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 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 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 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 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 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. 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 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 Read more…
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 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.
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!
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 Read more…
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 Read more…
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!
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 Read more…
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 Read more…
Here is an interview with Morten on Ethiopian coffee, filmed by Tim in Ethiopia after a week long trip in the south of the country in November 2011. We will be expecting a lot of coffees that we will be selling to roasters around the globe, so if you are Read more…
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.
After recently spending three weeks in Rwanda I am pretty confident that the coffees we will get out of there next year will be amazing. We will aim at early shipments in July targeting coffees from the peak of harvest during April/May.
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 Read more…