For all coffees we buy we have an extensive description with background information about the farm or partner where the coffee is sourced.
We roast several times a week and keep limited stock of roasted coffee to guarantee freshness.
Coffee can be stored for years, however, the best results are achieved between about two and eight weeks after roasting. That’s why we don’t mention an expiry date, but a roasting date on the bottom of our bags.
@Plotcoffee
This exceptional lot was processed, dry milled and exported by Testi Coffee, a family-run business owned and managed by the Yonis family. Faysel A. Yonis established Testi Coffee in 2009 as a coffee exporting company.
Today, Testi owns and/or operates washing stations in Guji, Yirgacheffe, Sidamo and Limu – all premier coffee producing regions. They work with smallholder farmers, intending to secure the very best prices for their coffee so that they can pay fair prices for the cherry delivered. They are currently also building a warehouse in Shakiso where they can process natural coffees locally, in the region where the coffee is grown. This keeps more revenue in the communities where the coffees are produced.
Testi’s objective is quality and building long term business relationships. Their washing stations are very well run and they do diligent work through sorting and screening to get clean and quality beans for export. Testi always adheres to the very highest quality standards to prepare and deliver nothing but high-quality beans.
As of 2018, Testi has launched a quality improvement project at each washing stations that they operate. Their PCS (Premium Cherry Selection) Project fully controls all aspects of harvest and processing to ensure that the fantastic natural quality of the coffee is maintained at each step. They are also making the most of the market liberalisation to benefit the small producers that they work with. Social projects, such as building new classrooms for the local school near their Guji processing factory are also important, and with support from their importing partners they hope to do even more in the future. They also currently have a drinking/household water provisioning project underway in Guji, and they plan to extend this to other communities in the future.
The name ‘Testi’ means Happy or Happiness in Harrari language (it is also the name of Faysel’s middle son). Certainly, Testi is bringing happiness to small scale producers and us!
Region
Shantawene Village, Bensa
Plantation
Ayla CWS
1.950 -2.100
Kurume
Process
Natural Anaerobic
Tasting notes
Peach, pineapple & violet
The Asociación de Productores de Café del Oriente Caucano (ASORCAFÉ) is based in the municipality of Inzá, Cauca. Founded in 2010 by 10 producers, the group now has 450 smallholder members spread across the valleys of the Macizo Colombiano.
Inzá is located on the border of Cauca, Huila and Tolima states, and benefits from a stable climate thanks to it’s proximity to the surrounding mountains, humid weather patterns from the west and dry winds form the south. Coffee is harvested year round, with the main crop being in November-March. Despite being in a relatively small geographical location, ASORCAFÉ producer a staggering number of profiles. The group has 5 buying points on various sides of the mountain, and there are a number of microclimates that producers benefit from.
Due to long standing traditions of land division through inheritance, the average farm size in the state of Cauca is less than a hectare. As such, cooperatives such as ASORCAFÉ play an incredibly important role in the region, allowing smallholders to share resources and negotiate collectively to fetch better prices for their coffees. In many ways ASORCAFÉ is more like a small town than alliance of coffee producers. For an annual fee, they provide social security, health benefits, bereavement leave, even funeral costs are covered by the association. They have rigorous entry standards, such as having clean and well maintained fermentation tanks and pulpers. These standards are not based solely on coffee quality; having (or working towards having) a plot of food crops to ensure self sustaining food security is another entry condition. Entry also allows access to fertilisers, including pre-finance if a member doesn’t have the liquidity. It also gives access to their seed bank – producers mark the trees on their farms that give the best quality, then reserve some of these cherries to give to other producers in the association. In this way, low yield trees with poor cup quality are replaced by higher yielding trees with the best cup profiles. As a result, the rising tide really does lift all boats, as every producer works together to improve the association as a whole, rather than working individually or in competition with their neighbours.
Region
Huila / Cauca department
Plantation
Inza Cooperative
1.700
Caturra, Colombia
Process
Washed
Tasting notes
Brown sugar, shortbread, dried orange
@plotcoffee
This exceptional lot was processed, dry milled and exported by Testi Coffee, a family-run business owned and managed by the Yonis family. Faysel A. Yonis established Testi Coffee in 2009 as a coffee exporting company.
Today, Testi owns and/or operates washing stations in Guji, Yirgacheffe, Sidamo and Limu – all premier coffee producing regions. They work with smallholder farmers, intending to secure the very best prices for their coffee so that they can pay fair prices for the cherry delivered. They are currently also building a warehouse in Shakiso where they can process natural coffees locally, in the region where the coffee is grown. This keeps more revenue in the communities where the coffees are produced.
Testi’s objective is quality and building long term business relationships. Their washing stations are very well run and they do diligent work through sorting and screening to get clean and quality beans for export. Testi always adheres to the very highest quality standards to prepare and deliver nothing but high-quality beans.
As of 2018, Testi has launched a quality improvement project at each washing stations that they operate. Their PCS (Premium Cherry Selection) Project fully controls all aspects of harvest and processing to ensure that the fantastic natural quality of the coffee is maintained at each step. They are also making the most of the market liberalisation to benefit the small producers that they work with. Social projects, such as building new classrooms for the local school near their Guji processing factory are also important, and with support from their importing partners they hope to do even more in the future. They also currently have a drinking/household water provisioning project underway in Guji, and they plan to extend this to other communities in the future.
The name ‘Testi’ means Happy or Happiness in Harrari language (it is also the name of Faysel’s middle son). Certainly, Testi is bringing happiness to small scale producers and us!
It is located in one of our favorite regions in Ethiopia: Guji woreda. The coffee cherries come from farmers in the Shakiso region. About 800 smallholder farmers deliver their coffee cherries to the Gigesa washing station where the coffee cherries are processed. The farms that supply Gigesa are located at 1800 to 2000 meters above sea level. Gigesa washing station exports about 6 containers of coffee every year.
The coffee is very layered and complex with flavors of peach, lemon, and hibiscus.
Region
Plantation
Process
Tasting notes
Peach, lemon & hibiscus
Julio Madrid is the owner of Buenos Aires farm located in the small town of Santa Rosa de Cabral in the Risaralda department. A large part of his 6 acre farm is planted with Colombia variety. This specific lot was processed using an experimental method called ‘culturing’.
Culturing is one of the fermentation methods used in other foods. A base culture, rich in microorganisms, is used to transform another product. At the Buenos Aires farm they have applied this technique for the fermentation of our coffee with the process called culturing, in which starter cultures are mixed with the coffee during the fermentation.
First step is the starter culture based on microorganisms, sucrose, fructose from pineapple, carambola, tangerine among other tropical fruits and aromatic plants. This raw material for the starter is pure, selected and disinfected fruit. This culture is allowed to ferment under special conditions for 8 days controlling temperature, Ph and Brix degrees until reaching ideal parameters.
The coffee is harvested with only fully ripe coffee cherries; zero tolerances for green, pintón and overripe cherries. A fermentation process of around 48 is carried out until reaching special conditions of temperature, Ph and Brix degrees.
When both cultures reach their ideal previously set conditions the coffee fermentation culture and starter culture is mixed and fermented with restricted oxygen in cans, controlling temperature, Ph, Brix degrees and it is left to ferment for another 180 hours.
After fermentation, the coffee is washed and dried. This drying is done slowly between 15 to 20 days.
When this coffee crossed the cupping table, we were immediately intrigued. It’s super expressive, sweet and clean and is like drinking coffee mixed with passionfruit juice.
Region
Plantation
Process
Tasting notes
Passionfruit, passionfruit & passionfruit
Our Brazilian coffee comes from Capricornio. They established Capricornio to breathe new life in five regions in the southern states of Paraná and São Paolo, which until the 1960s, were one of the country’s most vibrant coffee producing regions. Due to terrible frosts and the rise of the major coffee regions up north, its production stagnated, leading many coffee farmers to move north, leaving their farms underdeveloped. Now, due to climate change, these regions have become attractive to farmers again, but hardly anyone saw specialty potential.
That is until Capricornio found 20 passionate farmers and started the Four Seasons project: they helped them turn their farms into modern, ecologically sustainable farms and process their coffees to the highest standards.
Now, they have started to show what these coffee regions have to offer the specialty coffee world. Because of its uniquely low latitude (around the tropic of Capricorn at 23ºS), coffee here endures more stress while developing. This leads to large, slowly ripened cherries with surprisingly complex cup profiles, similar to what happens at higher altitudes. We were impressed not only by the coffee’s cup quality, but by the company’s achievements in processing and creating coffees in close cooperation with specialty roasters.
The Dulce has a classic Brazilian cup profile: good body and sweetness, mild acidity and loads of nutty and chocolate flavours. Very good everyday espresso.
Region
Plantation
Altitude
Plant variety
Process
Tasting notes
Chocolat & walnut
Producer William Gomez has been working in coffee for over 20 years. His farm is located in the Acevedo region in the Huila department in southwest Colombia. Finca La Esperanza sits at an altitude of 1.600 meter above sea level and is about 8 Hectares. When William first began farming he only had 1,000 coffee trees and after that first harvest he used that income to invest back into the farm. He has been doing that every year and now he has a little over 15,000 trees. His dedication and hard work are evident in the quality of coffee he produces.
This lot is from the Pink Bourbon variety which is rapidly gaining popularity among producers and roasters. For producers it’s an interesting variety because it’s resistance to leaf rust, climate adaptability and good yield. Roasters like this variety for it’s cup profile. The ripe cherries turn into a orange color (not pink!). Contrary to common belief, it’s not a hybrid of the red and yellow Bourbon varietals. It is more likely to be a mutated Ethiopian variety.
After picking the ripe cherries, the coffee is floated and fermented in the cherry for 16 hours. After depulping the beans are wet fermented for another 16 hours. Lastly the coffee is dried in parabolic driers for 18 – 25 days.
The result is a very sweet cup, with grapefruit, black tea and sugar cane. We really like this coffee as espresso, where you also get some floral notes into the cup.
Region
Plantation
Altitude
Plant variety
Process
Tasting notes
Grapefruit, black tea & sugar cane
Dionel Chilito Lopez owns the 10-hectare farm El Roble, where he grows 3 hectares of coffee, including Gesha variety. Dionel is from a family of coffee producers, and his father gave him his first piece of land when he was still a teenager, where Dionel grew Caturra. After focusing on Caturra for many years, he received some positive feedback about Gesha and decided to switch his production to include that coffee.
He picks the coffee ripe when they are dark red, depulps them the afternoon they are picked after sorting them through azaranda, and dry ferments for 36 hours. He washes the coffee 2–3 times before putting them in parabolic dryers for 16–18 days.
The result is a everything you want in a Geisha coffee: a complex, layered cup of coffee with flavours of lemon curd, stone fruits and floral notes.
Region
Plantation
Altitude
Plant variety
Process
Tasting notes
lemon curd, stone fruits & floral
Cordillera de Fuego micromill grew out of the partnership of two coffee producers in the West Valley region of Costa Rica. Luis Eduardo Campos Varela and José Francisco Fernández Arias wanted to process their own coffee in order to offer a unique coffee. Drawing inspiration from the fermentation process techniques used by the wine industry, the micromill was born in 2016.
The mill started with a maximum capacity of 2000 bags of coffee and has since grown to process around 14,000 bags today. They currently buy coffee from nearly 200 smallholder producers from the West Valley and Tarrazú regions, providing an income for producers to reinvest in their farms. In 2020, Cordillera de Fuego was recognized by ICAFE (Instituto del Café de Costa Rica) as the company that paid the best prices to their producer partners, and as the mill that exported the most specialty coffee.
The team at Cordillera de Fuego have worked to focus on their environmental sustainability as they’ve grown. They use solar panels to provide renewable energy to their office and mill, and have added an oven for drying coffee at the mill which is fueled 98% by the husk that is leftover after dry milling the coffee for exportation. The mill works to avoid the use of agrichemicals, instead opting for natural microorganisms which decompose the organic waste leftover from milling the coffee cherries. These microorganisms help to prevent bad aromas in the mill, and also help to purify the water used to process coffee. This practice also prevents common plagues of insects like flies that typically occur where large amounts of organic waste occurs.
Anaerobic processing at Cordillera de Fuego begins with rigorous cherry sorting and selection. Cherries chosen to undergo anaerobic fermentation must have a very mature Brix degree measurement of its mucilage, measuring around 26%. The cherries that meet the criteria are pulped and placed into stainless steel fermentation tanks with all of their mucilage still on.
Prior to fermentation, another batch of cherries is selected to be the “mucilage donor” for the anaerobic fermentation. These cherries are pulped, and all of the liquid created by the process is added to the stainless steel tanks. Enough of this liquid is added to cover all of the pulped coffee set to be fermented, everything is mixed well, and then the tanks are hermetically sealed to create the anaerobic environment.
Temperature is controlled throughout fermentation, and the process takes 18–23 hours. After 15 hours, the pH is measured constantly to monitor the progress and ensure that fermentation is stopped once all of the sugar has been consumed and before alcohol is produced in the tanks.
The coffee is moved to be sun dried on drying patios. Coffee is moved regularly to ensure even drying, and covered overnight to prevent the coffee from absorbing humidity from the cool environment. Once the coffee reaches 9–12% humidity, the coffee is stored in parchment in clean bags in their warehouse.
All this meticulous work makes for a super clean cup of coffee. You’ll find very pronounced flavours of cinnamon in the coffee along with apple and cocoa notes.
It’s like apple pie in a mug!
Region
Plantation
Altitude
Plant variety
Process
Tasting notes
Cinnamon, apple pie & cocoa
The name Aquiares means “land between rivers” in the Huetar indigenous language, and Aquiares is commonly referred to as “Aquiares Coffee and Community.” It is the largest farm in Costa Rica and home to 1,800 people. Although the farm was founded in 1890, Alfonso Robelo is the man responsible for its transformation a century later. Alfonso arrived in Costa Rica in the 1980’s seeking refuge from the civil war in Nicaragua, where he was politically active. When politics soured into violence, he fled the country to keep his family and himself safe after receiving several threats against his life. Once in Costa Rica, Alfonso began building the Aquiares community on the enchanting slopes of the Turrialba volcano, a lush area of forests, rivers, fauna, and bright flora.
Alfredo challenged the status quo, transforming the relationship between landowner and farm workers. He brought a visionary approach to Aquiares, a farm suffering from low prices and instability. Aquiares had more than 200 employee homes on the farm, but because none owned their home, there was great insecurity in the workforce. Alfonso saw this as an opportunity to strengthen the company by having people feel pride in the coffee they produce. He evolved the farm into a small town where workers purchased their own homes. Today, Aquiares remains a model of sustainable agriculture.
Nowadays Alfonso’s son, Diego, manages the farm. Under his lead, the farm has taken a fresh approach to specialty coffee and exploring the farm’s potential. Through excellent agricultural management, embracing new varieties, and experimenting with processing, Aquiares has become a trailblazer among specialty coffee producers in Costa Rica and all of Central America.
Aquiares focuses on carbon neutrality and measures its greenhouse gas emissions to calculate its carbon emissions against its offsets. An agent verified under International Panel on Climate Change norms verifies these calculations and Aquiares’ carbon measurement and emissions reduction are part of Costa Rica’s Nationally Appropriate Mitigation Action. In addition to capturing carbon, the farm’s protected biological corridors have long ensured the wellbeing of local animals and plants. Aquiares also welcomes researchers from around the world to conduct agricultural and environmental studies on their land. Projects have included investigating the benefits of agroforestry on soil health and observing the diverse bird and wildlife species that thrive in an agroecological environment.
Aquiares is an example of innovation and perseverance whose benefits extend beyond the farm and workers and serve as a model for sustainable, equitable production for the broader coffee industry.
We currently have two lots from Aquiares Estate;
Natural Anaerobic lot
Centroamericano H1 is an F1 hybrid variety generated by crossing the Sarchimor T-5296 and a wild Rume Sudan variety. It is reproduced through a tissue culture cloning process called somatic embryogenesis. This cultivar has been distributed among coffee producers in Central America over the last decade and the first productive harvests are now available. Turrialba’s climate is well suited to growing this new variety and Aquaires is up to the challenge of meeting its complex nutritional needs.
The Centroamericano variety was especially selected for Anaerobic Natural processing because of its high mucilage content. The cherries are floated and washed with fresh water but not depulped. Afterwards, the coffee is placed in a stainless steel tank with a one-way air valve. In the tank the coffee will start to ferment with the natural microorganisms and yeast present on the coffee cherries. The fermentation will push out all the oxygen and after one or two hours the anaerobic environment is created within the tank. This fermentation continues for a total time of 24 hours. After fermenting the cherries are washed again with fresh water and dried in the solar dryer. First for two days they are placed on a ceramic patio and finish drying in layered beds within the solar dryer.
Unlike a lot of other anaerobics the flavours of the Aquiares Anaerobic are less intense but more layered and complex. You’ll find flavours of grapefruit, strawberry, caramel and orange.
Washed Peaberry lot
Peaberry coffee is named for its pea-like appearance. Most coffee cherries contain two seeds and Peaberries occur when only one seed, small and round in shape, develops in the cherry. Around 5 percent of all coffee is peaberry beans, but usually these are not separated.
Aquiares separated the peaberry and made this beautiful lot. This lot was mechanically washed and dried on raised beds in a solar dryer for 18 to 24 days.
Region
Plantation
Altitude
Plant variety
Process
Tasting notes
Grapefruit, strawberry & caramel
Region
Plantation
Altitude
Plant variety
Process
Tasting notes
Milk chocolate, caramel & orange
