All-or-Nothing – Microlot coffee production from small holders.

A special trial from the farmers of Guji, Ethiopia.

A Sweet, Warming (and fruity) Brew

As I write this, the summer is fading into fall and I find myself needing something a bit warmer to get me through the day. This coffee from Hama certainly fits the mood, being a bean that not only warms you up but is also quite sweet (if you put sugar in your coffee better hold back with this one). Smelling these beans reminds me of a (hot?) mixed berry smoothie with aromas of summery white and yellow flowers. There’s a fall aftertaste of sweet tangerines layered into the cup as well.

Why Is Hama So Sweet?

Grown in the birthplace of Arabica coffee, coffees here enjoy an average temperature ranging from 16.5 to 18.5 °C and an annual rainfall of around 1600 ml (that’s not much). Trying to mature coffee cherries in such a cold environment greatly prolongs the maturation process, resulting in a high concentration of sugar. 

Local producers employ natural processing (leaving the pulp on the bean) for 21 days during the dry season. This further concentrates the sugar and ferments the pulp, embedding a fruity acidity in the resulting beans. Careful hand-picking then safeguards the quality, ensuring a sweet and fruity coffee.

If it’s good for the planet it’s good for you.

The El Ciprés Farm

The delightful sweetness of El Ciprés comes from its taste (duh) and also the effort they put into the land and people who grow it. As a Certified member of the Sustainable Agriculture Network and the Rainforest Alliance, El Ciprés is awesomely focused on producing coffee holistically.

The Original Home of Coffee.

In the homeland of coffee, hidden among the trees in the Kaffa region of Ethiopa, coffee plants grow wild and free. These coffee plants are thought to be the closest in flavour to the original coffee beans first discovered, according to popular legend anyway, by goat herders in the region. There is a wide range of coffee varietals that grow in this forest and although they are carefully tended to, the farmers don’t really focus on a single varietal. This blend doesn’t mean any loss of quality however, the farmers just harvest the best, ripest beans from the tops of these old, mature coffee trees and the result is a much stronger taste of the bean’s origin rather than any differences in the varietal itself. These beans are then sorted by size and wet-processing is used to preserve their character.

Typical flavours from this coffee are rich and earthy with low acidity and a not-so-subtle chocolate aftertaste. To help enhance the chocolate notes and make a richer coffee we toast the beans a bit longer and darker for our roaster’s-choice.

AA grade coffee from small lots in Kenya.

The land is truly the star of the show in this coffee and the producers know it. Something in the soil gives beans grown here their iconic flavours and rather than messing with it, the producers get out of the way and let the coffee express itself. 

Once properly ripened, these Kenyan beans are Fully Washed, meaning they are stripped of all fruit and mucilage, leaving behind only the seed. This processing technique yields a very clean taste, showcasing the pure flavours of the terroir without any human influence.

What this means for you, is that the surprising tomato aroma is completely pure. All of the rich umami notes, the vibrant acidity and the sweet black grape tannins are are perfectly preserved in your cup: gifts from the Kenyan soil.

Red wine in your coffee cup – Mount Kilimanjaro

Coffee from Tanzania is grown right along the border of Kenya, just on the other side of the sacred Mount Kilimanjaro. You would be forgiven to think that Tanzanian coffee would taste similar to Kenyan, but you would be wrong. While there are distinctive flavours that both types share, the Tanzanian coffee surprises with much lower acidity and sweeter taste.

The high elevation at which this coffee is grown gives Mt Kilimanjaro beans a rich body and higher levels of natural sugars. These sugars, when roasted, turn to deeply chocolatey flavours. This makes Kilimanjaro coffees very flexible in terms of roasting. Roasted light will give bright acidity and fruitiness. When roasted darker the sugars caramelize and the acids evaporate, creating a completely different coffee with rich dark chocolate and a red wine-like acidity.

Far beneath the sparkling, mirror smooth surface of Lake Kivu, lies a smouldering volcano and a slumbering pocket of carbon-dioxide. At any moment a sudden tectonic shift may cause the CO2 to awaken violently, in a exploding in a cloud of ash and fury, destroying the lake, the forests and the coffee fields alike. Just thought you should know.

Assuming the bubble doesn’t burst in the next century (and smart people say it won’t), you will be able to continue to enjoy these superbly smooth AA grade beans. Roasted light brings out the floral smells of hand picking organic berries. Going a bit darker dries those berries and pours a thin layer of caramel over the surface. Roasting further to dark transforms the caramel into a melted 70%+ dark chocolate bar, dusted with dried berries.