from these Ethiopian trees. The literally billions of coffee trees on the planet today can each be traced back to this area.