Roasted for Espresso | Dates, kola nut, tamarind
Syrupy sweet with notes of sticky dates, kola nut and caraway. The finish is tangy like plum jam and tamarind.
Passing through Nyungwe forest and past lots of cultivated eucalyptus we first met with Bernard Uwitije at Gitega Hills in Nyamagabe. He has been working with Rwanda Trading Company since 2016. In 2018 he established a new station in Kibumbwe called Bwenda, to serve the 850 contributing smallholders in this area. Typically, the farmers here grow coffee alongside cassava, sorghum, beans, potatoes and bananas. They have an average of 450 coffee trees, comprised of the more traditional strain of the Red Bourbon cultivar, known as Bourbon Mayaguez 139, alongside more recent introductions of RAB C15 and local variations called Jackson and Mibirizi. There are 15 collection points for the farmers to deliver harvested cherries to before they are collated and taken to the wet mill for batch processing. After hand sorting, floating and depulping with a Penagos eco-pulper, around 30% fruit mucilage is left on the coffee’s parchment layer. This is broken down during an 8 hour fermentation stage before being fully washed, soaked and ultimately sun-dried on raised beds for around 15 days.
Bernard grew up in Maraba, now an internationally famed coffee producing region. Understanding the challenges involved in coffee production there is an emphasis on supporting the contributing smallhold coffee farmers. Bernard is supporting his community by paying for a health insurance scheme and school fees for the producers’ children. They also host agricultural training seminars to improve yield and quality from the coffee trees, and operate a small demo farm where they offer GAP training (Good Agricultural Practices) as well as visiting the growers on their own smallhold farms and offering free organic compost comprised of broken down coffee pulp and animal manure. Every season they are donating coffee tree seedlings for the farmers to renovate and increase their coffee production and therefore their potential income.
The donation of seedlings primarily consists of the RAB C15 variety. We have been lucky enough to visit the research and development centre in Rubona where this variety is propagated, acting as a mother seed garden. It has been available since 2015 with a lineage of selections from an Indian coffee research centre, Caturra, Kent and Timor Hybrid. Whilst susceptible to nematodes it offers resistance against drought, coffee berry disease and coffee leaf rust, all the while offering a high-quality cup profile.
|
PRODUCER
|
Bernard Uwitije & 850 smallholders |
|
HARVEST |
June, 2024 |
|
PROCESS |
Cherries are sorted, floated and eco-pulped. Wet fermented, fully washed and dried on raised beds. |
|
CULTIVARS |
RAB C15, Jackson, Mibirizi & Bourbon Mayaguez 139 |
|
REGION |
Kibumbwe, Nyamagabe, Southern Province |
|
COUNTRY |
Rwanda |
|
ALTITUDE |
1,700 metres |
|
ARRIVAL |
December, 2024 |
Roasted for Espresso | Toffee, mango, blueberry
Sticky toffee and caramelised banana sweetness complements a dense tropical frutiness, like mango and dried blueberry.
We’re excited to welcome back a vibrant washed coffee sourced from the Raro Boda wet mill in Ethiopia’s Guji Zone.
Snap Coffee are our primary supplier from Ethiopia. For those of you familiar with our coffee range you might fondly remember past coffees from Refisa, Danche, Aricha, Riripa and others. Raro Boda is Snap’s washing station in Uraga, Guji Zone, from which we’ve roasted some absolutely wonderful coffees over the years.
The Farmers
Around 257 farmers deliver their coffee cherries to the Raro Boda washing station, located in Guji Zone’s Uraga woreda. Amidst natural forest and vegetation, they are working completely organically, tending to a range of cultivars, some of which are improved landrace selections such as Wolisho, Dega & Kurume. There are also pockets of JARC (Jimma Agricultural Research Center) identified and released varieties, dubbed 74110 and 74112 after having been initially catalogued in 1974, which are being promoted due to their resistance to coffee berry disease. Each farmer tends to around 2,000 coffee trees.
The Washing Station & Their Approach
Named after the kebele (small town), Raro Boda washing station has been recently refurbished and fitted out with a Penagos eco-pulper and white tiled fermentation tanks. These innovations and investments allow greater control over the processing of the fruit delivered by smallholders in the kebele. They process the coffee by depulping and fermenting under water for 48 hours before the parchment coffee is graded, initially in washing channels and then by hand during the time it spends drying in the sun on raised beds. To ensure uniform drying the layers are spread around 2cm deep and spend 10 days or so before they are consolidated, and samples are sent to the cupping lab.
Raro Boda wet mill’s QC manager, Medhin Tamiru, is an experienced cupper with over a decade of experience in the industry, and who is a judge for the Ethiopian Cup of Excellence competition. He will continue to oversee operations ensuring the coffee produced at Raro Boda is squeaky clean and of the highest quality.
The Exporter
Snap Coffee was established in 2008 by Negusse Debela Weldyes and the group are responsible for the running and operation of several coffee washing stations which feature in our coffee range each year. Snap oversee the processing facilities but also take on the task of dispensing agricultural knowledge to their contributing farmers. Steps such as tiling fermentation tanks to enable better cleaning, as well as implementing strict drying protocols, have gone long ways to improving the clarity, cleanliness and longevity of the coffees’ characteristics. They are committed to recycling waste by-products from coffee processing at each of their stations where they have also built schools and provided them with computing equipment from the other arm of their business which is in electronics. They have improved the roads to streamline access to the washing stations and have built health clinics to provide access to better healthcare for their contributing farmers as well. Lots from the most recent harvest have been dry milled at Snap’s own processing and warehousing facility. This has afforded the group even more control over the final exportable product that we get to work with, leading to improved consistency and uniformity.
We spent several days cupping through lots at Snap Plaza in Addis Ababa in February, and were able to connect with Negusse and his son Amanuel who has taken on an operational role at Snap Coffee. Later in the year Amanuel came to visit us in our roastery and we were able to show him all of processes we undertake to ensure we handle Snap’s, and other producers’, coffees with respect and care.
|
PRODUCER
|
Snap Coffee & 257 Uraga smallholders |
|
HARVEST |
February, 2024 |
|
PROCESS |
Eco-pulped & wet fermented for 48hrs, fully washed & soaked, dried for 10 days on raised beds. |
|
CULTIVARS |
Wolisho, Dega, Kurume, 74110 & 74112 |
|
REGION |
Uraga, Guji Zone, Oromia |
|
COUNTRY |
Ethiopia |
|
ALTITUDE |
1,950 to 2,300 metres |
|
ARRIVAL |
July, 2024 |
Roasted for Espresso & Filter | Marzipan, Warm Berries, Caramel
A sweet, vibrant cup with a silky body carries flavours of caramelised sugars, marzipan and warm berries.
Our single origin coffees vary throughout the year, depending on what is tasting best each month. We have, in recent years, found that with careful planning we are able to curate a line of Colombian coffee that tastes fresh and expressive throughout the calendar year, thanks to this producing country having multiple harvesting and shipping periods. Given our soft spot for coffees from Huila region we are thrilled to formally launch El Nevado, which will be a perennially available Colombian single origin offering.
The Region
We have worked in Huila for over a decade, and in our experience the cup profiles of top lots from this region really chime with our preferences. El Nevado del Huila is Colombia’s highest volcano, named for its snowy top, and we are referencing the notion of the pinnacle of quality in our Colombian offerings through using its name for our espresso.
The Producers
We are currently featuring coffee from 8 farmers who contribute to the La Magdalena community. A select few of the farmers who have contributed significant chunks of coffee to this lot include Nicomedes Benavides, Nito Arbey Molina Navia and Edgar Yony Melo Gomez, the latter two having cup of excellence awards amongst their accolades. The members grow their coffee in the municipality of San Agustín in Huila, which is one of our all-time favourite regions of Colombia, in the veredas (wards) of La Argentina, La Llanada, La Muralla and Naranjos. Dotted on their various coffee farms are shade trees including Cachingo, Guamo (Ice-cream Bean), Carbonero and various citrus and avocado trees. The farms range from just 1 up to 5 hectares in size, and are planted out with a combination of Caturra, Castillo and Variedad Colombia, spanning from around 1,700 all the way up to 2,100 metres above sea level.
Fertile soils with volcanic ash deposits coupled with the high altitudes, quality varieties and agronomical training and support from Caravela all lead to a group of coffee growers who are reliably producing clean, sweet lots that we feel make for very juicy, complex espresso. Each farmer may practice variations on fermentation, size of batches and for different periods, so we can’t be hugely specific with any fermentation details here. Some of them then use raised beds in a polytunnel to dry their coffee, whilst others use their rooftop patios which can be shaded from the sun or sheltered from the rain by sliding a corrugated iron cover over the drying coffee.
The Exporter
Typically, Caravela operate an 80/20 model, working with a vast majority of smallholders and a minority of farmers with large coffee estates. In their latest impact report 87% of their producing partners had farms of less than 5 hectares in size. More than half of the producers they worked with were visited by their PECA team, and in Colombia alone they are working with 1,746 producers across 52 communities.
As regards their PECA program, they have said the below:
“Coffee growers are the heart of our business model, without them we could not maintain and sustain this value chain. They are responsible for producing the best coffees that delight us every day. The Coffee Growers Education Program (PECA) has developed a symbiotic relationship between coffee growers and Caravela since we’re always learning from each other. For many years, we have accumulated experiences throughout experimentation and work that provides tools to empower and educates coffee growers, resulting in consistent high-quality coffees.”
|
PRODUCER
|
Multiple small-scale producers with farms of around 1 hectare in size |
|
PROCESS |
Traditionally depulped, fermented & washed, dried via polytunnel or rooftop patio. |
|
VARIETY |
Caturra, Castillo & Variedad Colombia |
|
REGION |
Various municipalities within Huila |
|
COUNTRY |
Colombia |
|
ALTITUDE |
1,650 to 2,150 metres |
|
|
Roasted for Espresso & Filter | Baking Spice, Toffee, Jammy Fruits
Baking spice, toffee, jammy fruits
Comprised of seasonally refreshed lots from our most trusted and established producer relationships. This elevated blend offers a complex and nuanced cup, delivering a sweet, jammy cup with integrated fruit tones.
Developing this blend has been driven through the desire to support our core producer groups through paying premium prices for larger volumes and more lots of coffee. The flavours are very complementary, and we have been honing our roasting approach to ensure the resulting cups are harmonious and balanced. We really hope you enjoy this coffee and are grateful for your support.
Current Composition:
50% Washed Typica & Bourbon from Colca in Cusco, Peru.
50% Washed Kurume, Dega & Wolisho from Snap’s Aricha wet mill in Yirgacheffe, Gedeo Zone, SNNPR, Ethiopia
Component Information:
Aricha, Ethiopia
Around 700 smallholder coffee farmers in the Aricha kebele have contributed towards this lot. The varieties being grown are Wolisho, Dega & Kurume, which are tended to completely organically in a semi-forest system. Each farmer has between 0.5 and 2 hectares planted with coffee, amidst bananas and natural shade trees, with 1,500 to 2,400 coffee trees per hectare. Each tree only produces around 3kg of coffee fruit per season, which is delivered on foot or by mule to the washing station. Coffee is grown under shade amidst secondary crops like bananas, maize and other cereals, which not only provides food but improves the root structure on the farms which can protect against erosion.
The cherry reception and processing is undertaken under the watchful eye and scrutiny of Henok Admassu, the mill manager. Henok and his children have been working at this mill with Snap Coffee in a vertically integrated fashion since late 2021.
After depulping the received coffee cherries using an Agaarde disc pulper the coffee is fermented under cool water in ceramic tiled tanks for 72 hours, before washing and grading in long channels. The seeds are effectively graded by density in these channels and will be graded again once fully dried when the quality is refined at the dry mill using vibrating density sorting tables. It makes for a reliable product for us to roast, as the seeds are small and compact yet very dense, allowing an efficient transfer of heat through each seed and the entire batch.
Snap Coffee was established in 2008 by Negusse Debela Weldyes and the group are responsible for the running and operation of several coffee washing stations which feature in our coffee range each year. Snap oversee the processing facilities but also take on the task of dispensing agricultural knowledge to their contributing farmers. Steps such as tiling fermentation tanks to enable better cleaning, as well as implementing strict drying protocols, have gone long ways to improving the clarity, cleanliness and longevity of the coffees’ characteristics. They are committed to recycling waste by-products from coffee processing at each of their stations where they have also built schools and provided them with computing equipment from the other arm of their business which is in electronics. They have improved the roads to streamline access to the washing stations and have built health clinics to provide access to better healthcare for their contributing farmers as well. Lots from the most recent harvest have been dry milled at Snap’s own processing and warehousing facility. This has afforded the group even more control over the final exportable product that we get to work with, leading to improved consistency and uniformity.
We’re always impressed by the sweetness, structure and overall performance of the high-quality outturns from members of the Valle Inca Association in Cusco, Peru. Here we have a community lot of washed Bourbon and Typica selections from the group to run as the Peruvian base component in our house concept blend, Legacy.
The Producers
The farmers who are contributing coffee to this community blend are following agronomical advice from the Valle Inca group, and working in an ecologically holistic fashion, as well as carrying an organic certification. Farms have Pacay trees planted for shade and to encourage biodiversity. There are many secondary food crops including Rocoto peppers, chirimoyas, oranges, avocadoes and limes. The most common method for nourishing the coffee trees is to apply a homemade compost, composed primarily of spent coffee pulp and bird poo. Some of the farmers are working to ensure moisture is kept in the soil if they are in a more arid area, whereas those for whom there is excess humidity are pruning back the lower growth on their coffee trees to promote adequate ventilation.
Their Approach
Coffees are harvested by hand and floated to remove underripes before they are fed through a manually cranked depulper. Coffee cherry skins are removed during a sieving stage before the clean parchment is placed into GrainPro sacks before being sealed into plastic barrels fitted with a carboy style airlock. After a period between 20 and 40 hours has passed the native microbiome has broken down the mucilage surrounding the coffee’s parchment layer and is ready to be washed off. Valle Inca have funded the building of drying infastructures at many of their members’ farms, and these allow the lots to be dried in ventilated secadores on raised beds, which we are confident is adding to the stability, uniformity and reliability of their producers’ coffees.
The Association
In 2018, our first year buying coffee through Valle Inca, the group had around 100 members. Thanks to word of mouth, with producers telling their neighbours of the premium prices that they were able to receive having been able to access a more discerning coffee market through the association, the group now works with around 300 producers in the Cusco region and have recently expanded their operations to include Puno. All the members are working organically and are certified as such via the Valle Inca group. For a member to join, there needs to be a baseline of quality met, dictated in part by altitude and the type of varieties planted, but ultimately it is down to the desire of each member to improve their quality through hard work. The group provide agronomical advice and training as well as pre-financing, so the farmer members are supported in multiple ways. Several of their members reliably place well in Peru’s Cup of Excellence competition.
Roasted for Espresso & Filter | Dark Chocolate, Maple, Raisin
Article is the name of our house coffee, a high performing, consistent blend offering reliability and a satisfying, classic flavour profile. Components are seasonally refreshed and roasted to accentuate deeper caramels and chocolate tones.
With each iteration we aim to compose a coffee that has great balance, packed with classic coffee characteristics whilst retaining a sweet, clean finish.
Current Composition:
50% Washed Caturra, Castillo & V. Colombia from Pitalito in Colombia.
50% Semi washed Mundo Novo & Catuaí from Chapada Diamantina in Brazil.
Component Information:
Chapada Diamantina, Brazil
This season we cupped lots of samples from Brazil to ensure we found the right coffee to use across our house blends. Our preference has always been for coffees that are clean and sweet that taste fresh and vibrant. The same goes when we source our Brazil coffees, where we seek out lots that have a creamy body, fresh but mellow acidity and bags of brown sugar and milk chocolate sweetness. This season we have sourced a field blend of Mundo Novo & Catuaí cultivars, produced by a community of smallhold farmers in Chapada Diamantina. Typically, we have bought from large landowners with sprawling estates, but through Ofi sourcing we have been able to collate the work of several farmers who tend to coffee on around 20 hectares, whilst supporting a tree planting program in the community to promote biodiversity, increase shade coverage on the farms and facilitate carbon capture.
The Producers & Their Approach:
Around 30 families are ultimately responsible for growing the coffee cherries that have made their way into this community lot, named ‘Saravá’ which loosely translates to “Respect” or “Blessing”. The cultivars are Mundo Novo and Catuaí. The farms span from 900 to 1,300 metres above sea level. Joel Marques de Oliveira is one producer, whose farm Rio Brilhante is in the locale of Ibicoara. He has been motivated to pursue specialty coffee production having won awards for cup quality in 2019. Another producer is Nilson Aguiar Ferreira, who grows coffee on Fazenda Encanto up to 1,100 metres. He learnt the ropes of coffee production from his parents and has been working here since 1997.
We predominantly buy washed coffees, as we love their clarity, vibrancy and clean taste. In Brazil it is highly unusual to see any fully washed lots, with ‘pulped natural’ or honey processing more the norm and ‘natural’ or dry process also common. With our Saravá blend the harvested cherries are initially depulped and put through a demucilaginator or ‘mechanical washer’ which removes the fruit mucilage, bypassing the need for fermentation and decreasing the water requirements. The parchment is then slowly dried with a minor amount of residual mucilage present.
The Cultivars:
Mundo Novo represents a natural cross between Typica and Bourbon that was initially noted in Brazil in the 1940s. Over the subsequent decades, breeding programs in Brazil have made refinements and selections to this tall tree, which offers a good yield and cup quality but is susceptible to leaf rust and coffee berry disease. Mundo Novo has since been cross-bred with Caturra, which itself is a dwarf mutation of Bourbon, to create Catuaí. It’s compact nature allows a denser planting, and the tree itself is quite productive. Catuaí has been far more popular in terms of spreading to other producing countries, Costa Rica in particular.
Offering a clean, soft cup with tonnes of sweetness and a creamy body we have been enjoying sample roasts and initial tests of this lot drunk as a single origin, which tastes round and warming. The cup profile is quite versatile and so it lends itself well to blending with other coffees that offer a little more in the way of top notes, acidity and aromatics.
Piltalito, Colombia:
We have worked in Huila for over a decade, and in our experience the cup profiles of top lots from this region really chime with our preferences.
The Producers
We are currently featuring coffee from 5 farmers who contribute to the La Magdalena community marque. The majority of this high quality community lot has been produced by Alexander Hernandez at Finca La Esmeralda and Willyan Zambrano at Finca La Montañita, with small contributions from Luis Anacona, Horacio Bolaños and Yobani Joven. The contributing members all grow their coffee in the municipality of Pitalito in Huila, which is one of our all-time favourite regions of Colombia. Dotted on their various coffee farms are shade trees including Cachingo, Guamo (Ice-cream Bean), Carbonero and various citrus and avocado trees. The farms range from just 1 up to 5 hectares in size, and are planted out with a combination of Caturra, Castillo and Variedad Colombia, spanning from around 1,700 all the way up to 2,100 metres above sea level. Alexander Toledo and Willyan Zambrano also have a diverse portfolio including Geshas, Bourbon Ají and other exotic varieties that are typically separated into microlots.
Fertile soils with volcanic ash deposits coupled with the high altitudes, quality varieties and agronomical training and support from Caravela all lead to a group of coffee growers who are reliably producing clean, sweet lots that we feel make for very juicy, complex espresso. Each farmer may practice variations on fermentation, size of batches and for different periods, so we can’t be hugely specific with any fermentation details here. Some of them then use raised beds in a polytunnel to dry their coffee, whilst others use their rooftop patios which can be shaded from the sun or sheltered from the rain by sliding a corrugated iron cover over the drying coffee.
The Exporter
Typically, Caravela operate an 80/20 model, working with a vast majority of smallholders and a minority of farmers with large coffee estates. In their latest impact report 87% of their producing partners had farms of less than 5 hectares in size. More than half of the producers they worked with were visited by their PECA team, and in Colombia alone they are working with 1,746 producers across 52 communities.
As regards their PECA program, they have said the below:
“Coffee growers are the heart of our business model, without them we could not maintain and sustain this value chain. They are responsible for producing the best coffees that delight us every day. The Coffee Growers Education Program (PECA) has developed a symbiotic relationship between coffee growers and Caravela since we’re always learning from each other. For many years, we have accumulated experiences throughout experimentation and work that provides tools to empower and educates coffee growers, resulting in consistent high-quality coffees.”