Where altitude shapes everything.
Our coffee grows in the department of Huila, in the Colombian Andes — between 1,900 and 2,200 meters above sea level. At this elevation, the air is cool, the nights are long, and the beans develop slowly. That slowness is not a limitation. It is the reason the flavor is what it is.
The volcanic soil of the region carries minerals that transfer directly into the cup. The steady mountain climate creates consistent growing conditions season after season. Huila is not just a location on a bag — it is a set of natural conditions that cannot be replicated elsewhere, and that we chose deliberately.
“High altitude, fertile volcanic soil, and steady climate. The geography does the work — we simply don’t interfere with it.”
We work directly with the people who grow it.
We do not buy through intermediaries. We source directly from the farmers who cultivate our coffee — people who do not simply work the land but understand it. They track natural planting and harvest cycles the way a craftsman tracks a material: with patience, observation, and accumulated knowledge that no protocol document can fully capture.
Their process is artisanal at every stage — from selective picking and controlled fermentation, to careful drying under the right conditions, to a roast that respects the character of the bean rather than masking it.
“Quality and ethics are not two separate goals here. When the process is honest, the cup reflects it.”
Handpicked by farmers who know the land.
Each harvest is picked one cherry at a time — not mechanically, not in bulk. The farmers who do this work have learned the land through generations. They know when a cherry is ready and when it is not. That knowledge is not something a machine can replicate, and it is the first decision that defines the quality of every cup.
After harvest, every batch goes through strict quality control and close supervision before it reaches the roaster. We do not compromise at this stage. The integrity of the origin is preserved by refusing to cut corners where corners are most tempting to cut.
What arrives in the bag is the direct result of that chain — from the altitude of Huila to the hands that picked it, to the standards that cleared it. Nothing added. Nothing obscured.
One standard.
ToStart Coffee is a brand of Two Twenty Two LLC, based in Atlanta, Georgia. It was created by Dwayne, originally from Minnesota, and Javier, originally from Colombia — a multicultural partnership shaped by different geographies and a shared refusal to settle for average.
One of us brings the cultural and social lens — an understanding of how communities, places, and traditions shape what people value. The other brings the design and creative direction — a systematic approach to how a product is built, presented, and experienced. Together, those perspectives are why ToStart looks the way it looks and sources the way it sources.
This is not a side project. It is a deliberate brand, built from the ground up, with a long-term view of what Colombian specialty coffee can be in the American market.
A word that works in both languages.
In Spanish, tostar means to roast. In English, to start means to begin. The name ToStart sits exactly at that intersection — between two languages, two cultures, two realities. It is not a coincidence. It is the strategy.
Every product decision, from the label to the sourcing to the tasting notes, is made with two audiences in mind: the American specialty coffee consumer who reads carefully and expects precision, and the Colombian coffee culture that already understands, intuitively, what quality at origin means.
“The wordplay in the name is the strategy, not the decoration.”