In 2012, we met farmers in this region through Catholic Relief Services' Borderlands project. Before that year, most producers sold their coffee for minimal premiums to one of two exporters working on behalf of two large buyers. Through the Borderlands project, producers banded together in associations to sell coffee to quality-focused buyers. In doing so, they created a new business model previously unseen in the region.

In 2015, we started working with one of those newly formed associations––Agrocafe El Tambo, the producers of Nuevo Amanecer. Every year, the association invests in shared resources to improve the quality of their coffee and the sustainability of their farms. They recently purchased a farm to cultivate unconventional coffee varieties and, in 2022, received a Counter Culture Seeds grant to construct an eco-friendly washed coffee processing system.