News

It has been an exceptionally busy time for our green coffee team over the last three months with plenty going on here in London and at the farms in Central and South America.

Starting in London, the summer months saw the last of the new crop shipments arriving from Central America and it’s all go on the tasting table checking the arrival samples. We shipped thirteen coffees from ten different farms in Guatemala, some of which have already been and gone from the counter at the time of writing! Four coffees arrived from El Salvador, the first of which – La Divina Providencia – is on the counter now. And lastly, three coffees from Ethiopia arrived – Suke Quto which will be available soon, along with Tibebu Roba and Alemayehu Daniel which are due on the counter in the new year. It’s a bit of an awkward time in shipping generally – containers are out of place and shipping routes are subject to change at short notice. We are allowing a bit more time than we usually do for containers to arrive as we are finding that a fair few of them are taking a circuitous route to get to us.

In Costa Rica and Guatemala, we have been catching up with many of the farmers from whom we buy. It is post-harvest tidy up time in the coffee growing regions there, and a nice opportunity for us to have a chat and learn about the plans for next year. We have also been planning our buying for the next crop which will be harvested in early 2026.

We had a very interesting trip to Peru in early summer visiting Cultivar, the export team we work with, and scouting some new farms and cooperatives. We are searching for a particular flavour profile which we hope to find in Peru – more on this in a future newsletter.

And lastly, we have been buying new crop coffee in Colombia, Bolivia and Brazil. First up we have confirmed three containers of coffee from Colombia. From the main crop we bought 20 coffees from Nariño, one from Tolima, and one from Cundinamarca; from the mitaca crop we bought seven coffees from Huila. These coffees are shipping right now. Also shipping now are the ten coffees we bought from our good friends at Agricafe in Bolivia. We’re always delighted to visit Bolivia and taste through the crop. The Agricafe team are continuously making improvements and it’s exciting to try the results of their experiments. In September we wrapped up our summer buying trips in Brazil. The annual Brazil trip is not for the faint-hearted. We tasted 160 coffees, selecting and refining that selection until we have reached our contract numbers.

There will be no rest for the green team heading into Christmas, with buying from the main crop in Huila (Colombia), and a planned trip to see Tesfaye Bekele from Suke Quto (Ethiopia). And there will be plenty of tasting of the arrival samples of all the coffee bought during the summer.

Monmouth x

We have a new coffee coming onto the counter this month from Clovis Mello’s farm in Brazil, Terras de São Francisco. We bought two very small lots from this farm – Arara, which we sent out in the subscription coffees in August, and Yellow Catuaí which will be available soon. This coffee fills the Sitio […]

One of the biggest decisions a coffee farmer must make is selecting the best varieties of coffee to plant on their farm. The ‘best’ can have a few different meanings and a balance must ideally be struck between productivity, cup quality, and marketability. The varietal selection has a strong influence on the final cup flavour […]

Last month we touched briefly on the longer-term impacts that can result from decisions made in the short term on a coffee farm. This month we wrap up our La Bolsa series with discussion on the farm’s longer-term challenges.  Finca La Bolsa is in the Huehuetenango state, near the border with Mexico, and the area […]

Last month we talked about the crop cycle at La Bolsa and the harvest pattern that is repeated year after year. The first harvest for a coffee tree is usually three years after planting and the trees are typically productive for thirty years or so before being replaced. Farmers either buy in seedlings or select […]

It’s always fun to have two coffees from the same farm on the counter at the same time – and this month we have the two La Bolsas. Both are from the same crop, the same varietals and the same processing (traditional washed) method. They differ in a key aspect though – caffeine. After selection […]

What a glorious start to Spring we are having and a perfect time for a quick catch up. Just landed is our latest annual – 46 – put together to highlight all the coffees we have roasted over our last year with added commentaries on a few interesting bits and bobs. The team have done a wonderful job […]

It has been three years since we moved to only using reusable cups for takeaway coffees in our shops. We had made the decision in 2021 and implemented it by March 2022. In the preceding years we had been looking to replace the paper cups that we were using at the time and in researching […]

Finca La Bolsa, Guatemala While we enjoy the last dregs of winter it’s all go in Central America where the crop is coming in and in Costa Rica the farms are at the peak of their harvest. This is the busiest time of the year on the farm with coffee being picked, processed, and dried […]

We’re going to start 2025 off with a topic we don’t often talk about – the coffee futures market. You may have noticed over the last few months a fair amount of reporting on the commodity coffee market and its record prices. We don’t usually pay too much attention to the commodity market because it […]