Edwin Martinez: ONYX Coffee

Our first origin trip as a company was to Guatemala in March of 2022. Jonathan and I flew into Guatemala City, took a prop plane to Huehuetenango, and spent the week touring farms, cupping coffees, and meeting the producers behind some of our most popular offerings. We traveled with Edwin Martinez and the ONYX team, and that trip changed everything about how we think about sourcing.

Edwin's company is a coffee importing and exporting operation based out of both Bellingham, Washington and Guatemala City, with roots in Huehuetenango. We'd been buying Guatemalan coffee through ONYX long before we ever visited origin -- but that 2022 trip deepened the relationship in a way that only happens when you're on the ground together. I went back in 2025 to spend time with the Villatoro family in Huehuetenango. That trip is where we walked the farms at Punta del Cerro and Hoja Blanco, raked coffee cherry into piles when the rain came, and watched Rodin Villatoro load cherries into anaerobic fermentation tanks. We've also connected with Edwin and the ONYX team at coffee expo multiple times. Those are the kinds of relationships that only happen because of the trust Edwin has built over decades at origin.

Edwin's Story

Coffee producers and importers are essential to the specialty coffee supply chain. Edwin Martinez is both.

He's a third-generation coffee producer. His grandfather, Don Felipe -- now 106 years old -- started growing coffee on the family farm, Finca Vista Hermosa, in 1957. But even though Guatemalan coffee was in his blood, Edwin grew up in Washington. He had to pave his own way into the specialty coffee industry like everyone else.

He began with a coffee cart in Bellingham in 1995. That cart turned into catering, which eventually turned into a cafe: Cafe Hue Hue, named after the Huehuetenango region where the family farm sits. At the cafe, Edwin sold custom roasted-to-order coffee, one pound at a time. His passion was to involve Guatemalan coffee as much as possible, so he began having family and friends bring coffee back from their trips -- his first foray into importing.

Eventually, he got a license in Guatemala and figured out how to ship his first container. Watching that container go out to sea was incredibly exciting and surreal. Of course, that first container took him a year to sell. Through much pain and failure, Edwin has learned the real value of coffee for every piece of the supply chain.

Today, he is the owner and CEO of ONYX, a coffee importing and exporting company.

What ONYX Does

As an importer, ONYX provides tools to guarantee availability and manage risk for roasters and producers. Yes, they move a physical product, but it's really about managing risk and finance in an unpredictable market.

During COVID, for example, shipping companies prioritized commodities over coffee, so containers full of green coffee sat on the water for over a month. That kind of disruption is costly for importers and ripples through the entire supply chain.

But what drives Edwin isn't logistics -- it's people. 97% of coffee producers in Guatemala live in poverty. ONYX's goal is to help them have a better future through specialty coffee. Edwin's mission statement is simple: elevating people in coffee. When he measures whether ONYX is successful, he asks himself, "Are producers able to have a better future because of us? Would they be moving from poverty to thriving, even if I wasn't here?"

The Challenges

There has been a lot of talk about tariffs this year, and while that's been a challenge, it hasn't been the most impactful one. ONYX's top three risk factors have been volatility, a high C-market, and then tariffs.

To put it in perspective, ONYX needed 3 million more dollars this year to do 30% less business.

That has forced them to adapt. You can't make a perfect plan in this market and you can't have no plan -- you have to make a plan and revisit it as often as the market changes. ONYX now prefers shorter-term contracts in light of the volatility. The other piece of adapting is cultivating sustainable, long-term partnerships with roasters and producers where everyone comes out ahead. Any kind of predictability you can secure through those partnerships is critical.

Education and the Bigger Picture

Edwin is passionate about education because it increases people's awareness of how valuable coffee really is. Growing coffee takes a lot of hard work, and producers don't always come out ahead. They aren't always paid according to the quality of their coffee.

The key, as Edwin sees it, is educating in a way where consumers enjoy it wherever they are in their coffee journey -- whether they're drinking black coffee or mostly milk and sugar. Education creates appreciation.

That idea -- that this industry is not about getting the biggest piece of the pie, but about making the pie bigger for everyone -- is something we've heard from multiple people across our supply chain. It keeps coming up because it's true.

Why We Work With ONYX

We work with Edwin because he's the kind of partner who cares about both sides of the supply chain. He's a producer who understands importing, and an importer who understands what it's like to grow coffee. That dual perspective is rare and it shows in how he does business.

On our first Guatemala trip in 2022, one of the coffees we cupped was a specially curated blend that ONYX had been working on with various small farmers. It stood out on the table immediately. That kind of origin-level collaboration -- working with producers to elevate their coffee and bring more money back to them -- is exactly what we look for in a partner.

Guatemala has been central to our lineup since the beginning of Sagebrush. Our Guatemalan Gold Label has been our best seller year after year, and we've committed to always having a Guatemalan coffee available. That consistency is possible because of the relationships Edwin has built, and because of the trust we've developed over multiple trips and multiple harvests together.

Want to understand more about how coffee moves from origin to your cup? Check out our Importing 101 article to explore the bigger picture. And for more about our Guatemala trips, read our first impressions from 2022 and our 2025 trip report from Huehuetenango with the Villatoros.