ROAST | LIGHT

ORIGIN | GESHA VILLAGE, ETHIOPIA

NOTES | JASMINE, MEYER LEMON, RASPBERRY, POMEGRANATE, COMPLEX

BLACK LABEL RELEASE #10

If you are like us, you've come to expect truly exceptional things from the team at Gesha Village. Our newest Black Label offering is absolutely no different! We have purchased a few select lots from the Gesha Village Estate, harvested in January and February of 2021. These coffees are crazy early and we are so excited to offer some of the freshest coffee from Gesha Village in the world. We will be releasing these lots over the coming weeks, so there is much to look forward to!

The Gesha Village Estate has shown great care and attention to detail in selecting and cultivating wild varietals from the forests of Ethiopia, where the coffee tree originates. The Narsha Lot #44 is comprised entirely of a varietal they have named Gesha 1931. This name is based on the year when Gesha varietal coffees are believed to have been first taken to Costa Rica and subsequently Colombia and Panama. The 1931 varietal is genetically almost identical to what is cultivated in Panama where so much hype around the Gesha varietal has been generated in the last 10ish years. 

This naturally processed coffee is what we view as the archetype for naturally processed coffee from the Gesha Village Estate. It is processed at elevation, meaning the processing is happening at the same location where the coffee is grown. This lot is not the fruitiest coffee in the world, but it is intensely floral and sweet. The crisp raspberry fruitiness, vibrant jasmine florals, and cup complexity are why we fell in love with coffee from the Gesha Village Estate. This coffee exemplifies all of that so well. Getting to share coffees that excite us with the world is why we do what we do. So please, enjoy this coffee and we hope it excites you for what is coming very soon! 

Origin: Gori Gesha Forest, Gesha Village, Ethiopia  

Producers: Gesha Village Estate

Process: Natural 

Variety: Gesha 1931

Elevation: 1963 - 1977 masl

Harvest: 1/25/21 - 2/16/21

We have purchased coffee from the Gamatui Community for three consecutive years now and this year we purchased a ton of the Gamatui Natural knowing how much our community would love it. We also had Kawacom (the organization that built the Sipi Falls Washing station) set aside 10 bags in advance to experiment with high-impact fermentation styles. This process set it the combination of those efforts showing off the regular natural processing of Gamatui to the high-impact fermentation styles of the Hydrowashed and Anaerobic Natural. 

Set includes one 12oz bag of each of the Gamatui Series | 

1 ) Gamatui Natural | Grape Candy, Apricot, Milk Chocolate

This particular coffee shows an amazingly clean, clear fruit character with a lovely medium plus acidity. Every step along the way we have been encouraged by the amazing flavors and willingness to innovate with this project. We hope to continue with this project long-term. This natural processed coffee is dried on raised beds (but in a much thinner layer than is typical). The dried coffee is then hand-sorted for quality. This coffee has a soft, velvety body with notes of strawberry, grape candy, and apricot. 

2) Gamatui Anaerobic Natural | Grape Candy, Aged Rum, Mixed Berry, Tropical Fruits

This was the first attempt to use bag-held fermentation for the Sipi Falls washing station. Still, Kyle pushed for them to be ambitious with the fermentation impact. We're thrilled with the results! This coffee has such a unique drinking experience - the coffee dramatically changes scent and flavor as it cools to room temperature.

Freshly brewed, this coffee has such a distinct grape candy scent and flavor which we've come to love about Gamatui Natural. There is a notable liquor aroma we find reminiscent of barrel-aged rum,  from the high impact of the fermentation process. However, as the coffee cools, the booziness fades away and you are left with that grape scent coupled with the flavors of incredibly sweet tropical fruits - think mango and lychee. 

3) Gamatui Hydrowashed | Delicate Florals, White Grape, Apple, Dark Honey

Our third coffee from the Gamatui Community this year completes what we like to think of as a fermentation impact gradient. This coffee, Gamatui Hydrowashed is the lowest on the scale of fermentation impact, with Gamatui Anaerobic Natural being the highest. We are very thankful to Tim Hill at Atlantic Specialty Coffee (the importer of our Gamatui coffees) for helping these experimental lots come to life. 

Producer: Gamatui Community, Sipi Falls Washing Station

Region: Kapchorwa, Mt. Elgon, Uganda

Process: Natural, Anaerobic Natural, and Hydrowashed

Variety: Various SL varieties

Elevation: 1900 masl

ROAST | MEDIUM

ORIGIN | NATAGA, HUILA, COLOMBIA

NOTES | CANDIED ORANGE, ALMOND, RED FRUIT, MILK CHOCOLATE

This is the second consecutive year we've been able to bring you the excellent coffee grown by the Sisters Rivera. While in Colombia in late 2019, Kyle Ramage (co-owner/ green buyer for B&W) was introduced to Leonela Rivera by Kyle Bellenger of Ostio coffee. Leonela, Laura, Aleida, and Maria Arciley each have farms on the same side of one mountain in their childhood home (the sub-region of Nataga in Huila). The farms are spread up the mountain at different elevations, with Laura's farm being at the highest elevation. 

This combined lot contains both Caturra and Colombia varietals of fully washed coffee. We really enjoy the red fruit and milk chocolate characteristics of the coffee - complimented by clean candied orange acidity. These flavors and pleasing sweetness are typical of the best coffee from Huila, and we are happy to share this coffee for the second time. 

We hope to continue this producer relationship with these dedicated coffee producers. So if you see future lots from one of all of these sisters, expect great things!

Producer: Laura, Leonela, Aleida and Maria Arciley Rivera

Process: Washed

Elevation: 1650 - 1970 masl

Variety: Caturra and Colombia varieties

ROAST | MEDIUM 

ORIGIN | TOLIMA, COLOMBIA

NOTES | PEACH JAM, RED SANGRIA, MILK CHOCOLATE

Marta and her two sons, Elias and Shady, seek to create and share technologies that will help improve the quality of life for the families working at El Vergel. Growing and processing exceptional and experimental coffees are part of that vision. This latest release from the El Vergel team is the Caturra varietal lot, grown closest to the mill where the majority of the processing happens. Shady conveyed a sense of ownership with the producers of this coffee and they were excited to hear how much we liked this lot.

The Anaerobic Natural Caturra from El Vergel fits our red label so perfectly. This coffee has huge fruit characteristics and intense sweetness. If you are a fan of our red label coffees, this one will be right up your alley. If you are trying anaerobic coffee for the first time, this should be a great introduction.

Farm:  "El Vergel" from the Nuestra Familia

Variety: Caturra

Process: Anaerobic Natural

Elevation: 1,350 masl

ROAST | LIGHT MEDIUM

ORIGIN | PALESTINA, HUILA, COLOMBIA

NOTES | FLORAL, RED CHERRY, DRIED CITRUS, PANELA SUGAR

Jose Martinez has been growing fantastic coffee in Huila, Colombia forever. You may remember the Pink Bourbon lots we had from him last year. In fact this is the producer whose coffee Kyle loved on three separate blind cuppings, while traveling with the Osito team in Garzon, Huila, Colombia. 

Jose Martinez is a special producer whose care and attention to detail is clear. His coffees are vibrant expressions of the intermarriage of excellent processing coming alongside complex varieties. Normally we would not be able to bring in this Caturra Variety from Jose, as an exclusive contract exists with Jose and the Roasting Company, Phil & Sebastian in Calgary, Canada but this small lot of Caturra was not purchased which allowed us the opportunity procure it.

This is a lovely coffee; floral with notes of dried apricot and citrus and an overall sweetness reminiscent of the local panela sugar of Colombia. 

Producer & Farm: Jose Martinez, "El Casino"

Variety: Caturra

Process: Washed

Altitude: 1800 masl

ROAST | LIGHT MEDIUM

ORIGIN | KAPCHORWA, SIPI FALLS, UGANDA

NOTES | GRAPE CANDY, AGED RUM, MIXED BERRY, TROPICAL FRUITS

We hinted at our release of this coffee with the larger, standard lot of Gamatui Natural. We have purchased coffee from the Gamatui Community for three consecutive years now and We purchased a ton of Gamatui Natural this year, knowing how much our community would love it. We also had Kawacom (the organization that built the Sipi Falls Washing station) set aside 10 bags in advance to experiment with high-impact fermentation styles. 

While Uganda has many of the key ingredients to produce excellent coffee (high elevation, quality varietals, and dedicated producers), the specialty coffee sector has not invested as much compared to some neighboring countries. We are excited to be at the cutting edge of commissioning experimental coffee to increase the value added by producers. 

This was the first attempt to use bag-held fermentation for the Sipi Falls washing station. Still, Kyle pushed for them to be ambitious with the fermentation impact. We're thrilled with the results! This coffee has such a unique drinking experience - the coffee dramatically changes scent and flavor as it cools to room temperature.

Freshly brewed, this coffee has such a distinct grape candy scent and flavor which we've come to love about Gamatui Natural. There is a notable liquor aroma we find reminiscent of barrel-aged rum,  from the high impact of the fermentation process. However, as the coffee cools, the booziness fades away and you are left with that grape scent coupled with the flavors of incredibly sweet tropical fruits - think mango and lychee. 

As with many of our higher fermentation impact coffees, we recommend letting this coffee rest a little more than typical (at least a week and a half for filtered coffee). It is well worth the wait!

Producers: Gamatui Community, Sipi Falls Washing Station

Region: Kapchorwa, Mt. Elgon, Uganda

Process: Anaerobic Natural

Variety: SL

Elevation: 1900 masl

ROAST | LIGHT MEDIUM

ORIGIN |  KAPCHORWA, SIPI FALLS, UGANDA

NOTES | DELICATE FLORALS, WHITE GRAPE, APPLE, DARK HONEY

Our third coffee from the Gamatui Community this year completes what we like to think of as a fermentation impact gradient. This coffee, Gamatui Hydrowashed is the lowest on the scale of fermentation impact, with Gamatui Anaerobic Natural being the highest. We are very thankful to Tim Hill at Atlantic Specialty Coffee (the importer of our Gamatui coffees) for helping these experimental lots come to life. 

A common perceived issue with coffee from Uganda is that washed process coffees tend to underperform on the cupping table. They have sometimes been perceived as plain and lacking vibrancy. This commissioned lot seeks to circumvent any dullness with a unique and very new processing method overseen by the team at Atlantic. 

Hydrowashed coffee may sound a little silly, but it is brilliant in its simplicity and effect. The first step looks exactly like natural processing of coffee. Ripe, whole coffee cherries are evenly spread across raised beds where they are turned frequently and dried in the sun. After 5 days, some sweetness and fruit characteristics have imparted into the coffee seed and the hydro process can begin. The cherries are removed and rehydrated in water tanks before having the skin and cherry fruit removed (a process called pulping), and washed clean. These clean seeds are then returned to the raised beds to finish drying for weeks before being milled and shipped. 

The resulting coffee is somewhat akin to many of our favorite washed Ethiopian coffees while maintaining some beautifully distinct characteristics we love about our Gamatui coffees. This coffee gives off subtle floral scents and clean, lemon-zest citrus. The body is tealike and delicate. Instead of a purple grape candy flavor, there is the bright, juicy flavor of white grapes and honeycrisp apple. Perhaps the most remarkable thing about this coffee is the soft, pleasant texture. "Crushable" was the best word used to describe this texture - it just keeps drawing you in for another sip! 

We are so thankful for the love the Gamatui coffee has been shown the past two years. We are able to make commissioned processes like this happen because of the buy-in from the whole coffee supply chain.

Producers: Gamatui Community, Sipi Falls Washing Station

Region: Kapchorwa, Mt. Elgon, Uganda

Process: Hydrowashed

Variety: SL

Elevation: 1900 masl

ROAST | LIGHT MEDIUM

ORIGIN | KAPCHORWA, SIPI FALLS, UGANDA

NOTES | GRAPE CANDY, APRICOT, MILK CHOCOLATE

We are excited to welcome back a crowd favorite. This coffee comes from the Gamatui Community by Kawacom. Kawacom was started in Uganda in 1999. It helped build the Sipi Falls Washing station in the Eastern Part of the country, on Mt Elgon. Kawacom has been producing super high-quality naturally processed coffee for three years now. With a precise focus on the quality of their natural and honey processed coffees, they have been getting better and better each year.

This particular coffee shows an amazingly clean, clear fruit character with a lovely medium plus acidity. Every step along the way we have been encouraged by the amazing flavors and willingness to innovate with this project. We hope to continue with this project long-term. This natural processed coffee is dried on raised beds (but in a much thinner layer than is typical). The dried coffee is then hand-sorted for quality. This coffee has a soft, velvety body with notes of strawberry, grape candy, and apricot. 

We are in love with this year's standard natural process lot. We also have two experimental processing lots we collaborated on this year - we can't wait to share them! Each experimental lot is over two years in the making and we are crazy excited to see them come to life. Special thanks to Tim Hill and the team at Atlantic Specialty and Kawacom for helping us with these three lots.

Producer: Gamatui Community, Sipi Falls Washing Station

Region: Kapchorwa, Mt. Elgon, Uganda

Process: Natural

Variety: SL28

Elevation: 1900 masl

ROAST | LIGHT

ORIGIN | GEDEB, ETHIOPIA

NOTES | WHITE FLOWERS, LEMON, CHERRY, PEACH, BLACK TEA

Coffee from the Worka Chelbesa washing stations in Gedeb, Ethiopia have quickly become of our most anticipated lots each year. In fact, we buy more coffee from this washing station than any other. We are such big fans of these coffees for many reasons including the undeniable the quality. Additionally, the team at Atlantic Specialty Coffee works closely with Neguesse Debela (the owner of the washing station) to push the envelope on new and innovative processing methods.

Our Worka Chelbesa CM Washed is the first of three commissioned experimental processing lots we will offer this year. CM stands for Carbonic Macerated and is very new and unique in the world of coffee processing. Ripe coffee cherries are loaded into large containers where oxygen is flushed out of the system using compressed CO2. This lowers the overall temperature of the chamber and allows a particular bacteria strain, lactobacillus, to thrive. Sugars in the coffee cherry are consumed by lactobacillus and the result is more CO2 and lactic acid. 

When CM coffees are washed before drying, some of the brightness and fruit characteristic can be lost. So this year, the fermentation impact is even higher, owing to a longer in-chamber fermentation time. Washed coffee from Worka Chelbesa is enjoyed for its big florality and tea-like body with a dark honey sweetness. Our CM Washed lot for 2021 maintains that lovely floral quality and has much more stone fruit flavor with sweet peaches and nectarine being quite pronounced. There is more body and texture in this coffee and the acidity is nicely rounded by the fruitiness. 

This coffee marries the flavor profiles of washed coffee from the Yirgacheffe and Guji regions. We've been looking forward to it all year! You're going to love this coffee and we hope you'll keep an eye out for the other experimental lots, in addition to the traditional washed lot from Worka Chelbesa.  

Farm: Smallholder farmers organized around the Chelbesa coffee mill

Process: Carbonic Maceration Washed 

Altitude: 1800 - 1900 masl

ROAST | MEDIUM

ORIGIN | NGOZI PROVINCE, BURUNDI

NOTES | CITRUS, MEDJOOL DATES, SWEET

In 2012, Jeanine Niyonzima-Aroian founded JNP Coffee with the goal of encouraging transformational change in local coffee by promoting gender equality, supporting financial literacy education and developing leadership skills. Today JNP Coffee continues to be driven by quality coffee based on strong producer partnerships and shared knowledge in sustainability practices. JNP coffee is known for award winning specialty coffees and gender sensitive development strategies. 

This coffee has a special place with Jeanine as it is grown in the Ngozi province of Burundi which is where her mother grew up. Stories of her mother helping the family harvest coffee cherries to cover school fees stand behind the name for this coffee. In Kirundi, “Bavyeyi” means “parents.”  JNP Coffee is working with an experienced woman-owned cooperative there in Ngozi Province, which has more than 600 members, many of them Muslim women. Currently Jeanine has traveled to the washing stations located around this Province to help strengthen best practices for quality coffee. 

Producers: JNP Coffee

Process: Washed

Variety: Bourbon

Elevation: 1800 masl

ROAST | LIGHT 

ORIGIN | GOMMA, JIMMA,  ETHIOPIA

NOTES | FLORAL, CANDIED CITRUS, PEACH, HONEY

Every year it is a race to get the first washed Ethiopian coffees to the US, and out to customers. These coffees represent most clearly what the majority of coffee professionals love about coffee. Clean bright acidity, with floral and complex fruit notes. This is what I (Kyle) personally gravitate towards, and was the first coffee for me that gave me that transcendent "Ah, Ha" moment, when I realized coffee could be so much more than bitter and brown.

We are so happy to get a super early offering to the market with the help of Tim Hill and Atlantic Specialty. Geta Bore is a member of one of our favorite production groups: Kata Muduga Famers Union. They produce some of the best coffees in Ethiopia year after year- this lot is steller.  

This lot in particular has more of a fruited profile than our more recent coffees from Worka. Flowers and candied citrus are the first things you will experience, next this beautiful acidity like fresh stonefruit, along with almost a peach tea. Of course, the lingering flavor is that amazing Ethiopian coffee sweetness.

Geta Bore Farmers Cooperative is relatively new, established in 2018. It is comprised of 232 smallholders who deliver ripe red cherry to local wet mills. The cooperative's producers are located in the higher-altitude areas of Gomma Woreda, which can be difficult to reach during the rainy season because of hazardous road conditions. The members typically travel by horse or donkey to deliver their harvest to the cooperative.

Producer: Geta Bore Farmers Cooperative

Variety: Bishari 74110, Other JARC Selections, and Indigenous Landraces

Process: Washed

Elevation: 2000 - 2100 masl

ROAST | MEDIUM DARK

ORIGIN | VALLE DE CAUCA, COLOMBIA

NOTES | CARAMEL, MILK CHOCOLATE AND SUBTLE CHERRY

The Sugarcane Decaffeination process is a natural process that not only maintains the integrity of the coffee flavor while allowing for greater transparency and efficiency. These coffees are grown, processed, dried, and decaffeinated all within a relatively small area within the producing country. This keeps transportation and taxation costs lower as the coffee does't have to move in and out of multiple countries.  

Colombian Sugar Cane process more technically known as EA has dramatically changed the landscape of decaf coffee within the specialty market.  These coffees offer greater transparency, faster turn arounds, and most importantly improved flavor  complexity. Since Colombia is vertically integrated having the decaffeination plant in country it saves time, and ensures that coffees arrive fresher to us and therefore our customers. 

For the last 2 years, we have worked with our exporting partners to source year-round amazing Sugarcane Process decaffeinated coffees. We are proud of the quality of decaf coffees, the cup speaks for itself.

Origin: Valle de Cauca, Colombia 

Process: Sugar Cane/ EA

SINGLE ORIGIN

NEW - CONCEPT SERIES INSTANT - We took some of our favorite higher end coffees and made them into instant coffee! We cant wait for you to try them. 

We put as much care into our instant coffee as we do our roasting. Take our instant and add hot water for instant coffee or even milk for an instant latte.  

This item comes with 6 pouches that make 1 - 8oz cup each