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.

Explosive Coffee

Grown high above the potentially explosive Lake Kivu, is grown some truly fantastic gourmet coffee that delights at all roast levels. The beans are hand-picked and fully-washed (i.e. all pulp is fully removed before dying) ensures that the original taste of the beans are come out as cleanly as possible. At lighter roasts you get some very sweet dates and black tea, while darker roasts will savour signature peppery spice and cocoa.

Want a bit of terrifying trivia to go with your coffeee? The rich, smooth taste of this coffee partially comes from highly nutritious volcanic soils. And where you find volcanic soils, you find volcanoes. This wonderful soil happens to come from Mt Nyiragono, an active volcano on the border of the Democratic Republic of Congo and Rwanda.

Mt Nyiragono has steadily pumped 60 cubic kilometers of methane and 300 cubic kilometers of carbon dioxide in caverns under the lake. Then for good measure, laced these gasses with toxic hydrogen sulfide. During the last eruption, a small pocket of gas escaped the chamber and caused the lake to “boil” as it escaped. Should one day the gas chamber explode, say during another eruption or earthquake, 2.6  gigatonnes of carbon dioxide will be released into the atmosphere (about 5% of total global emissions, which is bad) and the toxic gas could kill millions of people in the surrounding region (very, very bad).

Every once in a while I come across a coffee that just blows my mind, one that makes me stop what I’m doing and wonder, how the hell did they do this? La Bastilla did this to me before I had even tasted it. At only 18 years old, La Bastilla has accomplished more good than I’ve done in my entire life and their work is inspiring. The company has rejuvenated two abandoned coffee plantations located out in the jungles and purposefully transformed them into bio-dynamic paradises; preserving the forests and native fauna while growing excellent coffee beans. Their efforts in sustainability have been certified by the Rainforest Alliance.

La Bastilla’s quest for coffee excellence wouldn’t be complete without a strong, supportive community however. When they realized their remote location offered no schools for their staff La Bastilla took it upon themselves to create one. They started small, offering pre-school and primary classes to their workers’ children but soon they discovered that the surrounding community were clamouring for a school as well so they opened it up for everyone, growing the school to support 200 students!