Region: Caldas, Colombia Altitude: 1800 MASL Variety: Gesha Process: Natural Screen Size: 15+Sorting: Optical Alex Arango is a producer of the Red Association, Villamaría. This association is composed of producers across this unique mountainous region of Caldas. The region is afforded a unique scenario, with several microclimates sitting side by side across the hills. Here, cold air currents swoop down from the snowy mountains of Santa Isabel and the active Volcan Nevado del Ruiz, improving air quality, circulation, and pollination, whilst cooling the air temperature that surrounds the growing cherries!  Producers here sell cherry instead of parchment coffee, which ensures the highest quality coffee can be processed from their land, without having to upkeep the machinery and physically process the coffee from seed to dry parchment for sale. Receiving payment for cherry means a producer receives more money, as the upkeep and time to process coffee is removed from the equation. The sale of whole cherries to a processing station is uncommon in Colombia, but seen in many other coffee-producing countries.  Once sold, the coffee is transported down the mountain to Villamaría’s processing station, called Jamaica, (said ham-ay-ka). It sits within the perfect climate for drying naturally processed coffee, some 500 metres lower than the buying station, where it is far warmer. Like many coffee producers in Colombia, producers of Villamaría had historically been promised higher prices and the purchase of a farmer's entire crop by large institutions in the past. Having never delivered on this promise, understandably, faith in new ventures had greatly diminished amongst producers. La Colmena NaturalThis phenomenal gesha was selected from the farm of producer Alex Arango, La Colmena. La Colmena translates as The Beehive, a name which perfectly visualises the abundance of bees that pollinate the gesha trees during the flowering season.   La Colmena neighbours the Villamaría buying station, so Alex is able to transport the cherry from his farm to the buying point swiftly. Alex contributes other varieties from his land to the larger Villamaría community lots. Upon delivering this gesha lot, Alex received 30% more profits than his typical harvest would garner. For the natural process, freshly harvested cherry is delivered to La Aurora where it is floated, sorted and left to rest in cherry for 24 hours. The cherries are transported to Jamaica the following day where they undergo a further 48 hours of fermentation in cherry. They are then taken to drying beds in the greenhouse for around 15 days before being finished in the mechanical dryer for 3-4 days. For us this lot is brimming with pineapple, blueberry, violet, and cola notes.  

Station: Kilimbi Region: Nyamasheke District Country: Rwanda Altitude: 1600 - 1650 MASL Variety: Red Bourbon Process: Anoxic WashedDrying: Raised beds for 35 days Screen Size: 15+ Preparation: Euro Prep 0,20 Packing: GrainPro Tasting notes: Redcurrant, Braeburn apple and Oolong tea NI Aeropress Championship coffee of 2024 In Rwanda, we work alongside Muraho Trading Co. This partnership helps affiliate co-operatives increase their quality of production, fetch a higher price for their coffee, and introduce them to new markets. This will be a continuous work in progress in the coming years, as we gain a greater understanding of the particular challenges Rwandan coffee producers face. Through this process we can develop a model that creates incentives that generate producer buy-in, all the while maximising impact. We supply coffee from across Muraho’s washing stations, which are located in the Nyamasheke, Gakenke, and Nyabihu regions of Rwanda. In Rwanda, we work alongside Muraho Trading Co. This partnership helps affiliate co-operatives increase their quality of production, fetch a higher price for their coffee, and introduce them to new markets. This will be a continuous work in progress in the coming years, as we gain a greater understanding of the particular challenges Rwandan coffee producers face. Through this process we can develop a model that creates incentives that generate producer buy-in, all the while maximising impact. We supply coffee from across Muraho’s washing stations, which are located in the Nyamasheke, Gakenke, and Nyabihu regions of Rwanda. One of the two first washing stations to be granted approval to produce natural and honey processed coffee in Rwanda by NAEB. The elevation of Kilimbi lends itself incredibly well to the production of exceptional washed, honeys and naturals. Drying beds stretch across a large open plain, where airflow and sunlight have maximum exposure to the coffee as it dries. Built in 2016, it is the birthplace of Muraho Trading Company, as their first washing station. Once cherries are received, they are hand-picked and floated to ensure only those of the best quality continue to the processing stage. These cherries are placed into a deep cleaned fermentation tank. A sheet is then placed over the cherries, which is then submerged with cool water.  The seal created by the water pressing onto the sheeting creates a vacuum effect on the coffee below, creating an anoxic environment for fermentation to begin, which lasts for 48 hours. The water and sheet act as not only a sealant, but a heat exchange, allowing the heat build up to transfer to the water, which evaporates away. A stabilised temperature of around 25 degrees Celsius ensures that the cherry doesn’t over ferment. This temperature is regularly monitored, and if it falls too low for fermentation to continue, hot water is added to the water pillow, to provide warmth to the fermenting coffee underneath. Once the fermentation is complete, the water is drained, and the sheet is removed. The now fermented coffee is rinsed and drained of all residual liquid. To continue into the natural processing phase, coffee is dried in cherry on raised beds for between 4 to 5 weeks. The raised beds ensure optimum circulation of airflow, assisted by the cherry being turned every 30 minutes of the duration of its drying!       Like Gisheke, Kilimbi is only accessible by boat, with farmers travelling across Lake Kivu to deliver their farm’s harvests. Its estimated annual production is approximately 33,300kg of milled green coffee, which is produced each harvest into volumes of honey, washed, and naturally processed coffees.        

This coffee scores 86.25 on the SCA rating and offers a bright and juicy coffee. This coffee has a silky mouthfeel of citrus ,  white grape and Earl Grey tea. Kutere factory is one of two wet mills under Kikai Co-operative society in Western Kenya. The factory is located in the Namwela division on the southern slopes of Mount Elgon and lying and the Kenya-Uganda border. The Coop is managed by an elected board of 9 members. Currently, the co-op has 12 permanent members of staff who are headed by a Secretary Manager. The Secretary Manager oversees the day to day running of the co-op under the supervision of the board. The 2 wet mills in the co-op have a membership of 2333 farmers. The farmers have also diversified into dairy farming setting up a milk cooling plant as well as biogas installation on some farms. The farmers are mainly growing SL28 and SL34 but as with almost all Kenyan Cooperative coffees, it can be a mix of everything. Other normal cultivars are K7, Ruiru 11 and now also Batian.Vava Coffee dedicates 10% of the revenue from all coffee sales to funding the Lamu Youth in Coffee Project. This initiative is organised by Gente del Futuro (People of the Future), a collective created by Vava and made up of passionate people working towards empowering coffee communities, especially young women and girls. Vava Coffee is a Certified B-Corp with a social enterprise business model that has a network of coffee producers in different regions of East Africa. Vava coffee exports, roasts and consults on coffee value chains, the company aims to contribute to better future prospects for coffee communities   and the industry as a whole. We are geared towards sustainable livelihoods for the people and communities we work with. Our vision is to challenge the status quo and promote positive social disruption within the Coffee industry.  

We are delighted to be able to offer our first Chinese coffee. We attended a cupping of Asian coffees with Indochina Coffee and we were totally blown away by the excellent coffee available from this part of the world. This coffee tastes great as a filter or espresso, with a flavour profile of cherry compote, caramel and chocolate. We recommend V60 22g coffee to 250g water or espresso 18g in, 38g out. Banka Farm / Washing Station Banka farm and washing station is based in Menglian Dai, Lahu and Va Autonomous County, Yunnan and is named after the two nearby villages (Banka Yi and Banka Er) where the coffee cherry for these lots is grown and harvested. Cherry processed at Banka washing station is also grown at the nearby village of Aqi Badu as well as within the farm itself. The harvesters who bring cherries to Banka washing station are predominantly Lahu – an ethnic group that lives across China, Myanmar, Laos and Thailand. Banka farm and washing station was originally developed by Mr. Hu, a native of Yunnan, who has been producing coffee in Menglian for almost 20 years. He was one of the first farmers to engage in large scale coffee production in the county, working in partnership with Nestle and the local government. Mr. Hu is held in high esteem within the local area, employing hundreds of harvesters from various ethnic groups across his farms each year. In 2018, Yunnan Coffee Traders (YCT) took over the management of the Banka wet mill and a portion of the Banka farm, some 100 hectares of land, installing one of the region’s first optical sorters, experimenting with processing methods such as yeast fermentation and growing new varieties such as Pacamara and Yellow Bourbon. Banka farm produces both the company’s volume washed specialty lots, much of which is sold to Australia, as well as natural and honey process micro lots.

  Fantastic is the word that defines this lot, citrus and delicate notes, this coffee was born to be offered in filtered preparations and demanding palates that surely value unique experiences!The family of Renato Domingos is a pioneer in coffee quality in the city of Campos Altos - MG. It all started with his grandfather Vitorino Domingos, a pioneer producer in the planting of coffee in the cerrado of Minas Gerais.Always focused on improving the quality of the coffee, he selected on his farm a variety of Bourbon, which was registered with the name of his farm, "Red Bourbon, FSJB" (FSJB are the initials of Fazenda São João Batista). Following the story of Mr. Vitorino Renato and his Father João Domingos (IN MEMORIAN) lead the farm São João Batista with great dedication, are examples of quality in the region, are also examples of care for the environment being a reference in management of riparian forests, legal reserves and permanent preservation area. The Agricultural Cooperative of Campos Altos (CAPECA) was founded in 1974 from the need of a group of producers to acquire agricultural inputs in general, receive quality technical assistance and other incentives necessary for the development of their activities. The city is popularly known as "Portal do Cerrado Mineiro", with an average altitude of 1,100 meters. Over the years, the coffee industry has expanded throughout Brazil, consolidating itself in the cerrado of Minas Gerais. In Campos Altos, it was no different and the main activity of the CAPECA members changed to coffee production. Today CAPECA is a cooperative focused on coffee growing. Its branches of activity are: technical assistance, the sale of inputs for the conduct of coffee cultivation, storage, preparation, marketing and export of coffee from its members. Campos Altos stands out in its coffee culture as one of the best coffees in Brazil. This 87 SCA point coffee is an undeniably boozy beverage, with mulled wine and whiskey notes, and a fruit punch finish.      

This coffee scores 86.25 on the SCA rating and offers a bright and juicy coffee. This coffee has a silky mouthfeel of blackcurrant jam, white grape and oolong tea. The Kainamui washing station services 1800 smallholders, each of them owning on average 200 trees. Kainamui, and New Ngariama Cooperative are known for giving back a big portion of the premiums to the producers as well as they provide financial support for school fees and farming needs.Each lot consists of coffees from hundreds of smallholders in the local surroundings of the washing station (factory).They sort the cherries before it goes into production. The coffees are traditionally processed with dry fermentation before being washed and graded in channels and dried on raised beds.The farmers are mainly growing SL28 and SL34 but as with almost all Kenyan Cooperative coffees, it can be a mix of everything. Other normal cultivars are K7, Ruiru 11 and now also Batian.Vava Coffee dedicates 10% of the revenue from all coffee sales to funding the Lamu Youth in Coffee Project. This initiative is organised by Gente del Futuro (People of the Future), a collective created by Vava and made up of passionate people working towards empowering coffee communities, especially young women and girls.   Vava Coffee is a Certified B-Corp with a social enterprise business model that has a network of coffee producers in different regions of East Africa. Vava coffee exports, roasts and consults on coffee value chains, the company aims to contribute to better future prospects for coffee communities   and the industry as a whole. We are geared towards sustainable livelihoods for the people and communities we work with. Our vision is to challenge the status quo and promote positive social disruption within the Coffee industry.  

This coffee has an SCA score of 85.75 offering lots of dark chocolate, candy and red ripe fruit in the nose that translates to nutella, dark berries and stone fruit in the cup profile. Cup is balanced, with medium tartaric acidity, medium- high body, and berry like finish. Sweet, with a nice texture. Ademilson Noiman Borges can trace his family history at Sitio Grota Fria to the turn of the 20th century, when his great-grandfather owned the farm. The first coffee crops were planted in 1910. In 1988, Ademilson’s grandfather divided the land among his children, including Ademilson’s father, who continued to cultivate coffee and farm dairy cows. His father named that plot Sitio Grota Fria. In 1996, Ademilson leased part of the land from his aunt and planted his first crop of coffee, which was Mundo Novo. In 2007, Ademilson’s father passed Sitio Grota Fria to him and Ademilson immediately applied for Certifica Minas certification, which certifies compliance with global trade regulations. Ademilson also set out to renew the trees on the land that had become old and unproductive, replanting with seedlings. Ademilson faced his father’s reluctance – his father produced coffee in traditional ways and believed that specialty coffee was time consuming and expensive to produce – in transitioning to specialty coffee but, with the help of the Associação dos Produtores do Alto da Serra (APAS), he was able to begin attending lectures and trainings to improve their crop. His first harvest in 2013 scored 81.5 points. Now, his coffees are regularly scoring above 85 points. Since his first harvest, he’s focused on cultivation, post-harvest processing and quality control. Unusually for Brazil, coffee is selectively hand harvested. Ripe, red cherry is laid in thin layers on patios to sun dry. Cherry is raked frequently to ensure even drying. It takes up to 17 days for cherry to dry. n a country with around 25,000 Fair Trade growers, winning best Fair Trade coffee is no small feat, but that is exactly what Ademilson Noiman Borges did last harvest. As a participant in Casa Brasil’s Selective Harvest Project, Ademilson became the first APAS member to win best Fair Trade coffee in Brazil. The Associação dos Produtores do Alto da Serra (APAS) was founded in 2006, to help producers organize in a collective way. Working together helps producers improve coffee quality, increase profitability and provide a better quality of life. In 2013, with help from SEBRAE and EMATER the association achieved its Fairtrade certification, making it possible to reach many of their goals. In 2019, they started Alto da Serra Producers' Cooperative (APASCOFFEE) with the intention of streamlining the marketing process and exporting with emphasis on specialty and certified coffee.

This coffee is elegant with notes of citrus, berry and apple, with medium acidity with a hint of dark chocolate.  This coffee works well as a filter or as an espresso.SCA score 84 Cooperativa Cafetalera Capucas Limitada (Cocafcal) or Capucas as they are better known, is situated on and around the Celaque mountain, which is the highest peak in Honduras. Celaque means ‘box of water’ in the local Lenca language, and the mountain is the source for many rivers and streams. Capucas was founded in 1999 by Jose Omar Rodriguez and takes its name from the local town of Las Capucas. In 2004 Omar was chosen to become the general manager, a role he continues today. The coffee is harvested at its optimum ripeness and handed in at the cooperative. It is then washed, dried in a solar dryer, and stored in parchment before being trucked to the port of Puerto Cortés. Capucas were the first in the country to build a facility to dry microlots in a large scale with solar dryers. Coffee trees are pruned to a low height so it is easier to pick the cherries, however if its cut too short too soon they fall over. Therefore, the pruning is staggered: in the first year they prune to 180cm, 170cm in the second year, 160cm third year and 150cm in the fourth year; then when the tree is cut down to the bottom, the trunk is strong enough to support the new growth. The cooperative has many initiatives to improve the lives of workers and the local community, for example; they pay for a GP to treat workers for free in their health centre which is in the centre of Las Capucas. In 2016 Capucas partnered with the National Autonomous University of Honduras (UNAH) to provide a university education, the virtual classroom was opened in the community of Capucas in a rural part of San Pedro Copan, UNAH provide the technical support, teachers and subject matter for the students. They also have a football academy which is free to join and a virtual library for members, children and partners of Capucas They are also certified by Fair Trade , Organic, and Rainforest Alliance. This blend was created using cherries from multiple smallholders that deliver to Capucas, all located on the fringes of the Celaque National Park in the Copán region.Each blend is made of cherries picked and delivered to the co-operative on the same day. The cherries are mixed according to criteria such as altitude and certifications.Farm size ranges from 2.5 to 50 manzanas (1.75 to 35 hectares) and is usually divided into 2 or more parcelas or plots which are not always linked. Price of land is high (around USD 16.000 per manzana, some say), forcing farmers to grow their plots by buying parcelas in different places.After being separated, all cherries are loaded into ceramic tanks to ferment overnight. They are depulped in the following morning and fermented in water until the remaining mucilage loosens up from the beans. The coffee is then washed and taken to dry for up to 15 days on both patio and polytunnel.   

Flavour Profile We are delighted to have secured some of this fabulous coffee that has been blessed by the copious rainfall at Gasharu. This coffee offers sweet flavours of cinnamon and gingerbread, imagine apple pie. There are rich red fruit flavours, especially strawberry and cools to a rum like finish. This coffee scored 86.75 from the SCA and we feel would work really well as filter, but don't be scared to try it as an espresso. Location Found on the shores of Lake Kivu, and a stone’s throw from Nyungwe National Park, the Gasharu washing station is located near the Rwanda Congo Nile Mountain Chain. Nyungwe Forest National Park is one of the largest montane and most preserved montane rainforests in Central Africa, home to huge biodiversity and an estimated 25% of Africa’s primates. This region’s elevation, soil, and climate are what coffee trees love best. No surprise then that some fantastic coffees come from our land, known for their round, complex profile packed with citrus and other fruits. Coffee plantations in the Gasharu region benefit from their proximity to the continuous of Nyungwe National Park. They get a good amount of rainfall to make the cherries juicier and the coffee fruity.   Beyond beans: this is what community coffee means Gasharu owns 2 washing stations: Gasharu in the Macuba sector (Western Province) and Muhororo in the Kirimbi sector (Southern Province), both named after the villages where they are based. “None of the other companies in our zones are owned by people that live in the community. Coffee for us goes beyond just beans. It is a reason for people to spend time together. It allows families to go out for a meal after being paid and to buy valued dishes like the Igisafuriya and the brochettes, as well as clothes for the family. These are values that outsiders don’t always understand or care about but that add to our quality of life and to the social cohesion of the community.” Many people today would describe coffee as magical. As a child growing up in rural Rwanda in the 1990s, the bean had a real superstitious quality to it for Valentin Kimenyi. “I was told coffee beans were sold abroad to make bullets. This was intriguing to me as I always imagined bullets to be magical, small and yet so noisy and powerful,” he recalls. Today a grown man managing his family’s company, Gasharu Coffee, Valentin no longer believes the old childhood tales. Yet coffee still carries special significance to him as the heart of his community.      Valentin’s parents Celestin Rumenerangabo and Marie Gorette Mukamurenzyi grew up in the communities where they now do business. “My mother is a teacher and taught several people in the community. They also have a small resto-bar where everyone hangs out, watches football and holds their family gatherings,” he says. The family is always present at the weddings of their workers and partners, contributing to the ceremonies with money and goods and cementing their relations. “There have been many occasions when other companies tried to raise their prices for cherry to attract farmers, but the majority of our partners always refused. There is a shared understanding that as Gasharu grows, the community grows.”   Gasharu’s history: from 380 trees to 8 containers The story of Gasharu is full of ups and downs and it goes back to 1976, when 17-years-old Celestin Rumenerangabo bought his first plot and planted 380 coffee trees. Originally from Nyamasheke, he left his mother to work for a family in the capital, Kigali, as a housemaid in 1973. He had lost his father during the 1959 uprising that led to Rwanda’s independence and the family was in hardship. It took him 3 days to walk from his village to Kigali and 3 years to see his mother again. When Celestin was back, he invested all his savings in land and coffee and started working with local brokers. “My father has been business-minded since his boyhood. People in Rwanda tend to do agriculture for subsistence but he was always more interested in commercial agriculture. His only options were tea and coffee and it was his location that made him choose the latter,” Valentin explains. Celestin started working with cherry collection and trading in 1978, before washing stations became active. “Locals would sell cherries or parchment by cups known as Mironko. It was assumed that one cup was the equivalent to 1kg but there were no scales available.” Celestin’s business grew slowly until 1983 when he married Marie Gorette, a 22 years-old teacher that helped him with accounting and supported schooling for other farmers’ children. By 1994 he had 7 hand-crank depulping machines and more than 14 collection sites, providing scales for weighing accuracy and partnering with locals. When the wave of violence of genocide of the Tutsis began, the family fled Rwanda and was forced to abandon the business. Valentin recalls spending “4 years in the Ijwi Island in Lake Kivu, part of Congo’s territory. When we came back in 1998 we had to start from scratch.”   Starting from scratch after the genocide It was the community who saved Valentin’s family. “They got behind us,” he says. With their trust and the help of a former partner, Celestin started over and was trading nearly 30 tons of parchment 2 years later. “In the early 2000s, the government of Rwanda advised local coffee buyers and traders to use more advanced methods of processing to ensure higher quality and returns. My family then decided to build our first washing station, Birembo.” Birembo was sold 6 years later and the failure of the project hit Celestin hard. He had taken a loan from a big trader that he couldn’t repay. “This experience is not uncommon among local coffee farmers. Many got their washing stations bought out or lost them because of loans,” Valentin explains. “My father decided to go out of business, a decision that had a real impact on us, especially me and my brother Jean Christophe, who now lives in the United States. It felt like a loss of the family’s legacy and that we were letting the community down.”  At this point, Valentin was a young agronomy student . “I watched my parents count kilos of cherries all my life. In my head, money always had an association with the weight of coffee. Knowing that my parents could do that business and at the same time help people with school fees for their kids or to pay their healthcare bills was what motivated me to pursue a career in agriculture and business,” he says. “I also didn’t like to see my parents not working. They were not happy.”    Young blood driving innovation It took Valentin a few years to be ready to take over the family’s business. He ended his studies in Kigali with a thesis on Rwanda’s exports and worked in the pepper industry to gather knowledge. “This experience allowed me to learn more about the business and the social impact of specialty processing and innovation. It made me realize that we had not done enough with the opportunities we have, all the potential and rich culture that can be portrayed through coffee.”  Valentin convinced Celestin to go back into business and together they created Gasharu in 2014 and can now produce up to 8 containers of green coffee. Since then they have exported directly to the United States thanks to contacts established by Jean Christoph, who works in public health in Baltimore, and developed their own protocols to process naturals, honeys and experimental lots.  Though some of their coffees have been sold in Europe through importers, Gasharu’s mission is to have direct relationships with a wide network of roasters that want to make a difference at origin. This way, he can “build a sustainable business that will help us keep the community together and create a legacy that will be carried on for generations.” We can’t say there is no magic in that... Flavour Profile We are delighted to have secured some of this fabulous coffee that has been blessed by the copious rainfall at Gasharu. This coffee offers sweet flavours of cinnamon and gingerbread, imagine apple pie. There are rich red fruit flavours, especially strawberry and cools to a rum like finish. This coffee scored 86.75 from the SCA and we feel would work really well as filter, but don't be scared to try it as an espresso.

Adado is a primary cooperative part of Yirgacheffe Coffee Farmers Cooperative Union (YCFCU). Unions such as YCFCU were created with government support to help primary co-operatives to market and sell coffee. As a service provider, is in their interest and part of their MO to represent each individual washing station. Coffees from a union won’t have a generic label. They will always be traceable up to the kebele level. In a market where coffees from different areas are sometimes blended to fulfil contracts based on price points, YCFCU only exports coffee from the Gedeo zone. And, as they don’t own the coffee, they can’t blend lots from different washing stations unless all parts agree and state the mix transparently on the lot name. All coffees are sorted by hand when brought in by farmers for weighing. The process usually starts at 5 pm and can continue until after dark. All naturals are sun-dried on raised beds and covered overnight and on the warmest hours of the day. The process can take up to 30 days until moisture levels average around 11%. This coffee scores 87.25 on the SCA scale and provides a coffee that is Super sweet and juicy with notes of jasmine, bergamot, sweet spices and an absolute strawberry and blueberry. Smooth and coating, with medium body, mild citric acidity. Also peachy and white tea-like.

The Eastern Highlands is a mountainous province encompassing the Kratke and Bismarck ranges interspersed with broad valleys including where this coffee is grown, the Okapa valley. It is the leading producer of coffee in the country, and the Highland Organic Agriculture Cooperative (HOAC) is one of the oldest Faritrade Certified organizations in Oceania. They were originally registered in 2003, certified in 2005 and now comprise of around 3000 small holder producers spread across 32 village communities spread over 500 km2. The premium earned has been spent on providing fresh water for 11 of these communities, as well as helping with infrastructure such as roads which makes a huge difference given the isolation of the villages. Coffee is grown mainly by smallholders in ‘gardens’ – a small plot of land that contains everything from a few trees up to a three-hectare plot at most. Trees here can be 25 years or older, and in general trees in the country are a lot older than you typically find in other countries. This often leads to lower yields and so less productivity on the farms. Once picked coffee is pulped, it is then dry fermented for 24 hours in wooden or plastic boxes before being washed and dried on sails – stretched tarpaulin drying beds – or raised beds. This is covered at night to protect from any effects of dew. Coffee is then collected and taken to a centralized dry mill in Goroka for sorting, cleaning and exporting the coffee. Most varietals were introduced to the country in the 1950’s from African and Australian research stations, though coffee is first recorded in PNG in 1873, and was growing in the Rabaul Botanical Gardens by 1890, but was not grown in Simbu until the 1960’s. More confusingly, French Missionaries planted coffee in the Kilimanjaro area in the 1890’s and you sometimes see that given as thesource for Arusha. This has assumed to be from a Bourbon heritage, though other countries have had coffee tested from this lineage and had that proven to be of Typica lineage. This coffee has tasting notes of dried fruits, vanilla and smoky with natural brightness. This coffee shares the low-toned richness of coffees from neighboring Indonesia, but is particularly sturdy, dense, and crisply robust. This is a coffee that should maintain authority in the face of enthusiastic additions of whitener and sweetener.

We have put together the Farset Winter Blend inspired by the flavours that we all love at this festive time of year. This blend brings a rich creamy mouthfeel of milk chocolate and caramel sweetnes from our Brazil Cerrado coffee. Added to this is Guatemala Quiche, adding citrus tones and stoned fruit flavours. We finished off with Ethiopian Sidamo, giving hints of vanilla and spice, as well as balancing the overall acidity. Using our industrial heritage we felt that we had to call it after the Farset River, which is symbolic to Belfast and its industrialisation. The river passes within 100 metres of our roastery and is linked heavily with the area. We have brought together the flavours of the Americas and Africa. Our base is Brazilian Cerrado,from the Minas Gerais region. We wanted a coffee that is versatile across all formats of brewing, that works with or without milk. Compliments of the season. 

This washed coffee is grown 1900-2100 metres above sea level and offers a delicate lime citrus and floral aroma.It has a tea like vanilla flavour, with sweet herbal and spicy notes. A well balanced coffee that works especially well with filter brewing styles. Nardos Coffee Exporting company is a third generation family- business organization, tracing its coffee heritage back to the 1960s when the family began the coffee farming at specific locality, known as Guji Zone, Oromia. where currently the best quality coffee of Guji is outsourced. Nardos exports annually on average about 2,000 tons of washed and natural coffee of specialty and mainstream worldwide.   Nardos owns its own family coffee 152 hectares farm with 2069 out-growers. Which supports more than 12,000 families having over 3,500 hectares of coffee farms in Guji zone which has Organic, RFA, UTZ, Fair TSA and C.A,F.E. Practices certificates. Nardos coffee Exporting Company is currently equipped with different coffee processing facilities. It owns 7 wet coffee pulping industries, 5 natural coffee hullers and high Tech coffee cleaning and warehouse Enterprise with capacity of 5-6 tons per hour, in Addis Ababa.

Notes Zesty caramel, chocolatey with a crisp apple acidity and lime. Aromas of cherry and fruit juice. Colombia is the second-largest producer of coffee in the world and the largest producer of washed and Arabica coffees.  Annually, Colombia exports approximately 12.5 million bags and consumes 2 million bags internally. Colombia only produces washed Arabica coffee. There are three primary varieties grown in Colombia, and the coffee is referred to by the region in which it is grown. "Excelso" is a grading term for exportable coffee from Colombia, not related to variety or cupping profile. EP (European Preparation) specifies that the raw beans are all hand sorted to remove any defective beans and foreign material. Excelso coffee beans are large, but slightly smaller than Supremo coffee beans. Excelso beans are a screen size of 15-16, versus Supremo beans, which are sized on screen 17. Colombian coffee is graded before shipment according to bean size. Supremo and Excelso coffee beans can be harvested from the same tree, but they are sorted by size. Excelso accounts for the greatest volume of coffee exported from Colombia. This coffee produces zesty caramel and chocolate with crisp apple acidity and lime, aromas of cherry and fruit juice.

The flavour profile is black cherry, caramel, raisin, toffee and vanilla with an SCA score of 84.75. Aquiares, one of Costa Rica’s most historic coffee farms, sits high on the slopes of the Turrialba Volcano. The largest coffee farm in Costa Rica, Aquiares devotes 80% of its land to growing high quality coffee and the remaining 20% to conservation. Coffee plots are interlaced with over a dozen natural springs and almost 20 kilometers in streams, all protected with buffer zones in line with our Rainforest Alliance certification. These streams form a network of natural corridors through the farm that connect the large protected forests in the two river valleys, providing a healthy environment for the local animals, birds, and plants. In 1890, Aquiares was founded by farmers looking to take advantage of Costa Rica´s railroad to the port of Limón. The farm built its own mill, focusing on the washed-coffee processes that are indicative of Costa Rican coffee. Soon, the quality of Aquiares' coffee won it loyal clients in Europe, the United States and Japan. In the early 1900's the English Lindo family acquired the farm. One of the first things they did (in 1925) was import an aluminum church from Belgium and specially order its stained glass windows from Italy. To this day, the church remains the heart of the Aquiares community.In 1949, the farm was bought by the Figueres family. This was the family of Pepe Figueres, the ex-president who abolished the Costa Rican Army. This famous family continued to develop and expand the farm until the early 1970s when three closely-knit families assumed ownership. First plant of F1 CA we planted was back in 2011, with no real understanding of what we where getting ourselves into. Turns out this hybrid derived from the cross of Rume Sudan & Sarchimor T5296 was gonna love the fertile soils of Aquiares, and produce one of the best profiles of our unique volcanic, Caribbean and shaded terroir.  Vigorous plants produce burgundy red cherries bearing a dense, and large bean. We pick these lots every 15 days and only bring in 5-10 bags per day. A team of select pickers, or "microloteros" have in these years perfected the skill of selection for optimal ripeness.