After much deliberation, preamble and a lot of work, it is time to unveil the coffees [and the approach behind them] for our inaugural subscription drop for the month of June. We’ve almost hit 100 subs for our opening month and we cannot thank our customers enough for the continued support. However with this coming sub drop we also hope to showcase a lot of the changes we’ve had in the works when it comes to our approach to roasting and sourcing our coffees, a lot of which we’ll be breaking down in a sibling blog post along with details on this month's drops.

1) Long Miles Muntana Hill

One of our favorites from the most recent Burundi harvest, this coffee is a subversion from the profile you’d typically expect from a Burundi coffee with a soft milky body and a very white fruit and white tea acidity throughout. An oxymoronically delicate screamer that we’re putting on both our clean and little bit of both sub.

Tasting Notes: White Peach, White tea, White grape, Pink Red Bull

Funk rating: 0/5

Varietal: Field Blend

Region: Kayanza, Burundi

Process: Freshly harvested cherries are floated and hand sorted before pulping. The parchment is then fermented underwater for around 36 hours to break down the remaining mucilage, followed by washing, density grading, and a final clean water soak. The coffee is slowly dried on raised African beds over 16–20 days.

Altitude: 2200masl

Importer: Long Miles Coffee Project/Osito

2) Kenya Washed Ngomano Factory

A traditional juicy red kenyan with a dominant red currant acidity rounded out by the earthy aromatics of green tea with bright slightly herbaceous undertones we’re placing as mint. This coffee is the second coffee in the clean sub to contrast the delicate acidity of the Muntana with its bright and juicy profile.

Tasting Notes: Red Currant, Green Tea, Mint, Vegan Tomato Alternative

Funk rating: 0.5/5

Varietal: SL28, SL34, Rurui11and Batian

Altitude: 1700 masl

Region: Iveti, Machakos County, Kenya

Process: Washed

Importer: Royal Coffee

3) Jorge 'Pikudo' Andrade Pikudo Rosado

This one is our interesting processed coffee that we’re putting on our little bit of both sub for the funk curious. The processing protocols for this coffee were heavily inspired by the traditional Yemeni Natural process, an influence which Herbert credits to his CQI trainer who he got started on coffee processing with. In the cup we find tart but bright berry notes accentuated by an effervescent orange blossom note that pervades the cup, all expressed in a syrupy profile that become the hallmark of a well done anaerobic/anoxic process.

Tasting Notes: orange blossom, strawberry, blueberry, the good part of an anaerobic

Funk rating: 2/5

Varietal: Rosado/Pink Bourbon

Altitude: 1900 masl

Region: Palestina, Colombia

Process: Anoxic Natural - Very ripe to overripe cherries are fermented for 12 hours in cherry before they are transferred to sealed containers and fermented anaerobically for 72 hours before drying.

Importer: LaReb

4) Panama Los Gonzalez Anaerobic Natural

A significantly lighter and more refined but equally fun rendition of the profile that made our Jose Giraldo Typica Natural as iconic as it was. This one is definitely the dedicated neutron star drop for this sub and one confined to our most dedicated of funk fans.

Tasting notes: Watermelon Candy, Concorde Grape, Jose Giraldo Typica Natural

Funk Rating: 4/5

Varietals: Caturra

Altitude: 1600 masl

Region: Horqueta, Boquete, Chiriquí, Panama

Processing: Anaerobic natural - Cherries are first fermented in grainpro bags for 24 hours, then transferred to fermentation barrels, where they're anaerobically fermented for 24 hours. Lastly, they're dried on raised African beds.

Importer: Captains Coffee

 

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We’ve purchased, batched and frozen all of our coffees in preparation for the sub and have the first few months of our subs already planned out. We’re very thankful for the support our inaugural drop has received and it was frankly much more than we expected to get when we first purchased the coffees we had planned for the subs. As a consequence of our woeful underestimation of the support we’d get, a lot of the auction coffee as well some of the more unique offerings we had initially planned to release for both the subs and standard retail, might not make it to retail in any significant capacity if at all. But as a thank you for all the support we’ve received from our subscribers, in addition to launching these coffees via the subscription first, we’re also giving subscribers early access to all our drops, including the ones they received in their subscription so that our subscribers don’t miss out on drops that catch their eye from a subscription plan they’re subscribed to or if they simply just want more bags of the coffees they’ve received. As a consequence of our gratitude however, this may largely prevent a lot of our smaller lot coffees from ever hitting retail. However, unless they sell out in early access [which isn’t super likely], we will still have a lot of our geshas and big bag Ethiopian and Kenyan coffees up for sale on the site.

Once again, thank you all for your amazing support to both us and the charity we’ve partnered for our first sub drop [more here, https://www.instagram.com/p/DWgwnCnDnKU/]. The cut off for this month's sub drop is the 5th of June after which we’ll get started on roasting and packing the month's coffees to be sent out. We hope to have your continued support as we go into the future and also probably purchase more green to have it make it to our standard web store.