SPECIALTY INSTANT COFFEE

ORIGIN | Ethiopia, Costa Rica, & Columbia

NOTES | blue raspberry, cherry popsicle, lemon italian ice, peach rings

We took some of our favorite single origin coffees and made them into instant coffee! We put as much care into our instant coffee as we do our roasting and produce everything in house. 

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

Description of Coffee | 

HOW WE GOT HERE | When it comes to flavor, we're well known for being pretty nostalgic around here. And there's a good reason for that: our memories are tightly woven into our senses, with taste and smell being the chief sensory gatekeepers of our past. With this release, we celebrate yet another gas station relic of our youth: the often messy, infinitely slurpable slushee. Whether yours was red or blue, carbonated or still, fruit-flavored or soda-adjacent—everyone had a favorite and made it their own.

As a concept, the slushee wasn’t exactly an intentional concoction. In 1958, Omar Knedlik – the owner of a local Dairy Queen in Kansas – began storing sodas in his freezer after the restaurant’s soda machine went kaput. The sodas thawed to a slush when taken out of the freezer and sold to patrons, and soon Omar realized that people actually seemed to prefer them that way! By 1962, he had secured a patent and a logo for what became the original ICEE machine. And in 1965, he sold three of those machines to the company that might’ve provided you your very first slushee-slurping experience: 7-Eleven.

As part of the licensing deal with ICEE, 7-Eleven agreed to name their slush product the Slurpee. This triggered a now very long list of alternate names for the drink: ICEE, Slurpee, slush, slushy, slushie, and slushee… just to name a few. Whatever you came to call this gas station darling, we hope you’ll at least agree that we can all call it one thing: DELICIOUS.

HOW WE DID IT | Recreating this beverage as a coffee offering came with its fair share of challenges. The result needed to be intense and fruity, but also crushable and sweet. To accomplish this, we began with a natural lot from Ethiopia, which really grounds the flavor profile of the blend. Next, we added equal parts of a naturally processed coffee from Costa Rica and a Dragonfruit co-fermented coffee from Colombia, both of which contribute plenty of red-painted flavors. Jhonatan Gasca’s proprietary Pacamara lot blends processing methods exceptionally well, and we knew it had a home here. Finally, Jairo Arcila’s loud Lychee co-ferment adds a little more life to the party: 

• 35% Mulugeta Muntasha - Natural (Arbegona, Ethiopia)

• 20% Lica Torres - Black Cherry (Rivas, Brunca, Costa Rica)

• 20% Jairo Arcila - Dragonfruit (Armenia, Quindio, Colombia)

• 18% Jhonatan Gasca - Pacamara (Bruselas, Huila, Colombia)

• 7% Jairo Arcila - Lychee (Armenia, Quindio, Colombia)

HOW IT TASTES | Consider this coffee an ode to the gas station slushee of your dreams! It’s intense like blue raspberry, red as a cherry popsicle, resembles the citrus profile of lemon Italian ice, and somehow remains as crushable as a bag of peach rings (another favorite gas station pick-me-up, we might add). It’s certainly intense but surprisingly crushable—and definitely ready for all things summer. 

Producers | Mulugeta Muntasha, Lica Torres, Jairo Arcila, & Jhonatan Gasca

Process | Mixed

Variety | Mixed

SPECIALTY INSTANT COFFEE

ORIGIN | Antioquia, Cauca, Huila, and Quindio Colombia

NOTES | strawberry, mango, chocolate

We took some of our favorite single origin coffees and made them into instant coffee! We put as much care into our instant coffee as we do our roasting and produce everything in house. 

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

Description of Coffee | 

GET TO KNOW THE PROJECT | As a concept, Unblended exists to make coffee farming an exciting and meaningful industry for young producers in Colombia (and hopefully, all over the coffee-growing world). As green buyers, they partner with established coffee producers at home (see: Sebastian Ramirez) and connect them to movers and shakers in the roasting industry in the US, helping to forge more meaningful relationships between producers and patrons.

To further this initiative, Unblended has spearheaded the Young Producer Program in Colombia: a cooperative program that pairs seasoned producers with young mentees who are pursuing their passion for specialty coffee. This initiative allows young producers to learn from and experiment with successful coffee farmers, blending their small, experimental batches with larger lots from the mentors' farms, which ensures those experimental lots have a home.

TRUST THE PROCESS | This blend is composed of several lots from both young producers and storied coffee farmers alike, each of which underwent various iterations of experimental processing methods.

TAKE A SIP | By using several lots at very specific percentages, the folks at Unblended hope to balance fermentation impact and complexity with sweetness and approachability. The result is a cup that's both fruity and sweet, like summer strawberries, as well as round and smooth, like craft chocolate. Tropical notes, like mango, hint at some of those lots which underwent more extensive fermentation. Complex but still crowd-pleasing, this blend is a celebration of the excellence that already exists in specialty coffee production in Colombia, and also an enthusiastic high five to the next generation of producers in that region

Producers | YCA | Young Producers Project

Process | various

Variety | Castillo, Caturra, Colombia