Blog

Western Ethiopian coffees

Western Ethiopia was mainly known for low quality sundried (natural) coffees, and includes coffee areas (zones) like Limu Kaffa, Djimma, Illubabor, Wellega and others. There was previously some other washed coffees in Limu, where the state owned farm Kossa started with washed coffees about 30 years ago. There are other small farms in the area and private washing stations currently selling their coffees as non traceable through ECX (Ethiopian Coffee Exchange). Those are not very interesting for Nordic Approach!

By Joakim Pedersen, ago

Nordic Approach goes to Vienna

We will attend the SCAE World of Coffee in Vienna sharing a table with Tim Wendelboe an Solberg & Hansen for cupping and presentations in “The Village” area. We have the following preliminary cupping schedule, but changes can occur. Follow us on twitter for updated schedule. 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 Read more…

By Joakim Pedersen, ago

Kenya general information

Key info: Production pr year: about 50 thousand metric tons on average. Production is mainly divided in to areas in Central Kenya and Western Kenya Main areas Central Kenya: Kiambu, Nyeri, Kirinyaga, Embu, Meru, Muranga and Thika Main areas Western Kenya: Nakuru, Bungoma, Kisii, Kitale Number of Cooperative societies: About 550 Number of washing stations under the Societies: about 1100 wetmills Number of small Estates with less than 20 Hectares: about 3000 Number of Estates Read more…

By Joakim Pedersen, ago

Sales, purchasing and shipment

Sales and purchases We are already starting to get orders and pre sell coffees. Thanks to everybody who’s supporting us and believe in what we do! We will start selling volumes down to one bag as soon as we have the webshop in place. As for now we normally do orders at minimum one pallet. We don’t have a good system in place yet, but we’ll try to keep track manually. Normally a purchase or Read more…

By Joakim Pedersen, ago

May 2012 offer list

We are just about to get our first coffees in to Oslo. The fisrt box of El Salvador and Kenya is allready in port and we will do custom clearence and reload the containers this week. Some coffees are pre – sold, but there is still some good amounts of great stuff available. Next coffees in will be some beautiful Limu’s from Ethiopia as well as more Salvador beginning of June. This is our current Read more…

By Joakim Pedersen, ago

Rwanda/Burundi 2012

Just finished of this years “early crop” sourcing trip to Rwanda and Burundi. It’s still a little early to nail all our coffees, but I already found some beautiful batches of smaller quantities and it’s very promising for what’s to come. I had a few coffees on the cupping table the last few days that’s probably the best stuff I ever had in Rwanda. Found some great coffees from some new Coops in Burundi as Read more…

By Joakim Pedersen, ago

Nordic Approach update 2012

It’s been a while since we have posted on this blog. The reason for that is simply the fact that there has been a lot of traveling as well as a lot of non-coffee related stuff to deal with. As Nordic Approach is a new company there is a lot of strategically and structural things to be implemented. That goes for everything from financing, accounting and audits to warehousing and general administration. To give you Read more…

By Joakim Pedersen, ago

Kenya purchase

Intense berry flavors and fruit, rich, complex, juicy, floral and elegant, that’s Kenyan coffee at its best! The Kenyan coffee harvest has come to an end. We have some fantastic coffees coming in this spring. First container will arrive early April if everything goes as planned. The prices are slightly down from last year, but you still have to pay up for the good ones. And again it’s totally worth the price!

By Joakim Pedersen, ago

El Salvador teaser

Beneficio Las Cruces Even if the harvest started early this year, the higher altitudes are still not picked. We are currently working on a project at Beneficio Las Cruces in the Santa Ana area on farm/block selection, processing and drying. We will this year do trials on about 10 different small farms and blocks.  Coffees will mostly be demucilaged before soaked over night in clean water and patio dried. We are also doing drying trials Read more…

By Joakim Pedersen, ago
Ethiopia, coffee

Ethiopia 2012

General information Ethiopia lies at longitude 30 – 50 degrees and latitudes 3-15 degrees. It covers an area of 1.1 million square kilometers. It’s the second largest populated country in Africa with more than 82 million inhabitants. The two main growing areas is in the west and south as well as there is production in Harar towards the east. Ethiopia can produce up to 300 tons of green coffee. More than 75% is sundried (naturals). Read more…

By Joakim Pedersen, ago
Tanzania coffee farm

Tanzania update 2011

Compared to the neighboring country Kenya you have to digg deep to find the super complex and intense fruit driven coffees in Tanzania. Still, there is great potential around. Price wice it’s cheaper coffees in general than in Kenya and Ethiopia . If you are looking for heavy bodied and sweet coffees with flavors of dark cherry, cocoa  and roasted nuts Tanzania might be something to look in to.

By Joakim Pedersen, ago
coffee farm Burundi

Burundi

My trips to Burundi the last two years visiting producers and cupping through loads of their coffees from different washing stations have convinced me. The quality and flavor potential is great! With a pretty diverse range from mature dark fruit flavors to complex citrus, current and stone fruit nuances I am sure we will be able to source some of the finest and most interesting coffees from the region. Even if they started with coffee Read more…

By Joakim Pedersen, ago