Our Story
Theodore’s coffee was founded in early 2013 by Darwin Pavon. Theodore is Darwin Pavon’s grandfather’s name. Pavon in spanish is Peacock, therefore the peacock feather on our logo.
Darwin is a honduran native who spent most of his youth in the farms in Honduras. As an agronomist, he began developing customized fertilizers for coffee, melon, banana, and sugarcane farms through Honduras-based. Due to his success working with these farms, he earned an overseer position on a coffee-specific team that covered over 600 farms from Mexico to Colombia which allowed him to create long lasting relationships with the farmers he met along the way.
This is how Darwin met Israel Ventura. Ventura and his son, Lurvin, own and operate Finca El Playón between the sub regions of San Marcos and Mercedes in Ocotepeque, Honduras. They’re one of only a few independent farms with a license to export in the country, distinguishing them from the major exporters that would primarily buy coffee at commodity price.
Through his new friendship, Darwin was able to encourage coffee producers to seek direct-trade partners and export their coffee through Ventura’s rare license. This opportunity for selling to clients directly, and at a higher price, made a major difference in the lives of many farmers.
In early 2013, Theodore’s Coffee was created and we started roasting coffee from Darwin’s friends and partners in Central America. The skills and connections formed through Darwin’s career in his role as a farm consultant have been an integral part of our approach to roasting. We aim to provide all of our customers with the amazing coffees we source directly from our friends.
Our Coffees
Even before Theodore's Coffee Roasters began roasting coffee, we started building relationships with the farmers who we work with today. Theodore's was founded in order to ensure the farmers we met along the way were paid the value of the coffee you have come to enjoy. For this reason, all of our coffee is either Direct Trade or Ethical Trade and it is roasted in small batches to achieve the perfection you have come to expect from our Roastery.
Direct Trade
What does this mean? Instead of giving you a textbook definition, we'll give you a definition of our own. To us Direct Trade means more than just buying coffee directly from the region the coffee is grown. To us, Direct Trade means we buy directly from the farmers we have come to know and spent time with.
All of our Central American coffees are sourced directly from the farm. Every coffee we get from each farm is another family we have spent time with either over a dinner table or a coffee in the farm. Some of the people we work with are college or childhood friends. We know each farmer by name. We know family members by names. We have built a relationship with each farmer to ensure their passion for coffee is transmitted to each bag of coffee we roast and to ensure they get paid fairly for the awesome coffee they grow.
Ethical Trade
We do our best to ensure we work directly with the farmers... however, when we can't build that individual relationship we partner with companies such as Catalyst Coffee and Dominion Trading. These are companies we share values with such as Dignity, Sustainability and Excellence. Through their work, they ensure communities are transformed by building long-term relationships, creating solutions that fit the need, and changing the lives of farmers and their families. We love the work they do and we enjoy working with them to bring you all of our Ethiopian coffees you love.
We believe that Ethical Trade is the next best thing to Direct Trade coffee. We absolutely trust that when we work with Catalyst or Dominion Trading we are really working with the farmers and ensure fair compensation to them and their families.