Orders are shipped every Monday, Thursday 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.
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.
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 ---
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.
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.
"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)"
The Zelaya family has been growing coffee for four generations and more than 100 years. This renowned family owns farms throughout Guatemala and grows some of only a handful of genuine ‘Antigua’ coffees (coffees grown in the Antigua valley area, bounded by three volcanoes: Agua, Acatenango and Fuego).
Finca Santa Clara is ninety hectares in size and is located on the fertile southern slopes of the Volcán de Agua, in the Antigua Valley, at 1,600–1,830 metres above sea level. The farm has been managed since 1988 by Ricardo Zelaya, the fourth generation of the Zelaya family to have produced coffee at Santa Clara.
Ricardo is a meticulous and incredibly professional farmer who is focused on producing the very best coffee he can. He manages four coffee farms in Antigua; Santa Clara, Puerta Verde, San Agustin and Juaja and also owns and manages a farm called Carrizal in New Oriente. His farms are scrupulously well-managed—from the careful selection of varietals planted, attention given to plant nutrition and pruning, to the close supervision of the wet and dry mills. Both mills are located at Santa Clara Estate and owned by Ricardo, giving him complete control over quality from picking through to export.
Ricardo is passionate about sustainability. Coffee on his farms is shade grown, which protects the plants from direct sunlight, maintains soil health, and provides an important habitat for birds and insect life. The family’s mills are also eco-friendly and feature sedimentation tanks that prevent pollution of the local river systems. All of the pulp from the mills is composted and used as an organic fertiliser for the farm. In addition, parchment from the dry mill is used for fuel to reduce the reliance on wood.
Ricardo has a loyal and dedicated team, and many of his staff have worked on the farm and with the family for generations. For instance, the Farm Administrator, Marcos Rompiche, has worked for the Zelayas for over two decades and is the third generation in his family to work the land. The Production Manager, Israel Yool, has over fifteen years experience working for the family and is the second generation to do so. Including Marcos and Israel, the farm provides work for sixty permanent employees year-round, all of whom help Ricardo manage the processing and production of his farms. The family hires an additional 250–400 individuals during the harvest to help pick and process the coffee.
Ricardo recognises that his people are his most valuable asset “Because 80% of the cost of coffee is labour—you need to depend on a lot of people. I think that if your people are earning a good salary, if they have good conditions and if they’re happy, then they’ll do a better job, and with more will.”
Every cherry at Santa Clara is selectively hand-picked and sorted before being inspected and approved by the foreman at the wet mill. The farm also hires around fifty ‘special pickers’ who have demonstrated particular dexterity and are selected to hand-harvest some of the farm’s micro-lots using their impressive attention to detail. These employees can receive more than double the minimum daily wage through picking coffee at the farm. According to Ricardo, although they are very demanding about picking practices, the majority of the seasonal workers come back year after year, which is a testament to the fair conditions and pay they receive.
On the same day that they were picked, the fully ripe cherries were washed thoroughly in the receiving tanks, and additional water was passed over them to remove any traces of dirt. They were then left in this tank overnight. Additionally, the cherries were taken through the washing channels to ensure there were no floaters, and then transferred directly to the African beds inside the greenhouse where they were turned every thirty minutes initially, and then as the beans dried out this was increased to every fifteen minutes to ensure uniform drying. Drying took around twenty-one days to reach the desired moisture level. This method of drying allows Ricardo more control over the process, enabling him to ensure the coffee is dried slowly and evenly. Once dry, the coffee is stored in parchment until it is ready for export. It is then milled at Ricardo’s dry mill which is located on the farm. The management of this meticulously run mill is overseen by a talented team who carefully monitor every stage of milling to ensure high quality expectations are met. Throughout the process, Ricardo also ensures that all organic by-products are recycled and reused.
Ricardo has a dedicated lab located on his property and a QC team focused on analysing every single lot produced on the farm. Balmer Aragón heads up the QC program and is charge of all of the roasting and cupping. He works closely with Edgar Deleon who is the assistant farm administrator, and has worked for Santa Clara for fourteen years.
In recent years, Ricardo and his daughters, Bel and Katia, have implemented several social initiatives to benefit all their employees, with the objective of supporting them and their families to improve quality of life, and gain higher job satisfaction.
Some initiatives have focused on health, with workshops for employees on basic hygiene and education around the importance of drinking filtered water. On the back of this, the Zelayas created a Ecofilter finance program, where a worker would pay for half of the filter and farm would pay out the the other half.
Another initiative focused on female empowerment. All female employees, or female family members were welcomed to workshops where they learnt new skills like sewing, cooking, traditional candy making and jewellery making. These skills provided the women with the opportunity to create an important source of income in the coffee off-season, and also helped to build a sense of community and purpose.
There are also some long-term initiatives focused on education that have been implemented. In 2011, Bel, who has a degree in Special Education, founded the Santa Clara Scholarship Fund, with the help of her sister Katia. This fund provides financial support for some of the children of the farm’s employees. Many children in Guatemala are forced to stop going to school early because the school fees, and associated costs like school uniforms, are not affordable for their families. Currently there are thirty student recipients of the Santa Clara Scholarship fund. These students receive money for tuition fees, uniforms and schoolbooks, as well as the opportunity to participate in weekly workshops that focus on important educational and leadership skills.
In addition, Ricardo set up a ‘Coffee High School’ in 2019, for people interested in pursuing a career in coffee. The two-year course (which is run on the weekends so students can maintain their full-time jobs) requires students to have completed studies up to the equivalent of Year 10 in Australia, however there is no age limit for the students. In 2019 the first cohort to commence their studies was made up of eighteen students (two of whom are from Santa Clara); this number will double to thirty-six in 2020 when the next cohort begins their first year of the course. Topics covered in the course cover everything from pruning and picking, through to wet and dry processing, and cupping. “This program is aimed at ensuring we are training the next generation of coffee professionals.” Ricardo explained.
The workers’ happiness and respect at Santa Clara was very clearly demonstrated at the Christmas party (an annual event to which all of Santa Clara’s workers and families are invited to dance and eat lots of yummy food). To show their gratitude to Ricardo and his family, the workers surprised them with a video one year, which you can watch below (we can’t encourage you to watch this enough—it will make you smile!).
This wonderful coffee with intense fruit notes is produced by Upstream's partners GnF at their Konga Sede Washing Station, in the heart of Yirgacheffe - just a couple of miles away from the town that gave name to this world-renown coffee. The station is managed by Yirgalen Melid, who has been working there for almost 20 years. A producer himself, he coordinates the arrivals of coffee during the harvest, and the processing of the beans according to the strict quality guidelines.
More than 400 farmers, known as 'outgrowers' deliver their fresh coffee cherries the same day they are picked from the field to the station, whether for washed or natural processing. The farms, small in size, are situated at an elevation between 1,750 and 2,200 meters above sea level. The total annual production of the washing station is around 150 tonnes. The most common variety of tree is known locally as 'Weleso Gurume'.
Growers are paid the first installment on the spot, then many times they stick around to overlook how their beans are processed. During the offseason they are paid a balance previously agreed upon. This is not an imposed condition but rather a mutual arrangement with the farmers to help them plan their domestic finances. They do not have to go through the ECX but the outturn quality test is of the same standard. The additional transport expenses are saved by the outgrowers adding to their bottom line revenue.
GnF is a family producer and they have 4 washing stations. Upstream have been working with them for 3 years and one of the business patterns (Nithya) visited them last year. They have been focussing on consistently high quality and standardising the processing. Upstream encourage roasters to support respective producer programs directly with financial assistance - 'Upstream Endeavour’ is a program wherein they complete the cycle by giving back to the deserving parties in the supply chain.
Google Maps location of the station can be visited here.
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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).
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