Well, wouldn’t you know: It’s that time of year where America’s favorite VJ, Carson Daly, throws on the leather gloves & ear muffs to guide us through the cosmos in NYC’s Time Square. Cosmos, you ask? Well, that would be referring to our ever-revolving planet, soaring through space, as a symbolic reverse disco ball descends above a skyscraper, officially closing out 2015. We here at […]
The interconnectivety social media has granted modern day coffee creatives absolutely flabbergasts us. We are delighted on a daily basis to open up our instagram and discover ourselves tagged in photos, making us proclaim things like: “Zaaaam, that coffee made it all the way to Alaska! Coffee really connects the whole gall dang world doesnt […]
In 2010, we approached the SCAA with a proposal to bring the U.S. regional champion baristas to visit a coffee-producing country. This was a new idea–connecting some of the most passionate coffee professionals with the producers who grow the thing they work with every day. This proposal was the beginning of what is now known as […]
Nestled between two coffee giants, Colombia and Peru, Ecuador is a small country with a lot of coffee potential: Fantastic elevation, good varieties, and lush farmland should put this Equator-straddling South American nation at the top of everyone’s origin lists, but this is one case in which size actually might matter. The relatively limited scope […]
In 2011, Café Imports green buyer Piero Cristiani was sourcing in Mexico with our producer partners at CESMACH and saw that there were a considerable number of women producers dropping coffee off for processing. On the heels of our women’s producer program in Guatemala with CODECH, Piero presented the program to CESMACH, wherein coffee from […]
The YCFCU (Yirgacheffe Coffee Farmers Cooperative Union) was organized in 2002 in an effort to establish stability amidst fluctuating coffee prices. Recognized under the national labor union, the YCFCU represents 43,794 farmers over 6 districts including Yirgacheffe, Gedeb, Wanago, Dilla Zuria, Bule, and Kochere. Check for YCFCU coffees scheduled for arrival to our US warehouse now!
For about five years, we have been trying hard to find the real coffee gems and top producers in Mexico’s vast countryside and varied regions. In a country which has historically produced more standard coffees, we felt that somewhere in the mix of 5 million bags existed great coffees that were just getting blended together, […]
Full containers of fresh crop Ethiopian offerings have started to breach our warehouse doors!: current US Ethiopian offerings, current EU Ethiopian offerings, current AU Ethiopian offerings With much anticipation, we are excited to share with you some closer looks at where these containers started their journey. Please enjoy these slice-of-life “From the Source” video renditions from our […]
Watch the video above for a full run-down of a program we’ve initiated with a young band of Jamaican coffee farmers called the “Jamaican Coffee Farmers Association” Jamaican Blue Mountain coffee is mainly produced by the Wallenford, Mavis Bank, Moy Hall, and Old Tavern Estates. It is consistently the highest priced coffee in the world. […]
In our usual course of walking around a coffee farm with a producer and talking about his or her coffee; the layout of the farm, the distance between trees, pruning, fertilizing, yield, varieties, life and things like that, we sometimes come across interesting items; like a 75 year old tree in Brazil, a small field […]
In July, Joe, Piero, Andy, and I had the pleasure of leading the annual Cafe Imports Barista Origin Trip, a prize given to each of the U.S. regional barista champions, the U.S. national champion, and the world champion. These champions might be laid back (or not) and act like hipsters (or not), but behind […]
Non-Linear Coffee Loops I recently re-read a book on nonlinear dynamics as applied to Euro history over roughly the last thousand years. Basic to this approach is that evolutionary changes are not given as necessary, much less as inevitable, much-much less as advancement, improvement or progress. Evolution as change is affirmed, and radically so. What […]
Finca Nueva Linda from Cafe Imports on Vimeo. Nueva Linda is a Specialty Coffee Estate located in the Sierra Madre mountains of Southern Mexico in the state of Chiapas. The farm shares a buffer with the Triunfo Biospehere reserve, a tropical cloud forest preserve of some 50,000 acres, which helps to temper a changing climate and provide […]
Enjoy this video profiling the family behind the wonderful coffee of Las Lajas Micromill in Costa Rica.
Don Pepe Micromill on Vimeo. Cesar Urena is the owner/operator at the Don Pepe Micromill, located in San Isidro de Leon Cortez, Costa Rica. We visited Cesar’s Micromill during Cafe Imports trip to Costa Rica for the 2014 harvest, what we discovered was a crown jewel in the treasure trove of Costa Rican coffees this year. […]
Unbelievably, there is a full obstacle course outside the Rio Jorco micromill in Costa Rica. Here is a short video of our break time after a long day of cupping and farm visits. Keep an eye out for these microlots this year! Rio Jorco Fun on the Grounds from Noah N on Vimeo.
Coffee came to Peru in the mid 1700s and was most likely introduced by Dutch immigrants. The Dutch brought the Typica variety which still dominates especially amongst the older farms and micro-farms. The first coffee plantings were in Chinchao, Huanuco in Selva Central and disseminated from there to the Northern (Cajamarca) and Southern (Cusco and […]
We have just completed nearly 6 weeks of cupping Colombian offers from the June-July harvest which comes primarily from the South (see map below) of the country; both Principal harvests and Mitaca (fly) crops and we have some really great coffees coming. These coffees include: A new FTO group from Cauca, some outstanding micro-lots from […]
Sulawesi (Celebes), was influenced and controlled by the Netherlands from 1605 until World War II. In 1669 the Dutch East India Company took control of the trade in Sulawesi. The Dutch built Fort Rotterdam in Ujung Pandang (now Makassar) in the mid 1600’s and not until 1905 they finally gained control of the whole island becoming part of […]
This is a video of Rodrigo Silva, a producer of the group Primaveral in Acevedo Colombia. We will have an incredible microlot from him later this year that we cupped in Colombia November 2012. Really amazing stuff. On a mobile device or want to view full size? View the video HERE Rodrigo Silva from […]
