Coffee Updates from Oliver
- Ethiopia: Ethiopia is pretty much dormant right now. All our coffee has left the country and is either floating on a boat headed to the USA or waiting to be released. I've just heard that our Banko Natural has landed in the USA and has cleared customs. We will be cupping the arrival sample this week; hopefully we will see another fantastic year from the Banko Cooperative. Banko Natural is our most anticipated coffee every year. We have also received our Konga Cooperative, I'm holding the release date till later in August or September. I'm very pleased with the quality from Konga this year. Next week we will also be using a really sweet floral lot from the Gidibona Sheicha Cooperative in Big Truck. I'm also super excited to announce that we have made our first ever fully traceable Direct Trade purchase for Decaf. I'll be contracting with Swiss Water Process and toll decaffeinate our Gidibona Sheicha. I expect the Decaf process to take about a month, therefore look for a mid August major upgrade to Decaf Asterisk.
- Kenya: Our first of 5 Kenyan Micro Lots has landed in the USA and is shipping from the East Coast towards us now. We expect to release our stellar lot from the Tegu Factory July 18th. All the other 4 lots from Kenya will also be landing in the country this month. However we will most likely be rolling these out one, or two at a time.
- Rwanda: The season is over in Rwanda, and we have made our selections from our producer partners at the Birembo washing station. We paid a visit to Birembo and other stations in June. Quality overall in Rwanda seems a little off this year, more issues with potato defect this season than ever before. Strangely, while overall quality in Rwanda is down, our partners at Birembo continue to improve. We selected one Micro Lot this year to be featured as a single origin and for Sweetheart. This lot is also the highest scoring lot from Rwanda we have ever tasted. At this point, we are in full force to prepare our coffee for export for safe travel to the United States. I'm shooting for a November arrival.
- Burundi: We were also in Burundi last month, working with our partners at the Long Miles Coffee Project. We have seen quality continue improve this year along with real evidence that farms, and volumes are also improving due to our direct premiums and involvement. As per usual with Long Miles Coffee Project, we cup through dozens of Micro Lot's from the surrounding hills processed at the Bukeye and Heza washing stations. Through these many hills and two washing stations we built our purchase of 4 Micro Lots and a selection to be combined for Sweetheart Espresso.
- Colombia: Colombia's crop is in full steam at this moment. San Sebastian is seeing a lot of volume this week, producers are feeling really happy about their yields and prices this year. I’ll be making a trip this week to check in with producers in Huila, Tolima, and Narino. It will will be a long trip, but I’m looking forward to seeing many of our long time producer partners.
- Costa Rica: Our Costa Rican coffees from La Pastora are now on the water shipping towards us. If everything goes perfect we might see fresh Costa Rica's in August.
- El Salvador: Our selections from El Salvador were pushed back another month, delays at the dry mill. Fingers crossed as we are now told our coffees will ship this month with an Arrival in August. I'm so excited about El Salvador and really hope that all the work I've been putting in there will pay off this year.
- Guatemala: No news to report on Guatemala this week, still seeing day lot samples trickle in we have still not approved any coffees this year based on quality from Guatemala. Yikes….
Oliver Stormshak - Co Owner, Green Coffee Buyer