Café Velvet is a half Belgian half Colombian start-up, founded by Ilse Geyskens in 2014 in Medellín, the second largest city in Colombia. Despite the fact that Colombia is one of the largest coffee producing nations in the world, there was no real coffee culture in the country at the time. Even the coffee farmers on their plantations would offer visitors instant coffee to drink instead of using their own coffee beans. The past years this situation has drastically changed due to the rise of several small coffee businesses such as Café Velvet that contributed to the revival of the Colombian coffee culture. Today, Café Velvet is an established and respected brand in Colombia by its role as a pioneer concerning the development of specialty coffee. Moreover in 2016 a second coffee bar and roastery were opened in Brussels to promote the Colombian coffee culture in Belgium as well. Café Velvet wants to differentiate from other competitors in the coffee industry by buying coffee beans directly from local farmers in Colombia instead of on anonymous trade fairs. Due to our excellent reputation in Colombia, we have a large network to get in touch and collaborate with local producers that we also pay a fair price for their lot. At the same time, many Colombian coffee farmers frequently visit our coffee bar in Medellín to present their products and give samples of coffee beans for us to try. By the way we work, Café Velvet controls every chain of the production process to serve authentic quality coffee of which the origins are clearly traceable.