Eleven travelers met in the Bogota airport early on Monday, September 11th. Five were Cafe Imports staff. The other six represented Ruby Coffee Roasters, Jibbi.Littles Coffee Roasters, City Market Coffee Roasters, Patriot Coffee, and Salto Coffee. They met for a five-day sourcing tour designed to help roasters cultivate and sustain genuine buyer-farmer partnerships with producers and cooperatives participating in our Women Coffee Producer Program.
Another step toward increasing the quality of life for all those involved in coffee. We proudly announce that Cafe Imports is now a certified B Corporation.
A brand new coffee education platform offering classes developed for both students and trainers.
This past week our Director of Sensory Analysis, Ian Fretheim, joined Zachary Cartwright as a guest on his podcast “Water in Food.” The two dove into a discussion on the role water plays in specialty green coffee, exploring findings from our sensory team’s long-term study on water activity (Aw), talking about sensory science as it relates to coffee, and getting excited about the future of cupping with our new Coffee Rose.
One area that has been rightly ripping, in particular relative to historical norms, has been the introduction, interest in, and acceptance of new coffee varieties. When Castillo was introduced many people wanted to turn their noses up at it. In our lab, we were more accepting, as the results on the cupping table were impossible to deny. We regularly found it to perform well against Caturra, Typica, and the many other varieties that we blinded it against. When it won the Cup of Excellence, people were somehow shocked, going so far as to disbelieve the results.
And then, seemingly overnight, Castillos were broadly accepted. What happened?
Is Fresh and Fast Good?
Fresh is good – freshly baked bread or freshly roasted coffee.
Fast can be good, too. Coffee hanging out in port towns like Dar, Tanzania, when it’s 99ᵒF (37ᵒC) and 99% humidity for extended periods is not ideal. In coffee, though, fresh and fast together aren’t always good. There is a strange race nowadays for new crop coffees where offerings may arrive before they should even be shipped.
Watch our newest video – a profile of Tega & Tula in Kaffa, Ethiopia.
Cafe Imports Green Buyer Piero Cristiani judged and bid at EICEV 2023, bringing home the 1st place washed and 3rd place anaerobic lots.
Fairtrade International is raising the floor price for Arabica coffees for the first time in over a decade to combat the economic instability that producers face.
Meet Ashok Patre, a third-generation producer revolutionizing coffee production and processing in the Karnataka State. Watch our interview with him, and learn more about his farm, Ratnagiri Estates.
Enjoy our interview with Roaster and Honduras Barista Champion Carlos Guerra, who won an Ikawa Pro 50 Sample Roaster through the Legendary Coffee Exchange at the 2023 SCA Expo.
As a nimble and independently owned importer, we recognize that a roaster’s selections can only be made in advance with real-time information. Our green buying team is passionate about working actively with producers at origin throughout the year and sharing their knowledge and experiences with roasters like you.
An amendment to the 2023 Farm Bill could speed up research of coffee disease resistance.
Watch our most recent public educational event now, discussing all things anaerobic fermentation in coffee processing. Find out how to be part of the next conversation!
Back in February, a collection of staff, roasters, and baristas went for an educational excursion.
A note from Founder and President Andrew Miller introducing our 2023 Progress Report.
EXPO is approaching, and this is the round-up of everything we’ve got going on at and around the show! See you in Portland, friends.
Ethiopian coffee has always been our favorite, but there has always been a weird reshuffle of the business every few years, usually due to a governmental change triggered by something behind the scenes. We wanted to figure out what was going on this time.
Finca Juan Martin and Manos Juntas are two different projects, both striving to make coffee production more profitable for producers and consistently delicious for consumers, all under the Banexport umbrella. Banexport is our longstanding partner and friend, sourcing and exporting many of our Cauca, Huila, and Nariño offerings. Their commitment to quality, sustainability, and economic equality for producers is exemplified in their projects, particularly Finca Juan Martin and Manos Juntas.
