Our Story
Tico Coffee Roasters is a women and Latina-owned coffee and tea company that offers craft-roasted specialty coffees and fine teas sourced directly from small farms around the world. Founded in 2012 by Mariana Faerron and Thomas Goepel, the company’s name embodies the heritage and pura vida spirit of Mariana’s native Costa Rica. Tico (and Tica) is a colloquial term of endearment that refers to a native of Costa Rica.
"Tico Coffee Roasters is committed to empowering, protecting, and nourishing life from farm to cup."
Launching a business is much like brewing the perfect cup of coffee. The ingredients are simple, but the alchemy of the process makes all the difference. Converting beans and water into a perfect balance of flavor takes knowledge and expertise, much like it does to start a business.
Ten years ago, Mariana and Thomas brought a shared passion for coffee and complementary business skills to create a foundation for a successful company. Mariana’s Costa Rican heritage, bilingual Spanish skills, and agricultural economics background combined with Thomas’ engineering and entrepreneurial experience helped them build the company from the ground up. With generous amounts of grit and determination, the ability to adapt to new markets, and resilience to overcome obstacles, they executed their recipe for a successful business.
The journey has not always been easy for them, but by learning every aspect of the business – from establishing relationships with growers to the complex art of selecting and roasting beans – Mariana and Thomas built a company that reflects their heritage, values, and immigrant spirit. You can feel and taste that care, honesty, and ingenuity in every cup.
Tico Coffee Roasters is committed to delivering a unique experience based on fairness and equitability for suppliers and customers from farm to cup. As a responsible corporate citizen, Tico strives to link people, nature, and technology in an environmentally sustainable way. The company takes pride in only sourcing coffees that exceed specialty-grade standards and the world’s finest teas from growers that practice sustainable agriculture and environmentally friendly farming techniques.
Coffee plantation workers in Costa Rica pick the coffee berries for export
Tico Coffee Roasters is a certified green business by the California Green Business Network and a member of the Specialty Coffee Association, the Good Food Merchants Guild, and the Alliance for Coffee Excellence which manages the Cup of Excellence® program. We have partnered with theGoodAPI, Too Good To Go, the noissue Eco-Packaging Alliance and Shopify to do our part in reducing the world’s carbon footprint.
Tico Coffee Roasters coffees and teas are smooth, robust, and unforgettable. Whether your tastes run from the classic to the exotic, we have the perfect cup for you. All our coffees come from small farms and meet rigorous quality control standards. Our direct trade relationship with farmers ensures that the coffee growers get a fair profit and can successfully conduct a sustainable business. Our coffees are roasted fresh daily in small batches to deliver the freshest quality possible.
For our teas, we acquire raw materials of the highest quality, and they are refined exclusively in Hamburg, Germany. We sell artisan coffees and teas through the Tico Coffee Roasters online store and select fine retailers.
Meet the Founders
Mariana Faerron, Cofounder and CEO
Mariana grew up in the Costa Rican province of Heredia, surrounded by coffee plantations, and shares her passion and love for coffee with the world. She was raised with the fragrant aroma of the coffee flowers in May and the smell of ripe coffee cherries from November to February during the harvest season.
“I have been drinking coffee since my earliest childhood memory. I can remember standing next to my grandma when she brewed the coffee and enjoying the smell as well as the distinct taste. I always looked forward to savoring a fresh cup of coffee with traditional Costa Rican biscuits. Coffee has always been a part of my life, and it is in my DNA.”
Mariana’s childhood experience with coffee growing encouraged her to build a career as an Agricultural Economist before moving to the US. At Tico, Mariana is responsible for company strategy, sales leadership, and growth. Social responsibility and sustainability are the cornerstones of her strategy. With her agricultural background from Costa Rica, she is an expert at delivering innovations in procurement, brewing, sales, and business practices.
Mariana tastes several varieties of coffee to find the best beans for our customers
Mariana is a Tica and a proud Latina who fulfilled the American dream - building a successful business. It is not common to be a female entrepreneur from a coffee-producing country who imports and roasts coffee from her homeland, but for her it is an honor to share the different tastes of Grand Cru specialty coffee that she learned in Costa Rica.
Tico Coffee Roasters honors the heritage of Costa Rican coffee growers and reflects the origins of Mariana and her coffees.
Thomas Goepel, Cofounder and Head of Roasting & Quality
Thomas grew up in a small farming town close to the Bavarian Alps in Germany and has spent most of his career in engineering and various entrepreneurial ventures. He has been a coffee lover all his life. When he met his wife Mariana in Costa Rica, he could finally fulfill his dream to make his passion for coffee his profession.
Thomas checks the coffee beans in drying beds to determine the quality and the drying progress
As the master roaster, Thomas oversees the roasting operation and process. His staff have been specially trained to hand roast the unique coffees in small batches. Frequent tastings, called cuppings, maintain consistent quality standards. Thomas also serves as a cupping judge at the Alliance for Coffee Excellence, an organization that specializes in achieving the highest quality coffee standards in the coffee-producing countries.
As the main green coffee and tea buyer for Tico Coffee Roasters, he maintains close relationships with the growers and importers. Continuous monitoring of product quality ensures that Tico Coffee Roasters is sourcing only the finest coffees and teas. Since the company’s founding, Mariana and Thomas have been championing environmental, sustainable, and socially responsible business practices.