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Coffee Smarter ft. Jared Hales, Hacea Coffee Source.

Green coffee importing company Hacea Coffee Source's Jared Hales joins the Coffee Smarter podcast to chat about green coffee contracts, moisture content, what makes good coffee, and updates us on the tariff situation facing roasters and importers.

Coffee Smarter ft. Jared Hales, Hacea Coffee Source.

Watch and/or Listen to Coffee People on:
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Guests: Jared Hales, CoFounder of Hacea Coffee Source green coffee importers
Based: Anaheim, CA
Find online at: https://haceacoffee.com/ and on social media, including Facebook, Instagram, and YouTube.

On their website you'll find lots of coffee education, updates on available green coffee, and a schedule of upcoming IRL coffee education sessions. Full video posted below.

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PODCAST TAKEAWAYS

  • Moisture Content: 10-12% is the range considered safe for shipping and storage. Too wet and beans could be impacted by microbial activity. Too dry and the coffee will taste old or stale.
    • Grainpro bags help prevent moisture loss, especially with well-processed coffee. About 1% loss of moisture annually when stored well. Roasters will likely notice the difference in their roast curves as the coffee ages.
    • Green coffee delivered outside the contract stipulated moisture content standard could result in a reduced payment or even a voiding of the contract.
    • Not all weight loss during roasting is moisture.
    • Another term to be aware of is Water Activity (see below).
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What is water activity? In technical terms, water activity is the ratio of the partial vapor pressure of water in a substance relative to the partial vapor pressure of pure water (under standard conditions and at the same temperature)...Moisture content measures how much total water is in a substance while water activity measures how much of that water is chemically available to react. Daily Coffee News, Yimara Martinez Agudelo | June 23, 2021
  • Cupping Protocols: At Hacea, the variables that can be controlled during a cupping with a client stay the same—roasting machine, water, serving utensils, etc., but the coffees will be tailored to the client based on a qualifying conversation before the cupping.
    • Longer-term roaster/importer relationships allow for the importer to create more value because cupping together creates a flavor profile calibration. A better understanding of the client's tasting preferences combined with feedback about samples gives Hacea more data to use when choosing which coffees to send as samples to the roaster.
    • Calibration isn't so much about scoring a coffee as it is about identifying the flavor profile using a common language.
    • Sampling lots of coffees isn't all fun and games. Sometimes it is nice to just drink something you know you like!
  • Contracts: The importer is in the middle with contracts going both ways—toward the farm and roaster sides of the supply chain.
    • Tariffs are throwaway money events that don't benefit the small business owner. In green coffee (as well as many of the supplies roasters and cafes need) many of the tariffs are passed through to the customer per the green coffee contract standards. Unfortunately, there is no good plan for a tariff imposed unexpectedly beyond having enough cash to foot the bill!
    • Hacea Coffee Source generally sells green coffee on an FCA contract. See some term definitions below.
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Free Carrier (FCA): This is a new contract form of the Green Coffee Association. With this type of contract, risk of loss is transferred when coffee is delivered to the freight carrier at place of embarkation. Seller must deliver the coffee, cleared for export, to the carrier nominated by the buyer at the named place. If delivery occurs at the seller’s premises, the seller is responsible for loading. All freight charges are payable by the buyer.
Free On Board (FOB): With FOB contracts, risk of loss for the coffee is transferred when the coffee crosses over ships rail. Terminal handling costs at the place of loading are for account of the shipper.
©Green Coffee Association, Contract & Terms
  • Good Coffee: Caffeine isn't the determining factor in qualifying what is or isn't a good coffee. Is it flavor, experience, environment, chemistry, or something else entirely that makes us connect with a coffee?
    • There is a growing demand for specialty decaf coffee.
    • Coffee x food is an underserved pairing art.
    • Eating a grape while drinking wine seems messed up.
    • Good books (and bad ones, I suppose) incept us with ideas that come back to us later in life.
    • The Coffee Quality Institute (CQI) and the Specialty Coffee Association (SCA) shocked the industry at their annual convention in April 2025 when they announced that the SCA would be taking over CQI's Q exam, which was long considered the gold standard for training coffee tasting, profiling, and analyzing. The new course uses the recently released Coffee Valuation Assessment, which replaced the legacy cupping form previously used to train Q-graders on a common coffee language.

      The emotions from the industry were visceral. Many were angry that the new programming wouldn't grandfather in the previously graduated Q graders, many of whom had built careers around the skills and status conveyed by taking (and passing) a rigorous, time-intensive, and not-so-inexpensive course.

      Below are some links to details about the change, the new SCA Q program—how it has been received and reported.
Q Grader Program — SCA Education
The Q Grader Program is specialty coffee’s leading license for professionals, encompassing cupping, sensory analysis, and green coffee evaluation.
SCA Education0
Coffee is poured into a white coffee mug on a wood table next to a blue plastic bin of coffee with a light brown lid. A branding label says "Maxwell Apartment" with a photo of the same mug.
The new branding for Maxwell Apartment. ©Maxwell House, Kraft Heinz Company
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What Hacea does: "Hacea Coffee Source serves the roasting community through development, collaboration and connection between roasters and producers around the world."

How they achieve it: We work with responsible and committed coffee farmers through direct relationships. These partnerships allow us access to some of the best coffee in the world, from every continent. We pair these coffees with years of experience in roasting and sourcing, and education for any type of roaster.
SHOP HACEA'S GREEN COFFEE

COLLABORATION COFFEES AVAILABLE NOW

Coffee Release: Trail Boots Edition.
COFFEE COLLAB NOW AVAILABLE We worked with The Pinery Coffee Co. to create a collab coffee to support the Ice Age Trail Alliance in Wisconsin. This Costa Rica washed-honey processed and medium roasted coffee is the perfect complement to a walk in the woods. BUY ICE AGE TRAIL BOOTS COFFEE
COFFEE PEOPLERyan Woldt
COFFEE COLLABS
See all of the collaboration coffees we’re producing with small business collaborators like Coffee Cycle Roasting, Marea Coffee, The Pinery Coffee Company, and Relative Coffee Company.
COFFEE PEOPLERyan Woldt

OTHER BRANDS WE USE & HAVE PARTNERED WITH

The partner links below enable us to generate some affiliate revenue. As always, we don’t partner with brands we don’t use, coffee we don’t drink, or a brand we don't strongly recommend.

NEXT WEEK:

An intercontinental interview with James Sheperd of Bombora Coffee + Water Supplies, and a case study from Cafe Domestique.

Just for fun-ish: Coffee, or rather brewing it, is how I slow down. My calm lasts for as long as it takes to grind, heat water, and brew. Goro has figured out how to infuse the calm–or Higashikawa-way–into his entire life (including his on-location coffee time).

Shout out to Sister Jean:

Being old doesn't mean being old. "Are we ready to play?"

Register to become an organ donor at: https://registerme.org/.

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