Orders are shipped every Monday, Wednesday and Friday. Blends are roasted on Mondays and Fridays each week whilst single origins are roasted only on Wednesdays at this stage (due to batch size requirements).
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.
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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Roaster's Choice Subscription
Regular price
$19.00Sale price$17.00
Save $2.00
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.
This coffee was produced by Carmela Aduviri from Copacabana, a small and remote settlement located 180 kilometres from La Paz in the heart of the Caranavi province. This region is the epicentre for specialty coffee production in Bolivia, with incredibly high altitudes, rich soil, and wide daily temperature ranges providing the perfect conditions for exceptional coffee.
The inhabitants of Copacabana first began farming coffee around 35 years ago. Farms here are small and traditional. Almost all work is carried out by the farm's owners and their extended families, with a handful of temporary workers taken on to help out during harvest. All of the producers at Copacabana were born into the Aymara, an ancient indigenous group which lived on the Altiplano (a vast plateau of the central Andes that stretches from southern Peru to Bolivia and into northern Chile and Argentina). The region was known for the world’s highest lake, called Titicaca, and when their families moved to Caranavi, they named their ‘colony’, or settlement, Copacabana.
Carmela has worked in coffee for fourty years while raising eight children. Her farm, “Carmelita”, is about 2 hectares in size, and is located at an altitude of 1,400 to 1,550 metres above sea level. Today Carmela manages the farm with her son, and together they have worked incredibly hard on improving and producing the best quality coffee they can. They grow a mix of Caturra and Catuaí variety trees on their farm, which grow in a rich clay soil under the protective shade of native forest trees, whose heavy leaf fall creates a natural mulch fertiliser, and whose canopy provides an important habitat for the many bird and insect species in the area.
The families who live in Copacabana, including the Aduviri family, used to depend on the local market to sell their coffee, meaning low prices and little reliability. Now they selectively pick their coffee cherries and are able to sell their top-grade coffees for substantially higher prices to MCM's partners at Agricafe, which processes specialty lots at its Buena Vista wet mill which is located in Caranavi.
The first of its kind in the country, the Sol de la Manaña program is aimed at sharing knowledge and technical assistance with local producers to create better quality coffees in higher quantities. By doing so Agricafe hopes that coffee production can be a viable and sustainable crop for producers, like Carmela, in the region for many years to come.
Carmela joined the Sol de la Mañana program in 2015. As a member of the program, she has followed a very structured series of courses, focused on improving her quality and yield. The curriculum focuses on one aspect of farming at a time, and covers things such as how to build a nursery, how and when to use fertiliser, how to prune, has how to selectively pick coffee. Agricafe also hosts workshops with leading agronomists throughout the year. These forums have allowed the producers to meet one another, share their experiences and discuss ways to tackle problems they are experiencing. Over time the producers have become more experienced and confident and actively sharing their learning with each other.
The results of this program have been profound, with improved quality and quantities for all participating producers. In addition, the producers have become more confident and proactive and engaged as a community and are sharing their learnings and experiences with each other. Daniela explains that this is where the program becomes really powerful: “We are giving them the tools and know-how, but they are actively choosing to follow our advice and invest in their farms. Now they can see the results, they trust us 100% and helping their neighbours achieve similar results.”
Since becoming a member, Carmela has built a vibrant coffee nursery and learnt to prune, feed, and manage her coffee plantation in order to increase her yield. The program has helped her invest in her plantation and encouraged her to take a long-term view, and in doing so she has established the foundations for a more sustainable and ultimately more profitable future for her family. As her farm has increased its yield and quality has improved Carmela has recognised that she can live off her 2 hectares of land if she focuses on quality and takes a modern farming approach. She is now actively teaching her sons what she has learnt so that they can buy a farm themselves and implement best practice farming techniques from the outset.
After the coffee was delivered, it was placed into a floatation tank and all floaters were removed. The whole cherries were then dried on on raised beds in the sun and turned turned regularly to ensure it dried evenly. The drying was then finished off at a very low temperature in a stationary drier. The coffee was then transported to La Paz where it was rested, and then milled at the Rodriguez family’s brand new dry mill. At the mill, the coffee was carefully screened again by machines and also by hand to remove any defects.
Carmela worked hard to collect and process the cherries for this special micro lot and carefully hand polished all of the cherries before delivering them to the mill! A whole lot of love and hard work has gone into this coffee.. we hope you enjoy it!
Read about the Sol de la Mañana program here and Pedro Rodgriguez here and about Bolivian coffee more generally here.
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6 Month Subscription (Gift/Pre-paid)
Regular price
$150.00Sale price$135.00
Save $15.00
6 Month Subscription (Gift/Pre-paid).
Ethically traded, freshly roasted coffee delivered to your (or a friend's!) door every month? Couldn't be easier! Simply select if you'd like single origins or the seasonal blend and then the grind (if needed).
If you choose Single Origin and we'll keep you (or the lucky friend) supplied with a rotating selection of our unique and delicious single origins (good for filter coffee drinkers). Or choose Seasonal Blend for a regular supply of our steadfast and crowd-pleasing blend (good for espresso drinkers).
Don't forget to also let us know if you need the coffee ground.
This is for one 250g bag delivered every month for 6 months (with no additional shipping costs).
Since 1920, Riverdale Estate has been a family owned business where three generations have worked to improve the quality of their coffee plants. The Farm is located in Eastern Ghat Mountains in Yercaud – South India. Prakashan Balaraman is a young and passionate coffee farmer who is challenging traditional coffee growing practices and processing in India.
In the last 10 years Riverdale Estate has been transformed with new modern farming practices like a state of art cupping lab, energy efficient pulping station(wet mill), drip irrigation for the plants, African style raised beds to dry all our coffee and temperature controlled storage room to store coffee beans post harvest The plantation sits at an altitude of 1450 meter above sea level where we grow Green tip Gesha, brown tip Gesha, SL9 and SL5B arabica varieties.
The Loam soil in these mountain ranges have a perfect mixture of clay, silt and sand to grow coffee and other crops like oranges, jackfruit & peppercorn. The estate has a natural water stream which flows throughout the year making it a very interesting place to cultivate coffee.
Only selective ripe cherries are hand picked by our trained pickers at Riverdale Estate. Quality picking = quality green beans this is in our DNA . Training our hand picker team on an ongoing basis and having quality control measure is the key to ensure coffee are picked at the optimum ripeness for different process.
Fruit development is a lengthly process understanding the maturation of the bean development on a weekly basis provides us the roadmap, the work starts from early on the seed development of the endosperm – how the seeds store protein and sucrose within its walls.
Coffee fruit ripen at different stages so our field manager starts the day by choosing which section of the farm is ready to be picked they do that by measuring the sugar content of the cherries with the help of brix meter, once they select the area in the farm we send the pickers to pick the cherries in the field. We invite our roasters community to visit our farm during harvest season (November – January) to experience first hand how the cherries are picked, processed and dried in the raised beds.
We sun dry the coffees in African style raised bed as it helps us to remove the excess water quickly and creates good air circulation for the coffee beans to dry evenly. Any defective or broken bean in the bed gets cleaned along the way. Every few hours coffee gets turned around by hand so all beans are exposed to the sun evenly. Part of the quality control we monitor the moisture loss every day with the help of the moisture meter and record all the data’s so we can maintain the consistency of every lot produced.
For naturals, honey, carbonic and anaerobic lots extra care is needed while drying in the bed. For the first 4 to 6 days coffees are dried in full sun and cherries are spread out evenly into thin layer so cherries dry evenly and the outer layer of the cherries are sealed properly. Coffees cherries are then moved into a part shade drying beds to slow the drying process for 20-25 days depending the process. Once the beans reaches between 10-13 % moisture we store the beans into a purpose build storage space where the humidity and temperature are monitored daily. All the lots processed are stored separately with the name tag where we record all the necessary information like when it was picked, drying conditions, lot size and processing information.
We sun dry the coffees in African style raised bed as it helps us to remove the excess water quickly and creates good air circulation for the coffee beans to dry evenly. Any defective or broken bean in the bed gets cleaned along the way. Every few hours coffee gets turned around by hand so all beans are exposed to the sun evenly. Part of the quality control we monitor the moisture loss every day with the help of the moisture meter and record all the data’s so we can maintain the consistency of every lot produced.
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Casa de Piedra (Natural) - Costa Rica
Regular price$20.00
Save $-20.00
Dark Chocolate. Toffee. Blackberry Jam.
Farm: Casa de Piedra Grower: Gerardo Arias Region: Tarrazú Country: Costa Rica Processing: Natural Elevation: 1,400 - 1,500m Varieties: Caturra, Catuai Sourced Through: InterAmerican Coffee Australia
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Casa de Piedra is located in the Tarrazu district, in the micro-region of “Llano Bonito de Leon Cortes”. The farm’s name means “Stone House”, and its yearly production is around the 2500 fanegas, with varietals in production such as Caturra, Yellow Catuai, Red Catuai, Venecia, Villa Sarchi, and Geisha.
The Arias family began to mill their cherries themselves in order to gain a better control over their coffee’s quality and fetch better prices. Semi washed, honey, and natural are some of the processes most popular processes for Casa de Piedra, but they also process some very nice anaerobic fermentation coffees.
In addition, Gerardo Arias recently obtained his Q grader and Q processing certification which only adds to his already wide knowledge and experience.
The cherries for this lot are hand-picked before they are immersed in a floatation tank to separate unripe/defective fruits. The cherries were dried with the entire fruit on concrete patios for 8 days, before being transferred to the mechanical dryer where time and temperature are meticulously controlled to achieve the best possible shelf-life.
When the coffee reaches the desired humidity point, it is stored and left to rest for 2 months before being hauled. It is then dry-milled, process during which dry husk is removed from the seeds, and the resulting coffee beans go through weight, screen, density, and colour sorting.
The farm has 3 rock formations near the river that used to be inhabited by the first settlers. Don Gerardo says that when he was a kid he would go spend summers living in these caves.
Mechanical driers are commonly know as Guardiolas in Costa Rica. “G#2” stands for “Guardiola 2” which is Gerardo’s favourite guardiola on his farm.
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