Farmer’s Daughter Visits The Cafe Where Her Dad’s Coffee Will Be Served
Saturday, April 11th, SnoValley Coffee Company and Quest Coffee Company Launch a unique farm-to-cup coffee experience with an amazing story.
- Snoqualmie Ridge café uses only coffee sourced directly from a century old estate in Brazil
- The coffee is a difficult to find heirloom varietal, Munda Novo
- The estate focuses on sustainable farming and doesn’t use irrigation, leading to dense flavor-packed beans
- Beans are handpicked and sundried before being hand sorted in Seattle
- Finally, the beans are artisan roasted in small batches
Bothell, WA – Juliana, above, came to the US as an au pair in 2011, bringing some of her dad’s coffee from their family’s century old estate. Higino Magrinelli, her father and the farmer pictured in the photo wall above, did not think it was possible for his sustainably grown, heirloom varietal coffee beans to be exported to America. As he said then, “I am just a small farmer, you have to be a big commercial farm to get your beans to America.”
Despite very little experience in the coffee industry, the Quest family knew that his fresh, handpicked, sundried, slow, and sustainably grown coffee should be the coffee that people are drinking here, instead of the beans grown on large commercial farms with a huge carbon footprint. Quest Coffee Company was established with a mission to directly trade and profit share with Mr. Magrinelli and other small farmers growing heirloom varietals, not only to bring this quality coffee to America, but to improve the lives of farmers and their communities.
Joseph Roberson, editor of Coffee Lovers Magazine, writes, “This couple is on a mission to help the underrepresented small coffee farmers around the world. They start with one farmer, on one farm in Brazil – import the coffee themselves, sort it by their own hands, roast it through Conduit Coffee, and then sell it themselves. This is probably the purest form of direct trade you can find, and demonstrates the rapidly evolving coffee industry where anyone can step up and play a major role in the entire chain.”

In the fall of 2014, after nearly a year of planning, Higino helped load over 4000 pounds of his green beans onto a truck in Brazil for the start of their journey to America. His portrait now hangs proudly in the café on Snoqualmie Ridge that serves his coffee; a place he thought his beans could never be. “It’s exciting knowing that SnoValley Coffee is not only able to offer an outstanding quality bean to our customers, but also build a partnership with a company like Quest Coffee. We value enriching the lives of everyone involved, from the person picking the coffee to those who drink it,” states Jacqui Fetherolf, owner of SnoValley Coffee.
According to Valerie Quest, founder of Quest Coffee, “This story is proof the American Dream is alive and well even for some who don’t live on US soil.”
SnoValley Coffee and Quest Coffee Company will be celebrating at the café on Snoqualmie Ridge with free coffee tasting, kid’s activities and live 1930s pop jazz band on Saturday, April 11