Frequently Asked Questions

The right balance between culture and quality

Yellow Rooster is a company based on human relationships. As we seek to establish respectful relationships with coffee growers to obtain green beans, we also strive to achieve the same in our wholesale accounts with roasters.

The most important thing for us is to be able to establish long term relationships with roasters to ensure we are meeting your needs. Our aim is to grow together with the roasters we supply. We are always open to conversation and, of course, catching up for a coffee.
We want your Yellow Rooster experience to be a transparent and enjoyable one!

What, who, where…

What does Yellow Rooster do?

Yellow Rooster Coffee Imports is a green coffee importing company. We understand our primary role as connecting coffee producers across Latin America to like-minded coffee roasters in North America and New Zealand by providing logistics services, along with the required governmental licenses and financial capital to move hundreds of thousands of pounds of coffee from farm to port to roastery. We act as ambassadors to effectively communicate between roaster and producer their needs, wants, interests and pain points. We are committed to making the journey of the coffee seed a transparent one, creating easier access to relationship from origin to destination and back in a way that has historically been obfuscated.

Who is Yellow Rooster?

Yellow Rooster was co-founded in 2019 by Jimmy Avendano, Stephanie Avendano and their friend and business partner Joel Eastlick. They combined for over 30 years of coffee business experience — Jimmy, as a project manager for BUNN-O-MATIC with a focus on Latin America and the Caribbean, Stephanie as a director of Roast Magazine en Español, and Joel as a barista, production roaster and consultant for various brands, and founder his own, Eastlick Coffee Company. Those years led to innumerable coffee-centered events such as trade shows, latte art throwdowns, farm visits and more, and the original Yellow Rooster three parlayed those experiences and networking opportunities into a brand that people (both farmers and roaster) knew they could align with and trust.

Where does the name "Yellow Rooster" come from?

The romantic story is that the rooster, a common animal found on coffee farms across the world, is the most faithful. It’s the duty of the rooster to announce a new day, every day, regardless of circumstance. The rooster announces the change from night to day, and every creature on the farm relies on the rooster to do its job so that they can do theirs.

That’s the way we see our job — the coffee industry has been “dark” for a long time, a commodity industry that traces a lot of its structure to how the world worked when the enslavement of our fellow human was still “legal”. As Roosters, we announce a new morning, where light shines bright and nothing can hide from it. We want to participate in de-coupling the livelihood of hundreds of thousands of coffee workers from the whims of Wall Street, instead creating a value chain where labor, cultural heritage and self-determination are dignified.

The shorter story of the name is that Jimmy was consulting a large grocery chain to develop a brand identity for their new roasted coffee line. After pitching the leadership team about the “Yellow Rooster” roasted coffee concept (yellow, of course, being a prominent color of the flag of Jimmy’s home country of Colombia), the VP in charge of product development said, “So this product is targeted for Hispanics — we have to make it as cheap as possible. We’re putting cheap coffee in those bags, right, Jimmy?” Immediately, Jimmy stood up, gathered his things, thanked everybody for their time, and walked out of the meeting. The progress on the project for the grocery store ended at the moment — a line was drawn in the sand then and there about how coffee would be sourced and how it would be served, knowing that the race to the bottom would never produce the dignifying results all of us, from farm to cup, deserve.

Quality standards

What types of coffees do you offer?

We are a company that is “by coffee people, for coffee people” at our core. We are well-versed in and understand both the scale and requirements of an industry that serves billions of cups a day, as well the needs of an aspiring competitive barista. In other words, everything we serve is considered “specialty coffee,” both in flavor and provenance. Whether a large community lot or a single-producer fermentation experiment nano-lot, we source distinct coffees from an engaged value chain across various flavor profiles and price points. We’re certain you’ll find something you’ll like when you work with us.

Where do you work?

Given the nature of our team make-up, experience and geographical location, we’ve found it best to focus our efforts currently in Latin America. Brazil, Colombia, Guatemala and Perú are are current year-over-year commitments. That said, we are a relationship-driven company that has grown organically, and we are always open to considering conversations around new sourcing relationships.

Shipping

Where do you warehouse?

In the US, we operate our own climate controlled warehouse in Clearwater, Florida. In New Zealand, we operated our own climate controlled storage space in Auckland.

How do you ship?

In North America, we are able to do full pallet shipments, strapped and wrapped for safe arrival through LTL freight service. We also offer smaller, “half-bag” amounts in our custom-made, double-walled cardboard boxes through UPS Ground shipments.

Can I come to Clearwater and pick up my order?

Absolutely. We are available Monday – Friday, 9a – 5p most weeks. Make sure your sales rep knows your intention when your order is placed.

Reach us for more info

Still have questions? No worries! Click here to send us an email or contact us here and we’ll get in touch as soon as possible.

Find your next coffee

You can see our updated list of coffees here.

See offering