Toasted almonds, black cherry and dark chocolate.

The roast degree for our seasonal blend is a little more developed (darker) than our individual single origins - making it easier to use for espresso brewing and imparting it with less acidity. Also the right choice for those who enjoy more 'traditional' flavour profiles.

Fazenda Progresso (Natural) - Brazil

Small Producers of Caicedo - Colombia

Chire (Natural) - Ethiopia

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For our seasonal blend we combine ethically traded and in-season single origin coffees to create something both delicious and dependable. For more information on the individual blend components click on the links above!

The coffee beans in this blend began as the seeds of coffee cherries - the seasonal fruit of a tropical forest shrub, grown predominantly in East Africa, Central and South America and Southeast Asia. before being roasted by us, those raw seeds had to be nurtured, carefully hand picked when ripe, fermented, dried and exported. It is a long supply chain fraught with difficulties - that sip of coffee you're enjoying began a long way away and is the result of the hard work of many people.

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Apricot, black tea and mandarin.

Washing Station: Aroresa
Owner: Wochesa Achiso
Region: Bensa, Sidama
Country: Ethiopia
Processing: Fully Washed
Elevation: 1,900 - 2,000m
Variety: Heirloom Bourbon & Typica
Sourced Through: Melbourne Coffee Merchants

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Aroresa (pronounced “A-ro-ress-a”) originates from the Bensa ‘woreda’ (administrative district) in the Sidama Zone in Ethiopia’s Southern Oromia State. It is named after the ‘kebele’ (local village) of Aroresa.

The washing station sits at 1,856m above sea level, and is privately owned by Wochesa Achiso, who buys cherries from local families - each cultivate small plots of land (averaging 2 – 5 hectares in size), located 1,900–2,000 metres above sea level.

Wochesa Achiso works collaboratively with Testi Coffee, who supports the washing station with quality control and also supports the washing station to market and sell their coffee. Testi Coffee is a family owned business that was founded ten years ago by Mr Faysel Yonis. The company is committed to maximising the potential of Ethiopian coffee and enriching the lives of the communities that are connected to it.

Testi Coffee’s business model is basically to buy coffee cherry from their ‘out-growers’ (an Ethiopian term for a small-holder who contributes to a particular washing station), while working with them to improve the quality of the coffee, and help develop the social conditions in the communities for the out-growers.

The team at Testi Coffee are very proud of the quality of coffee that they produce. In 2018, they launched a quality improvement program called the Premium Cherry Selection (PCS). Through this program, they pay a premium to producers who pick only the very ripest cherries from their farms. These coffees represent the very best that they have to offer, and this lot from Aroresa is a Premium Cherry Selection lot.

Mr Faysel, the owner of Testi, strongly believes that increased rewards for the out-growers should be shared by their entire community as a whole, rather than just delivering more financial benefits to the out growers themselves. To this end, he has launched an initiative called Project Direct, which focuses on directly helping coffee farmers, their families, and surrounding communities in tangible and positive ways. The project has helped to build schools and get communities access to clean water. Their goal in the future is to get support from their importing and roasting partners to make this initiative more fruitful.

This coffee is a mix of local varieties, including native coffees from forest origin that are collectively known as ‘Ethiopian Heirloom’. All of these varieties are Arabica and most originate from a Typica predecessor, but with wild mutations that result in some exceptional and unique flavour profiles. The coffee has been processed as a washed lot using fresh water from the nearby river Hamile. It is classified as Grade 1, indicating that a lot of effort has been put into the selection and grading during processing.

Each day, carefully hand-picked coffee cherries are delivered to the Aroresa mill and are meticulously sorted by hand and a floatation tank prior to processing to remove unripe, overripe, or damaged fruit, in order to enhance the quality and sweetness of the cup. The coffee cherries are then pulped using a disk pulper to remove the fruit and skin, and then graded by weight; heavier beans are superior quality and deliver a sweeter cup. After grading, the parchment-covered coffee is soaked in tanks of clean water for 24–48 hours to remove the mucilage (sticky covering) by allowing it to ferment and detach from the coffee. The coffee is then re-washed and graded again by density in washing channels and soaked in clean water for 12–24 hours.

The coffee is then dried for around 12 days on African drying beds, firstly under cover (for up to a day) and then subsequently in the sun. Whilst drying, the coffee is carefully hand-sorted, and any defects are removed. It is also turned regularly to ensure that it dries evenly and consistently. At midday, the coffee is covered to protect it from full sun. It is also covered overnight to prevent damage from morning dew. Once the coffee is dry it is rested in parchment until it is ready for export. Aroresa is a fine example of the distinctive and unique nature of coffee produced in this region.

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Our roaster's choice coffee subscription.

Ethically traded, freshly roasted coffee delivered to your door every month? Couldn't be easier! Chose any combination of quantity, size, grind and frequency and we'll keep you supplied with a rotating selection of our unique and delicious single origins.

For filter coffee drinkers we recommend this - the Roaster's Choice Subscription and for the espresso drinkers out there we suggest the Seasonal Blend subscription.

Shipping is charged as per usual - that is receive FREE shipping on any subscriptions of more than 250g per delivery.

Toasted nuts, butterscotch and marmalade.

Country: Brazil
State: Bahia
Region: Chapada Diamantina
Town: Mucugê
Altitude: 1,150m above sea level
Variety: Catuaí
Processing: Natural
Owner: Borré Family
Awards: Cup of Excellence 2015 #15
Sourced Through: Melbourne Coffee Merchants

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Fazenda Progresso is a beautiful farm nestled in the Chapada Diamatina mountain range in the heart of Bahia. The farm is surrounded by the Chapada Diamantina National Park, known for its mountainous cliff formations (Chapada) and 19th century diamond mining (Diamantina).

The history of Fazenda Progresso dates back to 1984, when the Borré family migrated from southern Brazil to the northeast and purchased some land in the municipality of Ibicoara, near the town of Mucugê. In the early years, the family tried growing crops such as soybeans, wheat, and English potatoes. The potatoes turned out to be an incredibly successful crop, stimulating investments and making the family one of the largest producers of potatoes in Brazil!

In 2005, the Borré family sought to diversify the activities on their land, and so began to focus on coffee. As MCM learnt when they first met the family, when they commit to a new project, they seek to do it to the very highest possible standard. Their work with coffee is no exception. The family’s commitment to producing exceptional coffee has been unwavering over the last decade. They have sought advice from some of the most respected professionals in the field, including Silvio Leite, founder of the Cup of Excellence and president of the Brazil Specialty Coffee Association, with 30 years’ experience in coffee grading, tasting, and quality control.

The Borré family has invested heavily to ensure that they have the very best infrastructure to process coffee, which allows them to control quality every step of the way, from picking right through to export. They have a dedicated quality control lab with a talented cupping team headed up by Ednaldo Nascimento (AKA ‘Gandula’—nicknamed after the boy that replaces the ball during a soccer match)! Gandula and his team assess every lot of coffee produced and ensure that the quality is the very best it can be.

The Borrés are very hands-on in their approach to managing the farm. They are extremely professional in the way they conduct their business, and they take great care to create an excellent work environment for their staff. Throughout the year, there are around 200 permanent staff members on the farm, and this number grows to 650 during the harvest. Many of these harvest workers return every year, and all are provided with daily bus transportation and food.

In total, 700 hectares of the property are dedicated to coffee; this land is divided up into different plots, which are processed separately. Over time, the family has worked out the optimum way to plant coffee trees in order to maximise productivity, with 50 centimetres between each tree and three metres between each row of trees.This year we have purchased coffee from four different plots on the property; each is extremely unique in its profile, and all are exceptional!

Historically all of the coffee at Fazenda Progresso was processed using the pulped natural method, but in 2017 Fabiano started to experiment with naturally processed coffee, and the results have been exceptional. This lot is a natural processed lot from the farm, which was carefully hand-picked by a specially trained team in August. The cherries were selected at the peak of ripeness, and then carefully dried on meticulously clean patios in the sun, and turned regularly to ensure they dried evenly. When the cherry was almost purple, the dried fruit skin and parchment was taken off with a mechanical huller at Progresso’s mill. The coffee was then rested until ready for export.

The Borré family business has always been managed and directed by family members and is now in its third generation of operation. Fabiano Borré looks after everything to do with the coffee side of the business. He is young, focused and very motivated to produce the very best coffee he can. You can read an interview with Fabiano Borré here.

“Working with something so sensitive, so changeable, involving the most varied areas of knowledge and then get to share all this with incredible people… it’s amazing. That’s why I choose coffee!” – Fabiano Borré

The Borré family takes great care to protect and preserve the ecological health of their area. Water is conserved and meteorological stations are positioned throughout the farm to optimise irrigation and ensure the trees get the right amount of water. Cascara pulp from processing is composted (along with potato wastage, which is very high in potassium and great for coffee trees!) and used to fertilise trees throughout the plantation.

In 2015, for the first time, the Borré family entered their coffee into the Cup of Excellence competition. It placed 15th—a fantastic achievement and testament to the hard work, resources, and focus that have been put into producing exceptional coffee.

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Dark chocolate, toasted hazelnuts and mulberries.

Region: Huila
Country: Colombia
Processing: Fully Washed
Elevation: 1,600m
Varietals: Colombia, Caturra & Typica
Sourced Through: Caravela Coffee

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This lot is a blend of coffee from small producers in Pitalito, Huila that was decaffeinated in Colombia (the same country as that which the coffee was grown) using ethylacetate - a by product derived from fermented sugar cane - which was also grown in Colombia! Ethylacetate is an ester that occurs naturally in fruits and vegetables such as bananas, apples and - coffee. The result is an incredibly fresh, clean and sweet, naturally decaffeinated coffee.

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Port wine, baking spices and molasses.

Washing Station: Long Miles Coffee Project
Region: Ngozi
Country: Burundi
Processing: Natural
Elevation: 1,660m
Variety: Heirloom Bourbon
Sourced Through: Upstream Coffee Imports

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We have been roasting coffee from Long Miles since 2014 - when our head roaster Adam visited them in person in the beautiful hills of Burundi. We had heard amazing things about what they were accomplishing in terms of both quality and the prices paid to the growers - it was all true - and then some. They are truly re-inventing both what Burundian coffee can be and what a transparent, premium based and sustainable coffee chain means. From Adam, in regards to one of his career highlights:

"It’d be from my first origin trip, walking down a dirt road into the Long Miles Coffee Project Bukeye washing station in the hills of Kayanza, Burundi. It was the end of a long day and the air was thick with the aromas of cherry pulp, fermentation and coffee flowers. Unforgettable."

This coffee is grown and produced by farming families in the northern province of Ngozi, a stone’s throw away from the Rwandan border. The Nyamuswaga river runs through these neighbouring coffee hills, turning much of the surrounding landscape into a lush wetland. Bananas, maize, potatoes, beans, cassava, sweet potatoes and peas can be found growing alongside coffee, wrapping the hill in every imaginable shade of green. More than 1533 farming families from 20 nearby coffee hills deliver their cherries to this collection point. While women make up only 32% of the producers who contributed to this coffee, they are without question the thread that holds coffee farming communities together in Burundi. They work incredibly hard- hand tilling the soil, growing, harvesting, sorting and hauling multiple crops- not just coffee. They often do it with a baby on their back or a child at their hip.

A farmer might walk as far as 8km on narrow dirt footpaths carrying coffee cherries on their head to reach this collection point. There are a pre-selection area and floating station at this collection point where their coffee cherries are taken to be sorted and floated once again. Any underdeveloped, low- density or insect-damaged cherries will float to the top and are easily skimmed off. The cherries that rise to the top ('floats') are bought at a lower price, their quality immediately separated from the others then processed and sold as a lower grade coffee.
After each farmer’s cherries have been selected, weighed and their contribution recorded, this coffee is laid out in a single layer on traditional African raised beds to dry in its whole fruit. The cherries are then meticulously hand-sorted for colour, ripeness and insect damage by a team of pickers. The drying cherries are rotated continuously throughout the day and covered when the sun’s rays are too intense when it’s raining and overnight. Commitment to the perfect moisture level (10-11%) means coffee spends 20-30 days slow drying, depending on the weather conditions, soaking up as much of the hot East African sun as possible. Bonuses are paid to farming families in the form of a second payment at the end of the export year- before the next harvest season opens.

About Long Miles Coffee Project:

"We are a small American family living in Burundi, which is smack dab in the heart of east Africa. We are passionate about producing amazing coffee and caring for the well-being of the coffee farmers who grow it. We weren’t always coffee producers. First, we were a family with a dream.

Our dream was that one day we could facilitate direct and meaningful relationships between coffee roasters and coffee growers by producing great coffee and telling the story of the farmers who grow it. If we could do that, then the local farming community would thrive and the world would gain the gift of great Burundi coffee.

After some time sourcing coffee in Burundi, we realized that the only way we could see our dream come true was to build a washing station. That way, we could control the coffee quality and the price the farmers were given for their coffee. In our first season, with the help of our friends and devoted blog readers, we sold all the coffee before it even hit the drying tables. This overwhelming support allowed us to pay our farmers months before any other washing station in our area, and we quickly became established as a vital part of the community.

Living as a family in this part of Africa isn’t always easy, and sometimes we share the raw and honest truth about what that’s like on our blog. We rattle on about our Faith, raising boys in Africa and the expat life. We also share the stories of our coffee farmers, what it’s like at our washing stations and how we brew our morning coffee. So, if you want the real deal about life, hit that blog button.

If you are a roaster and would like to contact us about building a relationship with our family that works for both you and our farmers, please hit the contact button. If you are a lover of coffee or Africa or travel or adventure and you just want to connect with us, we’d love to hear from you too.

'Murakoze cane' (thank you very much),

The Carlson Family (Ben, Kristy, Myles, Neo, and Ariana)"

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