A new coffee roasting company called Tracer Coffee is drawing clear lines from coffee farms in Colombia to coffee bags and beverages in Charleston, South Carolina.
Focused on direct trade and Colombian origin storytelling, Tracer Coffee formally launched last year courtesy of business partners Gina Cordoba, who is based in Charleston, and Eduardo Calle, who is based in Antioquia.
The company is now roasting for direct-to-consumer sales and select wholesale clients, offering a fully traceable roster of coffees, including varieties such as Gesha, Chiroso and Bourbon Cidra.
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“We care deeply about traceability, clean cup profiles, and shared values,” Cordoba recently told Daily Coffee News. “We work with farms that are shade grown, environmentally responsible and invested in innovation, especially around post-harvest processes. Flavor-wise, we aim for clarity, balance, and brightness, but more importantly, we want coffees from producers we know personally.”
Cordoba grew up in Colombia but has lived in the United States since age 14. Meanwhile, at about 1,850 meters above sea level in Concordia, Antioquia, Eduardo Calle runs his family’s 9-hectare Rainforest Alliance-certified farm, with coffee plants growing beneath canopies of native shade trees.
“We’re a small but very hands-on team,” Cordoba told DCN. “We make every decision together, from fermentation techniques to label design. Our brand is very much a personal extension of our backgrounds, values and shared mission.”
Calle roasts and cups samples in Colombia, while Tracer handles all logistics, exporting and importing.
“We manage the entire supply chain ourselves, end to end,” said Cordoba. “Eduardo handles sourcing, processing and export in Colombia, and I coordinate import, warehousing and fulfillment in the U.S.”
In Charleston, Cordoba works with The Coffee Run in Summerville, South Carolina, for roasting production batches on a Mill City Roasters machine.
Prior to Tracer, Cordoba worked in customer relations for Apple, then started her own digital marketing and e-commerce business for nonprofit and small business clients.
“I’ve always approached business through a mix of systems thinking and human understanding,” said Cordoba. “Tracer Coffee is where it all comes together — my Colombian heritage, my passion for ethical business, and my love for creating brands that people connect with.”
An emphasis on wholesale growth is also slated for the year to come, as Tracer seeks to supply more cafes and hotels. A flagship cafe that combines coffee, education and storytelling is another near-term goal.
“We’d love to open a retail space in Charleston in the next year or two — not just a coffee shop, but a space for education, events, storytelling and workshops,” said Cordoba. “Think ‘coffee meets community lab.'”
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