We caught up with the brilliant and insightful Ana Nouel a few weeks ago and have shared our conversation below.

Ana , thanks for taking the time to share your stories with us today Let’s start with the story of your mission. What should we know?

After learning about one of our most precious secrets, excellent coffee beans grown in our land, Our main mission is to be able to bring high-quality Dominican Specialty coffee freshly roasted in Los Angeles, to people’s doorsteps.

Great, appreciate you sharing that with us. Before we ask you to share more of your insights, can you take a moment to introduce yourself and how you got to where you are today to our readers

Growing up in a small town in the Cordillera Central of the Dominican Republic, where everyone knows each other, I can remember coffee was always present. I remember seeing everyone in town having a cup of coffee during any time in the day or special events, coffee has been something I’ve always remembered from childhood. The mesmerizing aroma and favorable taste instantly caught my senses since I was a child and right there my love for coffee was born.

About 5 years ago I embarked on a journey of discovery. An eye-opening experience about the Dominican Republic’s coffee scene. Being located in the Caribbean, which is part of the World’s Coffee Belt. With this, I learned that my country has a variety of coffee beans with a predominance of Arabica strains like Tipica, Caturra and Catimores growing around the island, moreover where these areas have been neglected and exploited for many years beginning back during the time of dictatorship in DR from 1929-1961.

In recent years, private companies and institutions have started to focus on Dominican Specialty coffee. Increasing education on the proper techniques of handling our coffee and improving its quality. The implemented learning processes regarding specialty coffee has allowed for more awareness on the impact and benefits for small coffee producers, their families and our country.

With all these discoveries we knew we could make a difference. Our focus is to bring our coffee to a worldwide recognition and emphasize the hard work and dedication small producers put into producing great quality Dominican coffee.

And that’s how Atabey Coffee Roasters was born. With the hope for our Dominican specialty coffee to get noticed and at the same time show recognition and gratitude to our land, but most importantly, the hard-working people that dedicate their hard long hours labor to help produce it. Lastly, taking into consideration the impact to these people behind it back home and how it can impact earth and the economy for microlote farmers in the Dominican Republic.

So far what my proudest moment has been just being able to launch, it was a long one-plus year just on logistics to be able to import coffee from the Dominican Republic to Los Angeles, CA. It was not an easy task but here we are. I had to get certain licenses and protocols to follow, because we import the green beans ourselves from DR to then to have it roasted in LA area.

I would love for our potential clients, followers to know that there is a lot of education on coffee that needs to be learn. Our coffee might seem to be too expensive for some, but this is not commercial coffee and there is a big difference. I have direct contact with our farmer at all times. Atabey beans are a hand operated and there is very careful process for our beans to go through to get to your homes and/or businesses. There is a lot of hard labor that we make sure we contribute accordingly for this to be done properly back home, and to make sure is sustainable. In addition, the selection of our beans is to make sure we bring a high-quality product from the coffee farms we work with.

Can you tell us the story behind how you met your business partner?

My co-founder is my fiancé and soon to be husband and the person who believed in me when I went to him 5 years ago telling him I needed to do something about the Dominican Coffee, back then I just did not know how that was going to happen. When I learned that we actually have a excellent coffee growing in our motherland, I just I knew I wanted to be involved of getting it known outside of DR.
During the pandemic and me talking and learning about this passion of mine all the time, he literally stopped me and said to me: “OK, so I have been hearing this for too long what are you, what are we, going to do about this thing you want to do?” – And that’s when I came into realization that I wanted to import Dominican coffee beans to California.

Okay – so how did you figure out the manufacturing part? Did you have prior experience?

I honestly did know the hard work the farmers go through to get that coffee for us to enjoy that Colao’ every morning but the whole importing pieces, protocols, handling a business in USA, I had a very small knowledge on how to get this done. As of now, we do everything ourselves. We do have a communal roaster location to get all the work done there, the storing and roast properly but we are the ones that get the coffee in the bags for our customers, we pack and ship them to our customers, as well as marketing/social media and everything that takes place to get the business running. You know? – when you enjoy the work that comes with a passion there is joy when doing it all. That eventually and hopefully will need to change and get more help, but something I have learned from one of my aunts (she has had a business for about 50 years now) is that the founder always needs to be present for the product to always have the best quality for their clients.

Colao* ,a Spanish slang word that means “to brew”.

Contact Info:

• Website: www.atabeycoffee.com
• Instagram: @atabeycoffeeroasters
• Facebook: Atabey Coffee Roasters
• Yelp: Atabey Coffee Roasters

Image Credits
Eli Perez & Guarionex Pichardo