On my most recent trip to Brazil I visited the three main partners we are working with in Minas Gerais. Two of the coffees we work with are in Sul de Minas area of Minas Gerais, Jaguara and Diquinho. We also work with Augusto, in Mantiqueira. He is a 5th Read more…
Tanzania has been the most exciting country for me this year, largely ignored and marginalized for never quite having good enough coffee, well I am happy to completely disagree! While there is no doubt there are some areas of concern one should pay serious attention to, and a certain effort in finding great coffees and making sure they arrive in your warehouse tasting as great, what would the point be in only looking in places where good coffees came easily.
Burundi is a tiny country with a history of conflict and struggle, known for its close relation to its neighbour in the north. Yet whenever I have crossed from Rwanda into Burundi I have felt a stark contrast between the two countries. Of course, I see the rolling hills unfold Read more…
Neiva, Colombia – I was practically stumbling out of the plane. It was only a 40-minute long plane ride but I swear (and I don’t believe I am exaggerating when I say) it was one of the biggest teases of my life. You see, that previous night I got into Read more…
I have just returned from a trip to Rwanda where we visited our partners and cupped through a wide range of coffees coming out of this season’s harvest. We are excited about the coffees we will have in this year!
We love Rwandan coffee and have been working with many of the same suppliers for the last 5 to 6 years. They have consistently been working on their production, and we have seen the coffees being produced have great consistency in cup quality.
Kenyan coffees are important to us, and we love both the big classic fruit profiles as well as the subtle, herbal-like Kenyans. It has taken a little more cupping work this year to find the kind of coffees we love Kenya for and we realise they are expensive, we have been extra careful to only buy coffees that at the time we cupped them for purchase were tasting outstanding!
Last year was a pretty productive harvest for Costa Rica. In the history of the country there hadn’t been so much volume like the 2015-2016 harvest. Which was good but at the same time tough for farmers to sell their coffees because of the high offer in the market. Despite the harvest was massive for Costa Rica, the good quality was there and I found great coffees among a small group of 6 farmers, with whom we decided to start to work for many years.
2016 has been an unusually tough year for most coffee farmers in most parts of Colombia because of El Niño – a complex weather pattern resulting from variations in ocean temperatures, that can lead to extreme weather conditions. Because of drought this year harvests have either been delayed, very small, or in some cases even non-existing. A severe lack of rain in many coffee growing regions has affected the quality of the coffee in a negative way, and thus there has been an increase in the number of hollow beans, leaf rust, and broca (coffee berry borer).
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.