Craft & Sourcing
Cup quality begins at origin before roasting, and at Terra sourcing and roasting form a single continuous discipline that defines what is delivered to wholesale partners.
Craft & Sourcing
The quality of a finished cup has a ceiling determined before roasting begins. It is set by the green lot – the origin, the altitude, the processing method, the harvest quality. At Terra, sourcing and roasting are not separate functions; they are a continuous discipline. What we select at origin defines what we can deliver to wholesale partners, and that discipline has been applied consistently since 1978.
Cupping and Lot Selection
Not every green lot we receive becomes a finished roasted coffee SKU. Before any new lot enters production, it goes through a structured cupping evaluation led by Carlo Granito, our Founder. The cupping process assesses flavour potential, defect level, processing consistency, and roast response across multiple development profiles.
Lots that do not meet our quality threshold are not imported. This evaluation stage is the gap between what the commodity market supplies and what Terra supplies. For wholesale buyers, it means the catalogue represents a curated selection – not an unfiltered inventory.
The TAG Roasting Method
Torrefazione Artigianale Granito (TAG) is the roasting methodology Carlo developed over four decades and refined into a repeatable, origin-specific technique. Understanding how it works provides wholesale buyers with accurate language to communicate to their own customers.
The central principle of TAG is the full caramelization of each bean's natural sugars. Most commercial roasting processes halt development before full caramelization to protect yield and reduce roast time. TAG extends development until the bean's sugars reach their complete caramelized state – a threshold that varies by origin, altitude, processing method, and moisture content. The result is a cup that expresses the full flavour complexity of the origin rather than a profile shaped by a standardized roast curve.
Achieving this consistently requires calibration of three variables: heat application, airflow, and the precise point at which the roast is halted. John manages this calibration by roast run, applying accumulated knowledge of each origin's response to heat across hundreds of production cycles. The same roast profile is reproduced order after order – not approximated.
TAG applies exclusively to our single-origin roasted coffees. Our blend SKUs are roasted to Terra's standard roast designations – Light, Medium, Dark, and Blended – each calibrated for consistent extraction performance across espresso and filter applications.
ARIEL Tea
ARIEL is Terra's tea sub-brand, developed to the same sourcing standard applied to our coffee catalogue. The ARIEL range is built on whole-leaf teas – single-origin where the provenance is traceable and meaningful, and crafted blends where the formulation is the differentiator.
Our quality criteria for tea sourcing prioritise leaf integrity, aroma consistency, and accurate origin representation. We do not offer reconstituted or fannings-based products in the ARIEL range. The full selection spans black, green, white, herbal, and rooibos categories, with formats suited to both retail and café service.
For wholesale buyers building or expanding a tea program, ARIEL provides a named sub-brand with a consistent quality story – an asset when communicating to café staff and end customers alike.
Format Availability and Supply Consistency
Across roasted coffee, green coffee, tea, hot chocolate, and sugar and cocoa, format availability is documented on each product page. Most roasted coffee SKUs are available in retail packaging and bulk formats; format options for other categories vary by SKU and are specified at the product level.
Supply continuity is managed directly. There is no intermediary between Terra's production team and our wholesale partners. For standing orders, format changes, seasonal availability questions, or new SKU enquiries, wholesale partners communicate with the same team responsible for production – not a separate sales or customer service layer.