About
We put the provenance back in the bag.
An Ethiopian specialty coffee exporter, based in Addis Ababa, built around one stubborn idea: the story of a coffee should arrive with the coffee.
The Founding Story
It started with a lost name.
A lot we knew intimately — the station, the manager, the families who picked it — arrived at a European roastery labelled as nothing more than a grade and a region. Everything that made it worth buying had been stripped out somewhere between Djibouti and the roaster's intake sheet.
That is normal in this trade, and it is a quiet form of loss. The farmer loses the credit. The roaster loses the story they could have told. And the next season, nobody can trace what worked.
So we built an exporter around the opposite premise. Every lot we ship carries its documentation, its coordinates, and its cupping score, published on a page anyone can read — no login, no request form, no waiting on an email.
The Mission
Three commitments we are willing to be held to.
Say what we know
Where a lot is traced to a station, we name it. Where it is only traced to region, we say that plainly instead of implying more. Honest beats impressive.
Pay properly, on time
Direct relationships with stations and cooperatives, and prices that survive scrutiny. A supply chain nobody wants to talk about is not a supply chain worth having.
Document everything
Cupping reports, certificates, EUDR due diligence, bills of lading. Compliance is not paperwork we produce reluctantly at the end — it travels with the coffee.
The Showroom
Bole Road, Addis Ababa.
Our showroom is a working cupping lab, not a reception area. It is where every lot is scored before it is offered, where pre-shipment samples are pulled, and where visiting buyers spend their first and last afternoons in the country.
There is a full SCA-standard cupping setup, a sample roaster, and a table long enough for a delegation. If you are in Addis, come and cup with us — the coffee is already on the table.
The Team
Small, and on the ground.
Biruk Agonafer
Founder
Runs sourcing and buyer relationships, and drives most of the roads himself during harvest.
Selamawit Bekele
Q Grader
Licensed Q grader. Cups every lot that carries our name and signs the score sheet.
Dawit Alemu
Export & Compliance
Handles documentation, ECX grading, EUDR due diligence, and the Djibouti corridor.
Part of Leviel Holding
A longer Ethiopian bet.
The Coffee Link sits within Leviel Holding, a group building Ethiopian businesses that keep more of the value chain — and more of the expertise — inside the country. Coffee is where that thesis is most visible, and hardest to fake.
It also means we are not in a hurry. We are building relationships with stations and buyers that should still make sense in twenty years.
See what we are exporting