Cosmic Shift Seasonal Espresso

This year, as we celebrate our 20th cycle, we’re taking a look back at some of our favorite seasonal espressos. Cosmic Shift first lit up our sky in 2021, and this year we’re bringing it back with visions of abundance, optimism, and great coffee. 

As the stars align for Ritual and all of you, we’ve lined up 3 of our favorite coffees to take you on a trip. Let Cosmic Shift bring you across Latin America to discover prosperity, balanced flavors, and notes of dark chocolate, green grapes, and candied plum!

This year’s artwork features powerful symbolism for our season ahead—peep the evil eye, protecting creativity and happiness; embody the mouth, speaking truth; and note the latte art, representing our sun! 

It’s time for another Cosmic Shift, and we can’t wait for what’s in store!

The 3 stars of Cosmic Shift are:

Oahupan, Veracruz, México

Ohuapan is a small community located in the Tlaltetela district, one of the most important coffee-growing areas in the Huatusco region in Veracruz, Mexico. Huatusco produces approximately half of Veracruz’s coffee, and Tlaltetela contributes a huge part of that. Ohuapan’s coffee, like the rest of Veracruz, is harvested in cherry. Producers use mules to transport the coffee from the farms to the nearest section of dirt road, then transport the coffee in trucks or ATVs to the nearest collection center. Transit time between farms and the central collection center in Ohuapan varies from 45 minutes to 1 hour.

In the central processing plant, they use spring water to wash the cherry, which they then ferment for 48 hours in concrete tanks, followed by mechanical drying for 60 hours.

The lands in Ohuapan are not the most fertile in the area, so producers usually use a larger amount of Yara fertilizer and organic compost made from coffee pulp. Many of the lower areas in Ohuapan are dedicated entirely to livestock.

For many years, the Tlaltetela area was essentially known for producing undifferentiated-quality coffee in large volumes. Producers in the higher areas like Ohuapan weren’t motivated to continue doing the exhausting work of growing, processing, and selling the special varieties that they had, since in the end they would receive the same price as lower-quality coffees and their coffees would be blended.

After an exhaustive search carried out by Red Fox with the support of local partners, we were able to find the producers in the area that had differentiated coffees and were doing work that necessitated premium prices. This access to a new, differentiated market was a radical shift for the producers in the area since they now had a stable and secure market to sell their products.

This security is crucial for specialty coffee producers—knowing they have a long-term stable buyer with quality as a priority means they can invest in the medium and long term, not just in the short term. They can budget for endeavors that improve quality and save labor over time, as long as they know their buyer plans to stick around and keep prices as high as possible.

El Alto, Costa Rica

Grace Calderón Jiménez and her farm, El Alto, were Ritual’s first introduction to the Chirripó region. The coffee is a unique experimentation from Grace—processed with a washing method most commonly practiced in Kenya. The results of this work show themselves in one of the cleanest and brightest offerings we are able to find in all of Costa Rica!

CAFECO Tonga 16, Chiapas, México

Chiapas, México’s largest coffee producing area by volume, is home to CAFECO, a cooperatively run organization started in 2016. CAFECO represents the work of over 540 small holder farmers and provides financial and educational support in the cultivation and sale of their coffees. Farmers sell their coffee to CAFECO, who bulks them into lots sold as Tongas which are grouped and sold based on quality, uniformity in flavor, and variety. CAFECO works with farms who prioritize environmental sustainability on their farms, working with organic practices in their harvest each year. This lot is a combination of three varieties, Bourbón, Marsellesa, and Caturra. It’s bright, floral, and sweet—with notes of cherries, pound cake, and milk chocolate.