Ibisi Mountain, Rwanda
The first blend component is from the Ibisi Mountain washing station, which sits within the hills of Southern Rwanda, located a short drive from the Nyungwe Forest, a national park known for its incredible biodiversity. Here, local farmer Bernard Uwitije focused primarily on producing commodity (non-specialty) coffee until 2015, when he realized the potential for processing fully-washed specialty coffees in partnership with Rwanda Trading Company.

Currently, Bernard operates sixteen wet mills and works directly with farmers throughout Rwanda – buying, milling, processing and marketing their coffees – while investing in producing communities through agribusiness training programs. Since 2013, these programs, which focus on cultivation innovation and reducing costs of production, have resulted in an 86 percent increase in farm revenue for producer-partners. It’s a highly collaborative effort, which fuels sustainable economic stability from the ground up.

AAAK Cooperative, Papua New Guinea
The next blend component comes from the AAK Cooperative, a group of 64 communities from across the Highlands region of Papua New Guinea, a country in Oceania that comprises the eastern half of the island of New Guinea and its offshore islands in Melanesia. Those 64 communities represent 64 different ‘house-lines’, single-family villages each with languages and traditions uniquely their own. What they have in common is a pidgin called Tok Pisin, and membership in the AAK Cooperative. AAK stands for Apo, Angra and Kange – the word for ‘Unity’ in the three major local languages.

With so many disparate cultural groups and languages across the Highlands, PNG culture has traditionally also not lent itself well to cooperative export structures. AAK is one of the few organizations in the country to have successfully organized farmers across the Western, Central and Eastern Highlands into cohesive groups focused on quality, and they are proud of the role that their coffee plays in promoting unity.

Siete Tinajas, Peru
The blend component from Peru comes from six individual farmers: Isidro Huaman, Doris Chua, Edgar Mendoza, Yrma Polo, Valentin Machacca, and Richard Churata. It's our third year roasting this coffee from southern Peru, and it's the best quality we have seen yet, one of the most delicious Peruvian coffees that we have tasted this year.