Current coffees available
“Three years ago, it may have seemed odd to some in the industry for specialty-coffee importer Cafe Imports and Colombian exporter Banexport to choose Cauca to kick off their first-ever Colombian Best Cup competition. Yet thanks to that effort and the years of work leading up to it, this lesser-known department is quickly making a name for itself next to more popular specialty-producing neighbors like Huila and Narino. ”
Cauca - Best Cup
Our Directors of Operations and of Retail, Luke and Matt, recently spent a week in Cauca, Colombia for the Cauca Best Cup auction with our partners at Cafe Imports. As a result, we will have three different Colombian coffees over the next few months to showcase some of the hard work that is coming out of Cauca. Watch the video our partners put together showing what the competition is all about.
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el trebol - auction lot #7
The highlight of our 2016 Colombia trip was the Cauca’s Best Cup competition and auction. This auction highlights top producers in Colombia, and inspires ongoing pursuit of quality for many producers as they see great work rewarded. Our importing partners particularly sought to start this competition in Cauca three years ago in order to highlight a region that they felt wasn’t getting the attention it deserved. We and to agree - coffees from Cauca are becoming some of our favorites. This coffee is our top prize from the trip - the #7 lot at the auction. We cupped through 30 coffees that had been curated from more than 700 submissions, and this one rose to the top for us.
jambalo - regional select
Our first coffee we'll be showcasing from our trip is the Regional Select - Jambalo. The Regional Select Program is one of a three tier buying structure Cafe Imports has, designed to showcase the unique characteristics within the micro-regions of Colombia. The tiers are separated by individual micro-lot cupping scores with the Regional Selects then blended together, often cupping higher than the sum of its parts.
los arboles - geisha
The second coffee to hit our lineup from our late-2016 Colombia trip is the first-ever Geisha to hit our shelves, and we’re thrilled with it. The geisha variety has been making waves in the coffee world for some time now, as one with a spectacular, lively and delicate flavor profile and a high resistance to the leaf rust epidemic plaguing Central and South American coffee farmers. The catch is that this variety is both low-yielding, demands a lot of fertilizer, and is highly sought after, making it expensive and difficult for producers to pursue.
