Suke Quto - Ethiopia

£12.00

We are delighted to welcome back for a second year one of our favourite coffees. Last year this stunning organic and Rainforest Alliance certified coffee from the Suke Quto Farm in Ethiopia completely blew us away on the cupping table. We cupped it alongside a host of other Ethiopian coffees, and the moment we tried it there were no words, just a knowing look between myself and Mike that here was something special. It had all the hallmarks of high-grade washed Ethiopian coffee, with beautiful florals and notes of peach and bergamot, but with an intensity of flavour that elevated it above its rivals. This year's crop is no different and it is a pleasure to be able to share this beautiful coffee with you all again.

The Suke Quto farm was set up by Tesfaye Bekele following a bushfire in the area. In order to conserve the remaining forest he distributed coffee and shade tree seedlings amongst the local community and recruited out-growers to replant the forest. The out-growers harvest the coffee and deliver it to the Suke Quto Farm for processing. With a background in agronomy, horticulture and quality control, producing sustainable, high-quality coffee is at the heart of what Tesfaye is trying to achieve. The farm is organic and Rainforest Alliance certified and participates in revered importer Trabocca’s “Cherry Red” scheme which rewards Ethiopian farmers for hard work and innovation. The quality of the cup is testament to just how much of each has gone into creating this absolutely stunning lot.

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Summer Solstice - Daterra, Brazil

£10.00

Summer Solstice is our latest release from Daterra's 'Collection' range of coffees, which are comprised of the very top lots grown on the farm.

This coffee is of the yellow bourbon variety, famed for its sweet flavour, striking aroma and citric acidity. In the cup Summer Solstice has a full, creamy mouthfeel with notes of fudge, caramel and orange.

We talk a lot about our focus on quality, traceability and sustainability - and this coffee delivers with distinction on all three. The quality is there to see in the cup and is testament to the meticulous Penta Process implemented at Daterra. In terms of sustainability, Daterra has possibly more accolades than any other farm on the planet, including being the first farm in the world to achieve Level A certification from Rainforest Alliance, and its recent B-Corp certification.

When it comes to traceability, there are few farms where you can trace the coffee to the specific plot on the farm on which it was grown. In the case of this coffee, it was grown on Plot TB 41. The availability of information such as this is crucial to fostering trust in the supply chain, and is indicative of the attention to detail that is increasingly required by conscious consumers, and implemented by caring producers to ensure sustainable production.

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Pineapple Candy (F1 Hybrid H3) - Finca San Pedro, Nicaragua

£10.00

After the success of Blueberry Candy, our recent collaboration with SCA UK Roasting Champion 2019 Diana Johnston Ledezma, it was only a matter of time before we revisited the wonderful Finca San Pedro in Nicaragua's Jinotega Department.

Pineapple Candy is a washed F1 Hybrid H3 from the same farm, but with a twist. The washed coffee is fermented in sealed containers with saccharomyces cerevisiae yeasts that give the coffee a layer of tropical fruit flavour and floral aromas. In the cup we found notes of pineapple (unsurprisingly!) and lemon, and a slight booziness, that taken together reminded us of a saison beer.

The F1 Hybrid H3 variety was planted at Finca San Pedro in 2015. It is a cross between caturra and an Ethiopian heirloom variety specifically suited for growing above 1,300m. Produced as part of the first wave of F1 hybrid varieties - developed in large part to combat the increasing impact of climate change and disease on coffee yields - H3 does still have some susceptibility to rust, but has maintained presence in the fields due to its exceptional cup quality.

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Huye Mountain - Rwanda

£10.00

It gives us great pleasure to welcome back one of our standout and most popular coffees from last year from the famous Huye Mountain washing station in Rwanda’s Southern Province.

Huye Mountain sprung to international fame with the release of 2014’s ‘A Film About Coffee’. The film tells the story of David Rubanzangabo who established the Huye Mountain washing station in 2011 with the aim of improving the quality of coffee grown in the region and consequently the plight of the smallholder farmers who grow it.

We met David at Huye Mountain in 2017 and were hugely impressed by the processes he has implemented to ensure that the coffee produced is of the highest quality. His drive for quality has brought about a big increase in the prices paid to local farmers. To encourage consistency of quality, David awards members whose coffees carry the highest cupping scores with prizes of cows (40 winners last year) and goats (60 winners last year). Such prizes make a huge difference to the lives of a farmers and their families as the animals will provide milk for around 6 years and a constant supply of organic fertiliser for the coffee trees.

During harvest season, Huye Mountain receives coffee cherry deliveries from around 1,330 producers. Typically, a smallholding in the district is just a quarter of a hectare in size (around 200 trees), and each farm produces roughly only 2 bags of coffee. The coffee grown is entirely red bourbon, which, coupled with the high altitudes (1,600 to 2,300m), delivers beautiful, complex flavours in the cup.

Historically all of the coffee at Huye Mountain was washed process, but in 2018 they started to experiment with natural and honey processes. The natural process employed at Huye Mountain involves meticulous cherry selection and hand sorting prior to drying. Drying is done on raised African beds for between 14 and 28 days, depending on the weather. The coffee is turned regularly during this time to ensure it remains free of mould and over-fermentation.

As per last year, the results are absolutely stunning. In the cup this coffee is big in body, warming, and full of fruit flavour. It is incredibly clean for a natural processed coffee with a pointed raspberry acidity and a subtle cognac booziness, alongside notes of clove, orange and ginger.

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Mountain Rescue - Primavera Family, Guatemala

£8.00

From the mountains of Guatemala to the mountains of the Lake District, Mountain Rescue is the perfect everyday coffee, and is the proud recipient of 2 stars at the 2019 Great Taste Awards. In the cup it is extremely satisfying and comforting with notes of dark-chocolate, plum and nougat.

The Lake District Search & Mountain Rescue Association (LDSAMRA) provides a vital service here in the Lake District, helping injured and stricken hikers to safety from some of the most remote and precarious places in the country. The vast majority of incidents are safely resolved but there are inevitably a number of fatalities, and without the help of LDSAMRA this number would be much higher.

In order to carry out their work LDSAMRA rely on a team of brave and highly trained volunteers. We are friends with a number of them so are well aware of the great work that they do and the importance of donations to provide them with the kit necessary to do their job effectively.

With this in mind, we donate £1 per kilo of Mountain Rescue sold to LDSAMRA.

Our current Mountain Rescue coffee is grown by ten smallholder farmers based around the town of San Antonio Huista in Guatemala's famed Huehuetenango region, and has been sourced via our importing partner Primavera.

Primavera was set up by Nadine Rasch who grew up in Guatemala and whose family have had a coffee farm there for four generations. After studying finance in London, Nadine ended up working for a commodities fund where she saw the price for commodity coffee drop sharply. She came to realise that the only way to maintain stable prices for coffee was through quality. After working for one year with speciality coffee importers Mercanta, she moved back to Guatemala to gain experience of how things worked on the ground.

Most of Guatemala's highest quality coffees come from the Huehuetenango region. This is a very remote area of Guatemala, and the farmers' traditional route to market has been through local coyotes who mix all the coffee they collect together a pay the 'market' price. This model leaves no incentive for farmers to practice methods that result in higher quality coffee, such as selective picking and better post-harvest processing. It is Nadine and Primavera's mission to change this. They want to educate farmers to produce better coffee that gives them access to the speciality coffee market, higher prices for their product and a more stable future.

This group of smallholder farmers are just some of the beneficiaries of Primavera's work. They are able to use the premium paid by Primavera to reinvest in their farms and wet mills in the hope of achieving higher yields and better quality coffee in the years to come. The coffee is washed in wet mills on each of the farms then sun-dried on patios. The dried parchment coffee is then transported to Nadine's family farm at Finca el Hato where it is sorted, dry-milled and packed for onward transport to ourselves.

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Penny Rock - Daterra, Brazil

£7.50

Penny Rock is our Great Taste Award winning coffee from Daterra, one of the most pioneering and inspirational farms in the world. Named in homage to a beauty spot on the shores of Grasmere, our spiritual home, we select Penny Rock from seasonal crop to deliver a cup of coffee that bears all the classic hallmarks of coffee from the Cerrado Mineiro region of Brazil - great body, deep chocolate notes, and stone-fruit sweetness. The coffee is well-developed during the roast to accentuate body and sweetness, but is tempered to allow its character room to shine through and express itself in the cup.

I visited Daterra in June 2019 and was truly blown away by not just the scale of the farm, but by the care and level of detail with which it is managed, and the genuine focus on sustainability and quality that permeates everything that they do. Amongst numerous other accolades, in 2015 Daterra was awarded Prêmio Fazenda Sustentável (Most Sustainable Farm) from Globo Rural, Brazil’s foremost agricultural publication, and in March 2018 it became the world’s first farm to receive Level A certification from Rainforest Alliance. To see this implemented on the ground was a truly inspirational experience, and one that makes me incredibly proud to offer their coffee.

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Seasonal Decaf - Primavera Family, Guatemala

£9.00

Our current seasonal decaf is the decaffeinated version of our ever-popular Mountain Rescue coffee. It is grown by ten smallholder farmers based around the town of San Antonio Huista in Guatemala's famed Huehuetenango region, and has been sourced via our importing partner Primavera.

Primavera was set up by Nadine Rasch who grew up in Guatemala and whose family have had a coffee farm there for four generations. After studying finance in London, Nadine ended up working for a commodities fund where she saw the price for commodity coffee drop sharply. She came to realise that the only way to maintain stable prices for coffee was through quality. After working for one year with speciality coffee importers Mercanta, she moved back to Guatemala to gain experience of how things worked on the ground.

Most of Guatemala's highest quality coffees come from the Huehuetenango region. This is a very remote area of Guatemala, and the farmers' traditional route to market has been through local coyotes who mix all the coffee they collect together a pay the 'market' price. This model leaves no incentive for famers to practice methods that result in higher quality coffee, such as selective picking and better post-harvest processing. It is Nadine and Primavera's mission to change this. They want to educate farmers to produce better coffee that gives them access to the speciality coffee market, higher prices for their product and a more stable future.

This group of smallholder farmers are just some of the beneficiaries of Primavera's work. They are able to use the premium paid by Primavera to reinvest in their farms and wet mills in the hope of achieving higher yields and better quality coffee in the years to come. The coffee is washed in wet mills on each of the farms then sun-dried on patios. The dried parchment coffee is then transported to Nadine's family farm at Finca el Hato where it is sorted, dry-milled and packed for onward transport to ourselves.

SPARKLING WATER DECAFFEINATION PROCESS

The sparkling water decaffeination procedure is a gentle, natural and organically certified process which involves the following steps:

The green beans enter a ‘pre-treatment’ vessel where they are cleaned and moistened with water before being brought into contact with pressurised liquid carbon dioxide. When the green coffee beans absorb the water, they expand and the pores are opened resulting in the caffeine molecules becoming mobile.

The beans are then brought into contact with the pressurised liquid carbon dioxide which combines with the water to essentially form sparkling water. The carbon dioxide circulates through the beans and acts like a magnet, drawing out the mobile caffeine molecules.

The sparkling water then enters an evaporator which precipitates the caffeine rich carbon dioxide out of the water. The now caffeine free water is pumped back into the vessel for a new cycle.

This cycle is repeated until the required residual caffeine level is reached. Once this has happened, the circulation of carbon dioxide is stopped and the green beans are discharged into a drier.

The good caffeine selectivity of the carbon dioxide guarantees high retention of other coffee components which contribute to taste and aroma.

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Moonshine

£6.50

Moonshine is something of a lucky dip. It may be an experimental blend that we are keen to get feedback on. It may be a coffee that we contracted a little too much of and we need a bit of help getting through. It may be a coffee that is more than ten days past roast date, but in reality is still perfectly delicious, and arguably still to hit its prime. Whatever it is, it will always be speciality grade coffee sourced in adherence with all of our usual principles. We keep a record of each batch, so if you really like the batch you receive, and want to know what it is, just drop us a line and we'll be happy to tell you.

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