Coffee Importers and Roasteries Editing and Proofreading Services

The coffee arrives four weeks late, one point below the cup score it was bought on, and with a moisture reading the seller disputes. Whether the buyer has a position depends entirely on what the contract said about who cups it, against what sample, within how many days of arrival — and on most contracts in this trade, it says none of that.

We edit what coffee importers and roasteries produce — green coffee purchase contracts and offer sheets, quality specifications and approval procedures, shipment and delivery documentation, supplier and producer agreements, sourcing and transparency reporting, wholesale and café-partner documentation, training material for staff and buyers, and the origin material that supports a brand. Our editors work on the documents that carry a lot from an origin to a roaster.

The green coffee contract is where an importer's risk actually sits, and its failure is a quality specification that describes a coffee without saying how disagreement is resolved. Coffee is bought on a sample and delivered months later, and the whole trade runs on what happens in between. We work through these so the quality basis is stated as an approved sample held by both parties with its identifier, since a cup score in a contract without a retained reference is an opinion recorded twice; so the arrival approval process is written with who cups, on what protocol, within how many days of arrival notice, and what constitutes rejection, because a buyer who cups on week six has usually lost the right to complain; so the physical specification is given with the screen size, defect count, moisture range and the method for each, given that moisture measured on two different meters is two different numbers; so arbitration is named with the body, the seat and who holds the arbitration sample; so the shipment window is stated with the consequence of late shipment separated from the consequence of late arrival, as one is the seller's and one may not be; so differentials, quality premiums and the pricing basis are set out with the fixing mechanism and its deadline; and so the terms describe what happens when a lot passes physically and fails on the cup. Contracts written this way keep relationships that outlast a bad harvest.

Everything you send is treated in confidence, including contracts, pricing, supplier information and unpublished sourcing material. We are editors rather than traders, quality graders or lawyers, and we offer no view on quality, pricing or contractual rights. What we can do is make the contract cover the part everyone argues about.