After buying the coffee from Bela Vista the producer wrote us a letter for us to be able to better understand their philosophy and products. It’s translated from Portuguese to English by Felipe Groce, and posted as it is, including the pics, without any editing from our end.
I recently spent a week in Addis to gather samples and to cup and take position in coffees. At this point it’s mainly Yirgacheffe and Sidamo coffees from private wet millers and producers in Kochere, Wote (Konga), Chelelektu, Aricha, Guji, Dumerso. The quality of what we found so far is outstanding!
As some of you might have noticed there is a local political challenge in regards to the coffee supply from the Cooperative Societies in Nyeri at the moment. Se PDF at the bottom of the post for a statement sent out recently from our exporting partner in Kenya.
As many of you know Central and South America is suffering from heavy leaf rust attacks. This is a small presentation from our producers in El Salvador, Salaverrias, on how they work to recover. Even if they were far better of than many other producers as they have good altitudes and have great farmer practices ,this is great news for the upcoming harvest and the quality. RUST PRESENTATION You can also read more about leaf Read more…
It’s been a while since we posted some news here – I think it’s about time to do a wrap up so far this year. It’s been a great year up to now and really busy. We have been doing our very best to keep up with the coffees coming in, sample distribution to all of our clients as well as juggling the orders, packing and separation at the warehouse etc. Hopefully we have managed Read more…
First of all I want to announce that we have 9 fantastic micro lots on their way. They are from different micro regions in the Kayanza area, and are all processed at the wet mill Buziraguhindwa, owned by the producer Salum Ramadhan. Most of the coffees are a result of an improved preparation the producer calls COE-prep, meaning he will do the same cherry sorting and quality control as he would for coffees delivered to Read more…
We currently have 4 lots of Mahembe coming in soon and one lot from a CWS (Coffee Washing Station) called Gitesi. Again this year it’s all exceptional coffees according to our standards. The four Mahembe lots are all slightly differentiated in flavor, but they all have that mature and warming dark fruit notes. I have never seen any producer in Rwanda processing such dark red and evenly-matured coffee cherries before. And it’s really noticeable in Read more…
It’s really been working well this year for us with Ethiopia. Most of the coffees were sold out even before they entered port here in Europe, but we have been holding back a little to still have Ethiopian coffees to offer for the next few months. There are a couple of great Yirgas left, as well as some new arrivals from the West. Please ask us for samples if you’re interested. We have also recently Read more…
Kenya was kind of challenging this year as well. Not because what we got wasn’t good enough, but basically we couldn’t get enough AA’s with the profile we were looking for. But fortunately some of the AB’s were killer coffees as well! As for Ethiopia most of them got sold prior to arrival, at least the AA. We have some limited amounts left. Some boxes of AA Ndaroini as well as some bags of AB Kangocho. Read more…
All our El Salvadors for 2013 is now in stock. As many of you know El Salvador, as the other Central American countries had a tough year because of the leaf rust that reduced the crop and quality significantly. Still, our partners and producers performed great, as expected, as they are systematic in their agricultural practices and have pretty good altitude as well. The Salaverria Coffees We got 9 different farms in from the Read more…
To be honest I was a little concerned regarding the quality VS the expectations we had on Ethiopian coffees this year. But apparently I shouldn’t have been at all, as they are damn good when landed, even better than last year! When I was there earlier in the season I felt the flavors where slightly hidden and covered and the coffees didn’t performed the way I hoped for. They were good but not as complex Read more…
Even if many producers in Centrals were hit hard by leaf rust and die-back of trees this year, the producers we work with — the Salaverrias at Las Cruces, Roberto Ulloa at La Divina Providencia and Gilberto Baraona at Los Pirineos — are all doing well.They are doing great work in the fields and have been investing in fertilizer and plant treatments to prevent this. Fortunately their farms are at good altitude which helps Read more…
This year, we were given the opportunity to support and be a part of a new and unique Ethiopian project: small- to medium-sized farmers, who previously delivered cherries to the Cooperatives in Yirgacheffe, have constructed micro–mills with the support from micro financing organizations, the government and the Yirgacheffe Cooperative Union. They are now able to produce, sell, and export their coffees directly as Single Estate Coffees. We truly believe this pilot project can change the Read more…
2013 Purchase This year we took three trips to Kenya all together to follow up with our partners and select the cream of the crop. We have so far bought a great bunch of AAs and ABs and some are already shipped. The coffees are carefully selected and totally meet our requirements for what stand-out Kenyans should taste like. We will have some samples to be sent out soon. First come, first serve! The first Read more…
(A guest post by Seife Tuuloskorpi of Ethiopian Beans about a project he is working on in Ethiopia. Read more about our partnership here, and please email us if you are interested in buying this coffee!) Tekle Mammo has been working with coffee growers all his life. He has taken the initiative on a project he calls “One Farmer, One Roaster”. He started this project last year together with Yirgacheffe union by convincing three small Read more…
Ethiopian Beans and Nordic Approach will merge and cooperate on all activities in Ethiopia from this harvest and on-wards. Goal: To be able to supply the best Ethiopian Coffees ever!! We, Seife Tuloskorpi from Ethiopian Beans, Morten Wennersgaard and Tim Wendelboe from Nordic Approach have always had a good relationship and shared the values and goals in regards to work systematically in Ethiopia for quality. Many of our clients buy from both companies, and we Read more…
View and download September offer list Honduras We have some great new microlots from the Caballeros in Honduras that have just arrived. All of their small farms are separated, all varietals are catalogued, and we were lucky enough to have Marysabel and Moises visit us in Oslo some weeks ago. Read more here: The Caballeros Kenya The latest coffees from Central Kenya have also arrived, with three from Nyeri (Gitchathaini AA, Tegu AA, Tegu Read more…
Nordic Approach will have open cuppings in Copenhagen before and after Nordic Barista Cup. All roasters are welcome! Time: Wednesday the 8th 12-17 and Sunday 12th from 12-17. Place: Copenhagen Roasters: Gammel Koege Landevej 22 Building V, Copenhagen. We will cup Hondurian coffees together with our producers from the Caballero family, and a broad selection of our other coffees. We are also doing a joint cupping with the Colombian exporter Alejandro Renjifo from Fairfield trading.
We are currently getting in a good number of different micro lots from the Caballero family in La Paz, Honduras. They have a bunch of different small farms like El Puente, Campo, Francisca, Arcadio, Matilda, and Pantanal, among others. We bought 14 different lots from 9 of their many farms. All lots are processed slightly differently and come from various picking dates. We also did different trials on soaking and drying this year. This gives a Read more…
We’ve been busy here at Nordic Approach preparing for this week’s event in Vienna. Come say hello to us in The Village, where we’ll be hosting cuppings several times per day all week. The schedule is below: Tuesday: 12.00 Guatemala & Honduras 16.30 Ethiopia Wednesday: 10.30 New Arrivals 13.30 Fresh crop Rwanda/Burundi (straight from the drying tables) 15.00 El Salvador Thursday: 10.30 Kenya 13.30 Ethiopia 16.30 Guatemala/Honduras Friday: 10.30 New Arrivals 13.30 Fresh crop Rwanda/Burundi (straight from Read more…
This is a project we initiated with a producer I have known for years, Jose Antonio Salaverria. His two sons, Andres and Jose Antonio Jr., are also heavily involved. He has three different areas of coffee production around the Santa Ana volcano in El Salvador. The coffees are all processed at a centralized mill, Las Cruces.