Pods are back! For those mornings when you need delicious, dependable coffee with only the push of a button ;)
Pods are back! For those mornings when you need delicious, dependable coffee with only the push of a button ;)
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Farm: Engenho
Country: Brazil
Region: Mantiqueira de minas
Altitude: 1100 masl
Variety: Yellow Bourbon
Processing: Natural
Farmer: Jose Ronaldo Junqueira Dias
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In the heart of Brazil, the 240-hectare Engenho Farm is a testament to the Carneiro family's commitment to producing exceptional coffee. Acquired in 1954, the farm has been nurtured through generations, landing in the capable hands of José Ronaldo, a coffee enthusiast and skilled heart surgeon. Despite his medical pursuits, José Ronaldo manages the farm with the same passion and precision that define its legacy. Engenho stands out due to its strategic location. The region experiences a well-defined dry season, crucial for coffee harvesting. The unique combination of altitude, topography, and soil composition creates an ideal environment for the slow maturation of coffee beans, resulting in distinctive flavours.
Cultivating a variety of coffee types—Yellow Bourbon, Red Bourbon, Catuaí, Acaiá, Icatu, and Catucaí—Engenho chooses each for specific traits suited to local conditions. This diversity ensures a resilient crop, resistant to diseases, and bursting with distinct flavors.
Engenho's coffee processing is a meticulously crafted journey. From natural to pulped natural, washed to natural fermented, the beans undergo careful processing on patios and mechanical dryers.
Nadia and Andre are Brazilian, passionate coffee lovers, partners in business and life and the founders and owners of Southland Merchants. They met in 2002 in a casual setting and instantly felt connected. Within a year, they established their first company and fell in love. Life in Brazil was great; they love the country and its people, the lifestyle and being with their families but they could not let go of the urge to venture out into the world and explore new places. Eventually they decided to embark on an adventure and to move overseas with their three girls. They wanted to find a place that would offer a bright future for their children, allow them to meet a new culture and learn another language. After a lot of research, they realised Australia would be the ideal destination. In 2017 Australia became their new home and in the same year they arrived they founded Southland Merchants. The company supplies Australian roasters with delicious Brazilian green coffee, full of stories and passion, and connects them back to their roots.
NB: If you remember Carmela's coffee from previous seasons please be aware this harvest has a substantially different flavour profile. It doesn't posses the intense winey quality of previous years and is much cleaner (but with subdued fruit as well).
Plum, toffee apple and wine gums
Farm: Carmelita
Country: Bolivia
Province: Caranavi
Colony: Copacabana
Elevation: 1,600–1,650 masl
Variety: Caturra, Catuaí
Processing: Natural
Producer: Carmela Aduviri
Sourced Through: Melbourne Coffee Merchants
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The inhabitants of Copacabana first began farming coffee around 35 years ago. Farms here are small and traditional. Almost all work is carried out by the farm's owners and their extended families, with a handful of temporary workers taken on to help out during harvest. All of the producers at Copacabana were born into the Aymara, an ancient indigenous group which lived on the Altiplano (a vast plateau of the central Andes that stretches from southern Peru to Bolivia and into northern Chile and Argentina). The region was known for the world’s highest lake, called Titicaca, and when their families moved to Caranavi, they named their ‘colony’, or settlement, Copacabana.
Carmela has worked in coffee for fourty years while raising eight children. Her farm, “Carmelita”, is about 2 hectares in size, and is located at an altitude of 1,400 to 1,550 metres above sea level. Today Carmela manages the farm with her son, and together they have worked incredibly hard on improving and producing the best quality coffee they can. They grow a mix of Caturra and Catuaí variety trees on their farm, which grow in a rich clay soil under the protective shade of native forest trees, whose heavy leaf fall creates a natural mulch fertiliser, and whose canopy provides an important habitat for the many bird and insect species in the area.
The families who live in Copacabana, including the Aduviri family, used to depend on the local market to sell their coffee, meaning low prices and little reliability. Now they selectively pick their coffee cherries and are able to sell their top-grade coffees for substantially higher prices to MCM's partners at Agricafe, which processes specialty lots at its Buena Vista wet mill which is located in Caranavi.
The first of its kind in the country, the Sol de la Manaña program is aimed at sharing knowledge and technical assistance with local producers to create better quality coffees in higher quantities. By doing so Agricafe hopes that coffee production can be a viable and sustainable crop for producers, like Carmela, in the region for many years to come.
After the coffee was delivered, it was placed into a floatation tank and all floaters were removed. The whole cherries were then dried on on raised beds in the sun and turned turned regularly to ensure it dried evenly. The drying was then finished off at a very low temperature in a stationary drier. The coffee was then transported to La Paz where it was rested, and then milled at the Rodriguez family’s brand new dry mill. At the mill, the coffee was carefully screened again by machines and also by hand to remove any defects.
Carmela worked hard to collect and process the cherries for this special micro lot and carefully hand polished all of the cherries before delivering them to the mill! A whole lot of love and hard work has gone into this coffee.. we hope you enjoy it!
Read about the Sol de la Mañana program here and Pedro Rodgriguez here and about Bolivian coffee more generally here.
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Apple, brown sugar and nutmeg
Finca: Congolon
Country: Honduras
Region: Opalaca
Elevation: 1,960 masl
Variety: IH90, Catuai
Processing: Washed
Producer: Adrian Garcia
Sourced Through: Ally Coffee
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The Opalaca mountain range spreads between the arid departments of Intibuca and Lempira, which are the most rural departments in Honduras. Thanks to the extensive agroforestry management in Opalaca, enough humidity is preserved to successfully grow coffee in this region.
The coffee trees give a bright color to otherwise pale slopes. With attitudes ranging from 1400 to 1800 meters above sea level, there are many impressive peaks and mountainsides dotted with villages comprised of a soccer field, a church, and several houses, usually surrounded by coffee farms.
Most farms have neatly planted rows of coffee with a mix of government promoted Lempira and IHCAFE 90 varieties as well as Catuaí.
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Chocolate coated oranges, yellow peach and loquat
Producer: Diego Baraona
Region: Tecapa Chimaneca, Usulutan
Country: El Salvador
Processing: CM Natural
Elevation: 1300 - 1600 masl
Variety: Sudan Rume
Sourced By: Project Origin
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About Los Pirineos:
Located atop the Tecapa volcano mountain range between the towns of Berlin and Santiago de Maria, Los Pirineos is named for its similarity to the Pyrenees mountain range that separates France and Spain, and beholds the most spectacular views in all directions. Coffee has been produced at this farm by the Baraona family for over 130 years, with the original plants and shade trees imported from Antigua, Guatemala. The farm has the largest private seed bank collection in El Salvador, with seeds and plants from more than 80 varietals. Currently, the main varietals of coffee grown are bourbon, typica, pacas and pacamara. In this most recent harvest, Diego Baraona was able to harvest and process additional varietals that he and Gilberto planted five years ago, including SL 28, harrar and sudan rume.
Los Pirineos has achieved great success at numerous auction programs and competitions, but it has also been long recognised by exporters, buyers and cuppers as producing some of the highest quality coffees in El Salvador. The team and family at Los Pirineos take great care to maintain clean equipment, ensuring quality processing from beginning to end, and remain current with their processing, de-pulping and drying techniques. Since 2017, Project Origin have worked with Los Pirineos to implement a number of experimental processing techniques including the carbonic maceration processing.
To their advantage, the Los Pirineos farm features a man-made plateau overlooking the Tecapa volcano where extensive drying beds stretch to allow for the drying of a variety of processed coffees. This plateau means the drying beans get an entire days’ worth of sunlight, and the westerly winds ensure even and consistent drying. There is a lot to love and admire about the Baraona family and Los Pirineos, and we may never tire of showcasing their work.
Processing Details:
1. Cherries picked ripe and dark red at 20-22º Brix separated by sections of the farm.
2. Cherries are floated to separate low-density cherries.
3. Cherries are fermented at an ambient temperature in tank flushed with CO2 for a short fermentation time to develop fruit flavours of pineapple, peach and nectarine.
4. Cherries were dried under shade for 25 days o Moisture content reduced to 10-12%.
5. Beans are stored in dried cherry pods until milling for export.
6. Many years ago, Gilberto planted Sudan Rume and told Project Origin this would one day make one of his finest coffees. Since 2020, we have proudly presented the truth of that statement and honoured Gilberto’s legacy, sharing this variety with our processing techniques, expertly managed by his son, Diego.
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Dried jujube, mandarin and starfruit
Kebele: Genji Challa
Washing Station: Telila
Country: Ethiopia
Woreda: Gera
Zone: Jimma
Elevation: 2000 masl
Varieties: JARC 74112
Processing: Washed
Sourced Through: Osito Coffee
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We’re excited to bring you another awesome coffee from Ethiopia, this time from Genji Challa! This is a washed processed lot from the Telila washing station which is located at around 2000 masl near Kecho Anderacha, in the Gera woreda (administrative district), in the Jimma zone.
The cherries are sourced from the surrounding Kebeles (town/village) and the lots are named after the Kebeles from which the coffee is grown. This specific lot is from the Genji Challa Kebele.
The station is owned and run by Mike Mamo, a partner in Osito Coffee pushing to improve quality at the mill. For instance, where most washing stations build lots exclusively on the process used and the location the cherries are delivered, Telila goes a step further and also separates lots based on the day the coffee cherries were delivered. Mike and the team also store all their parchment in hermetically sealed bags - a first for Ethiopia. Not only are they producing high-quality washed lots, but also honey, natural, and anaerobic lots as well.
The cherries that are delivered to the Telila coffee station are a combination of Gibirinna 74110 and Serto 74112. Both of these are from the Metu Bishari selections made in the forest of the same name in the Illubabur Zone by the Jimma Agricultural Research Center (JARC) in 1974. They were specifically selected for their resistance to coffee berry disease.