by sam on January 14, 2012
This is the lush landscape of the Eastern Highlands in Papua New Guinea.
Photos c/o Counter Culture Coffee's Flickr
Baroida is a serious contender for quality in the specialty coffee market. The farm was founded in the 1960′s by Ben Colbran and his family. The farm was sold to a trust in 1979. For many years Ben’s son Nichol Colbran managed Baroida without ownership.
Photos c/o Counter Culture Coffee's Flickr
After a six year hiatus from managing the farm, Nichol purchased his family’s farm back from the trust. He found the farm had been badly mismanaged and had fallen into a state of disrepair. Nichol and his family began the daunting task of refurbishing the practices of quality on the farm. Needless to say, good job guys! This farm produces coffee that yields an exciting and vibrantly sweet cup.
We are fans of Baroida, but I was beside myself when I heard that Counter Culture’s first micro-lot from Papua New Guniea was available. Of course, I was even more excited to find out the micro-lot was connected with Baroida!
The micro lot represents one day’s worth of washing and is primarily comprised of coffee from a single village named Bonta. This selection has even more intensity and complexity. Sadly, civil war has sprung up recently in the region and the village’s harvest has been destroyed. This is yet another reason to treasure this micro-lot because it may take a few years before we will see this coffee again. Unfortunately, political instability, civil wars, and even genocides are not uncommon in coffee producing regions. Hopefully buying this coffee and praising the people who produce it will, in some small way, help to support the rebuilding of the village.
by sam on December 16, 2011
Karatu
Blackberry, raisin, ripe tomato
Region: Thika
Varieties: SL28, SL34, Ruiru 11 (less than 5 percent)
Elevation: 1,883 meters
Harvest: October 2010 – January 2011
This coffee, from the washing station Karatu in Thika, Kenya, really stood out to Counter Culture’s roaster Tim Hill. The coffee’s “distinctive dark fruit characteristics” prompted Tim to declare it one of his favorites on his pass through the country earlier this year.
At Everyman, we are big fans of the dynamic profiles from Counter Culture’s Kenyan coffees; they’re sweet, juicy acid bombs that never disappoint. We have been grooving on the long fermentation post soak Kenyan’s all year and are proud to offer this coffee from the Karatu washing station in Thika, Kenya.
It’s wonderful how the clean bright juicy acidity is cut by a combination of savory, sweet undertones. Basically, it’s got a lot going on and that’s to be expected because it’s a KENYAN!
Are we all clear on how superior Kenyan coffees are? Ok good come get some…
by sam on September 8, 2011
Our coffee roaster Counter Culture created a series of
illustrated slides that explain the current scope of coffee as a commodity
As you may already have noticed, some of our drink prices are rising this week. Our prices have been pretty stable over the past two years, so this may require some explanation.
Two major factors played into this decision. First, the price of unroasted (or “green”) coffee has been rising dramatically for some time now. Without getting into the nitty-gritty details of international coffee trade, this means that coffee is more expensive for everyone: importers, roasters, us here at Everyman and folks at cafes around the world. We’re super committed to bringing you coffees that we’re stoked about, so we’re not going to cut corners in order to maintain our prior price point; we have to keep pace with these rising costs.
Second, we’ve been working on sourcing some truly exceptional and unique coffees for our hand-poured coffee selection. These coffees offer some mind-blowing gustatory experiences, but their quality & rarity makes them significantly pricier than our other offerings.
Due to these influences, look for some incremental increases in the price of drip coffee, espresso, americanos and our hand-poured coffee selections over the next week or so. We hope you’ll agree that the coffee’s bangin’ enough to be worth the money. Thanks for bearing with us!
Love,
Sams
