We recently connected with Nicole Diefenbach and have shared our conversation below.

Nicole, looking forward to hearing all of your stories today. Let’s start with a story that highlights an important way in which your brand diverges from the industry standard.

Within my work, I collaborate with many actors throughout the specialty coffee supply chain. Specialty coffee is considered to be the “top 1% of coffee” produced in the world. While the issues within this sector are systemic, vast, diverse, and overwhelmingly unfair to communities in producing countries, we are doing our small part to iterate equitable trade models.

What this translates to in reality is an opportunity to partner with coffee professionals who prioritize environmental, social, and economic sustainability within their companies. This includes the people who grow, produce, export, import, roast, and drink coffee.

I call this focus “regenerative coffee”. A term created and defined within my professional coursework in the Coffee Sustainability Program from the Specialty Coffee Association – a non-profit trade organization.

Regenerative Coffee Definition
Regenerative coffee replants forests, restores watersheds, promotes biodiversity, and fosters thriving communities.

Regenerative coffee is grown according to holistic land management practices that rebuild soil organic matter and restore degraded soil biodiversity; regenerative coffee results in both carbon drawdown and improvement in the water cycle.

These practices increase long-term crop yields generating higher living incomes for farm workers and producers. By restoring coffee lands located at the highest elevations, everyone benefits. Every town, near and far, can revel in the impact of restoration through reduced flooding, clean water sources, and prospering land. What affects one affects all.

With increased incomes and healthier environments, communities have broader access to greater health services, basic resources, and education. Regenerative coffee prioritizes socioeconomic equity by supporting the inclusion of women, indigenous, and underrepresented people as they build diversity into the coffee supply chain and positively affect their local and global communities.

5 elements & indicators (how are we demonstrating)
Purpose-driven | Partners with nonprofits who specialize in local and global community-led development. Working alongside a network aimed at strengthening people’s existing capacities and resources, we hold ourselves accountable by contributing to effective transformation.

Traceable impact | Honors collaboration with transparency initiatives for the public and producers. Customers can verify ethical business practices through published green prices while producers expand their market knowledge with insightful data such as roasted coffee prices.

Socioeconomic equity | We support diversity and inclusion by working with women, indigenous, and underrepresented peoples at all levels of our supply stream. Partnering with these groups contributes to greater representation, increased access to opportunities, and dignity for all.

Environmental restoration | Protects biodiversity and focuses on reducing carbon emissions. Coffee forests fortify plant diversification and create homes for native birds and other species while drawing down CO2 and restoring watersheds.

Quality of life mission | We consider and promote thriving livelihoods for staff and supply chain partners up and down the value stream. Dignity for all starts with basic living incomes that enable food sovereignty, secure housing, and access to health care and education.

Nicole, before we move on to more of these sorts of questions, can you take some time to bring our readers up to speed on you and what you do?

I’m Nicole – a strategic sourcing and supply chain sustainability consultant working in specialty coffee. More expansively, I’m a coffee connector and experienced operations professional offering a cross-cultural perspective gained through 17 years in international business development for start-ups and established companies across diverse industries.

With an established client base in all stages of the coffee value chain, I increase market share through strategic partnerships to support the formation of revenue channels that foster long-term profitability in an overwhelmingly competitive market. The emotional intelligence I gained leading and managing multidisciplinary teams and individuals at all levels of organizations allows me to thrive while operating in complex-matrix environments.

All consulting is run through my company called Roam Bravely. Originally co-founded with my husband following a road trip from San Diego to El Salvador, I recognized it took a level of bravery to break out of my US mindset; it’s also partially inspired by our two Siberian Huskies who are the ultimate explorers.

In a 2001 Toyota Sienna, packed with minimal supplies, and motivated by my obsession with coffee, I set out to learn more about the entire supply chain during this 2017 van life experience. After participating in the first honey process on a small specialty farm in Juayúa, El Salvador, and waking up each morning in the coffee forest, there was no going back.

Varied conversations with roasters, green buyers, and producers from many countries helped me identify where I might leverage my professional skills to work in specialty coffee. I’d been consulting for many years, so shifting my focus into a new industry presented new challenges but ultimately provided an alternative mindset that others inundated with conventional structures may not have developed.

This is where the power of a cup of coffee knows no bounds. Earlier that year I sipped a cortado in Porthleven, Cornwall, England. Enthralled by the transportive taste I sought out more information about what I was drinking. Fortunately for me, Origin Coffee Roasters honors transparency and had an artfully designed card with the name ‘Finca San Antonio’, ‘Juayúa, El Salvador’ and the producer name ‘Carlos Pola’ printed on it.

7 months later strolling through the streets of this small town with another coffee producer, Kevin Mayberry (husband) remembered this was where that coffee I brought back from my travels was from. I then raved to Mauricio Salaverria about Carlos Pola and he said “We’re friends! Would you like to meet him?” At this point, coffee producers were akin to rockstars to me and I was in awe of shaking hands with him minutes later.

Little did I know where that friendly conversation would lead. Together with Carlos, we’ve built the North American market for green coffee (raw coffee before it’s roasted) from his farms in El Salvador. Year after year, roadblock after global pandemic, we’ve managed to forge relationships with coffee roasters who put action into their ethos. Not every roastery has this capacity or desire so it’s all based on mutually beneficial exchange.

While the brands of importers have changed over the years, I’m proud to have worked alongside Steve Holt and Ashenafi Argaw for the past 3 years with Unravel Merchants. Another example of nontraditional models within our industry. These two co-produce exceptional yet accessible Ethiopian green coffee offerings for the North American and Australian markets. After several El Salvador imports individually managed by me through various networks, Unravel kindly offered a brand home for Pola’s coffee. It supports streamlining sales and marketing resulting in deeper penetration in both consuming countries. So much so that we’re able to support a new producer group in El Salvador named Los Naranjos Cafe. Both Pola and Los Naranjos strive for the rise of the entire specialty coffee industry in El Salvador. They both work with neighboring producers to consult, process, mill, and export coffees. Los Naranjos runs a smallholder farm school called Renacer where they teach regenerative growing practices, specialty processing techniques, and offer access to international buyers.

Another facet of Roam Bravely included a coffee subscription and an ecotourism program. The power of collaboration can never be understated. In 2021, Kevin began consulting for Matt Quinlisk, owner of Hearth – a Denver-based bakery focused on sourcing heirloom grains from Coloradan farmers. This consult turned into a full-time position as Coffee Director to open the roasting operations branded Tablón Coffee Roasters. Tablón is a nod to traceability inspired by Carlos Pola himself. I joined in 2022 to support the opening of Hearth’s first brick-and-mortar and have consulted ever since to grow both brands. We decided to shift Roam Bravely’s coffee subscription portion to the new roastery this last year.

The eco-tourism portion was paused in late 2019 but is now poised to relaunch in a big way. In partnership with Carlos and Tekwani Design, a Denver-based design company specializing in coffee worldwide, we’ve created a program that facilitates coffee-specific travel from the United States to Pola’s farms and hometown. Even within the current narrative of specialty coffee’s core being traceability and transparency, there remains a disconnect between those who roast and drink coffee and those who grow it.

With the built-in tourism infrastructure of activities and abundant small businesses along the Ruta de Las Flores, we can offer coffee people a culturally diverse experience that extends beyond a standard vacation. Roam Bravely works with Salvadorans and their established companies to execute the entire experience. This means from the driver who greets us at the airport, to the variety of lodgings we sleep, to the food we savor, it’s in partnership with people dedicated to embodying all the wonderment and hospitality of their home.

For clarity, I created the following chart:

Brand/Company | Service(s) | Products | Target Audience

Roam Bravely | Specialty Coffee Consulting + Ecotourism | Coffee Travel Packages to El Salvador | Specialty coffee people throughout the supply chain

Unravel Merchants | Co-production & sourcing in Ethiopia and El Salvador | Ethiopian Green Coffee from Ashenafi Argaw & Steve Holt + El Salvadoran Green Coffee from Carlos Pola & Los Naranjos Cafe | Specialty coffee buyers and roasters in North America & Australia

Tablón Coffee Roasters & Hearth | Thoughtfully sourced, producer-focused roasted coffee, bread, and pastries | Specialty coffee consumers in the US & Denver area baked goods lovers

Can you share a story from your journey that illustrates your resilience?

I once was told by a Guatemalan producer “There are one hundred lessons to learn in coffee and you only learn one a year.” While connecting coffee producers to coffee roasters sounded like a simple directive, executing global logistics is a combination of chaos, overcommunication, and screaming into silent voids.

Typical green purchases happen between multinational corporate importers who provide financing and terms as well as logistics services. After approving a sample of green coffee, roasters will contract coffees either through “pre-booking” which is contracting coffees before they arrive in the US, or “SPOT” which are coffees already in the warehouse available to ship immediately.

Pola and I’s first successful green coffee import in 2019 happened because I managed to convince 3 kind humans to trust that the coffee they had tasted would be available stateside later that year. Despite never importing coffee before, I knew people who knew people. Reverse engineering and problem-solving were skills picked along my professional path. We managed to consolidate coffees with one of these major importers by sharing a container already booked to export out of El Salvador.

Another failsafe for buyers contracting through traditional importers is they’re able to reject the coffee if it lands and it is not the quality they agreed upon. Green coffee is an agricultural product that inherently changes over time but is also subject to a multitude of issues based on how it’s transported. These 3 buyers agreed to not only pay upfront for their coffees but also contract without the ability to deny them.

After the positive feedback from these first purchases, my confidence grew. I continued to consult for international specialty coffee companies, including the Kenyan Coffee Directorate, while slowly gaining new customers for Pola’s coffee. Enter March of 2020; I about had a breakdown because no amount of strategizing prepared me to handle the shutdown of all the roasters I worked with. In tears, I called Carlos. Calmly he says “Nicole, this is either the end of the world as we know it or it’s not. ” The underlying message there, before it became popularized, was “We’ll get through this together” and we did.

It all fell apart in a sense but it allowed us to pivot and expand in ways not thought of before. It cemented trust and proved that collectively experimenting with more qualified minds than mine ultimately leads to success. In my current position I must continue to listen; to expand my mind as to how things work, how they could work, and meet leaders in this industry who can reveal potential solutions.

Learning and unlearning are both critical parts of growth – can you share a story of a time when you had to unlearn a lesson?

I am a mixed-race American cisgender woman who grew up in a rural Texas town as an Air Force brat. The complexities of my childhood created a bias for the world that I’m still unlearning, yet offered me a diverse perspective for how multifaceted people can be.

Through extensive travel, I was able to acknowledge that my belief system was based on opinions that were not mine. In the United States, there’s a framework taught that instills the message that “anything non-American is dangerous and a direct attack on our patriotism.”

I am the daughter of a first-generation Filipino father; fulfilling my dad’s dream of being “Americanized” has allowed me to enter spaces that were not made for me. I am often the only minority in a room of white men making critical decisions about entire groups of other beings.

Now with perceived professional success in a capitalist society, I can explore the multicultural heritage I hail from. I am slowly reclaiming all the parts of my whole identity without detracting or disrespecting the principles and legacy of my proud, multigenerational military family. My varied ethnic makeup ranges from indigenous Nahua to German to Guinean.

In our current political climate, it’s becoming more apparent to me that my global citizenship is a strength enabling me to conceive new paths forward. I am a living example of how experiential-based education can catalyze a foundational shift in personal and professional trajectories. Shared experience can create connections across differences, transcend division, and carve out a safe space for face-to-face conversations that are oftentimes difficult to have any other way. While chronic fear reigns over the United States, I have found coffee and travel to be my guiding lights of hope.

Contact Info:

• Website: www.roambravely.com, www.unravelmerchants.com, www.tabloncoffee.com
• Instagram: @roambravely, @unravelmerchants, @tabloncoffee

Image Credits
Hannah Lynch, Tekwani Design | IMG_7792 (1).jpg, IMG_7248.jpg, Tablón Holiday-19.jpg, Tablón Holiday-42.jpg, Tablón Holiday-46.jpg Charles Carpenter, Tekwani Design | Carlos & Nic.jpg Josh McNeilly | Processing team at Las Brisas.JPG @unravelmerchants | Sidama15.jpg @rodas27k | IMG_7656.JPG