Welcome to Buena Beans

NEWS: We're on target to sell 4,000 pounds of coffee by July 2010, when Kate heads to Costa Rica to make the donation to La Violeta's school. Help us get there!

Where good people come for great coffee.

Buena Beans brings the coffee from La Violeta, Costa Rica to the American market and uses the profits to improve the local school for the children of the community. It is run by Kate Schneider, a former volunteer teacher in the town.

With its fertile volcanic soil and altitude in the Costa Rican highlands, careful tending and handpicking, La Violeta produces an excpetional coffee. Buena Beans is your source for this specialty coffee, Café La Violeta, from a group of small, independent growers in Costa Rica, a country known for many of the world’s best coffees. An undiscovered gem buried in the famous San Marcos – Tarrazu region, Café La Violeta is an exceptional specialty cup characterized by its medium body, bright acidity, and full flavor packed with a variety of tones from citrus to chocolate.

Buena Beans has imported this coffee to Westport, MA and it is specially micro-roasted close to our warehouse by Coastal Roasters in Tiverton, RI.

Every purchase you make from Buena Beans is a direct action in support of global educational initiatives, sustainable development, and great coffee.

Good for us all.

In La Violeta, the growers live among their own fields, so sustainable practices mean treating their own backyard in a way that will keep them healthy, both now and in generations to come.

Buena Beans was inspired by a volunteer teacher who spent a year living and working in the coffee growing community of La Violeta. Kate was impressed by the quality of the coffee and amazed by the history of the town. Coffee had pulled the town out of dire poverty over three generations. But at the same time she saw that there were no opportunities outside of small-scale farming for the generation of children growing up now.

World peace through great coffee.

Kate witnessed the barriers facing the rural children in La Violeta and saw the difference that even a small donation could make. With a few thousand dollars, the community could afford to build a secure space to house computers that it received as a donation. With the infrastructure already in place for an internet connection, the entire community could access the Internet through a free connection provided by the government. All they need is four walls and a roof.

Buena Beans reconciles the benefit of the coffee industry and the rewards it has brought to coffee growing communities with the lack of educational resources provided to rural public schools in Costa Rica.