Every coffee has a story.
Open Parchment turns coffee's story into data that travels with it, from the producer's hands to your cup. It's a free, non-profit open standard that keeps producers visible across the supply chain, so people and AI agents can discover, understand and enjoy great coffee.
Draft v0.2 · open for feedback
Why
Somewhere between the farm and your cup, the farmer's name usually falls off the bag. Every importer, roaster and coffee app describes coffee differently, so a producer's identity, their story and their reputation get lost or renamed along the way.
Open Parchment is a shared way of writing down the facts about a coffee, starting with who grew it. Think of it like the label on a bottle of wine, except it's digital, open to everyone, and the farmer can write their own.
What it does
A name that travels
Each producer gets one permanent ID that stays with their coffee through every exporter, importer and roaster.Producers in control
Farmers decide what's public: their story, their process, what they were paid, or none of it.The season's story
Rain, drying, the best harvest in years. Written once, in the producer's own language, linked to every lot.Codes, connected
ICO marks, importer codes and roaster SKUs are linked, so a bag on a shelf leads back to the farm.Facts, not marketing
Process, decaf method and rest windows are real data, so apps and agents can find exactly the coffee you want.Built on what exists
Compatible with the Global Coffee Data Standard, WCR variety names, GS1 traceability and schema.org.What it isn't
It isn't a company, a marketplace or a certification. Nobody sells anything through it and nobody owns it. The specification is free under Creative Commons Attribution 4.0, and the code is open source.
Other projects built a place. This is a shared language. Places die. Languages spread if people use them.
Get involved
We especially want to hear from producers, cooperatives, washing stations and importers, and from anyone building a coffee app who is tired of inventing their own schema. Tell us what we're getting wrong before it goes any further.