Cosmic Shift Seasonal Espresso

It’s the New Year, and not in recent memory have we been so elated to see one depart.

We’d like to say the times they are a-changin’, but Dylan also just sold the rights to that song to anyone who has the money to license it. In a world that sometimes feels like nothing’s changing fast enough, we find ourselves looking to the cosmos for a little lasting comfort and guidance. 

“Our Lady of The Stars” by illustrator Ana Valdez adorns our new year seasonal espresso blend, tending to the planetary interactions of Saturn and Jupiter as they came into alignment in tandem with the Winter Solstice back on Dec. 21st. This conjunction of the gas giants was plainly visible in the Southwest skies around the globe, heralding a new age of star dancing not seen since the dawn of the civil rights movement in the 1960s.

Two planets, coming together, to make one glorious point of light. We can’t help but think it’s a bit redolent of that “one step forward” after what feels like way too many back.

Another cosmic shift. And damn if it isn’t timely, as new developments glimmer up in hope of ending a very long winter.

In this spirit of appreciation and renewal, we are pleased to offer you this transformative espresso – a seasonal blend with Central American “white honey” processed coffees complemented by a clean and full Ethiopian lot from the Kolla Bolcha Cooperative.

About the Components:

This is a blend of coffees from three of our favorite producer groups: Hunapu, Los Crestones, and Kolla Bolcha.

The coffees of the Hunapu producers are grown on small family farm plots high on the slopes of the Agua volcano, near Antigua, Guatemala. This is a region consisting of primarily indigenous farmers, and it’s always amazing to see how the quality of their coffees rival and even surpass that found in the grand estates near the town center. The predominant variety here has always been Bourbón, and it is cultivated using traditional farming techniques passed down through the generations.

One of the smallest cooperatives we work with, Los Crestones is a team of 12 neighboring family farms located at the bottom of the Cerro Chirripó in Costa Rica. These producers grow their coffee individually and share a common wet mill, drying area, bodegas, and a small dry mill. While coffees can be specially sourced from each of the individual farms, Producer’s Pride is the signature offering of the Los Crestones cooperative as a group. After picking, the cooperative uses an eco-pulper to process the coffee cherries as a “white honey,” with most of the fruit stripped from the parchment-covered beans. 

The Kolla Bolcha cooperative is the largest of these producer groups. It is comprised of just over 400 members who farm coffee in small plots throughout the Agaro woreda of the western Ethiopian Jimma Zone. For hundreds of years, the heirloom coffees grown here have been cultivated using techniques similar to those we still see today.