Comfort and Joy

Holiday Blend

This holiday blend features notes of chocolate orange and toasted almonds. Easy drinking and comforting for the holiday season. Santa Lucia farm in Brazil brings in the comforting notes of chocolate and almonds while Vunga farm in Rwanda adds a joyous balance of citrus. a delightful balance to every cup whether on espresso or filter.

Fazenda Santa Lucia

Carmo de Minas, Brazil

Variety: Yellow Bourbon
Process: Natural
Altitude: 900-1250 masl
Region: Carmo de Minas,Brazil
Farm: Fazenda Santa Lucia

Fazenda Santa Lucia producer Hélcio Carneiro Pinto has been working in coffee since he was 15 years old, helping his mother produce and process crops.

In 1976, Hélcio married Glycia Pereira Carneiro and began to manage Santa Lucia. In the 1990's, Hélcio was one of the founders of Aprocam, a group of pioneers that began a movement for the pursuit of quality coffee in the region of Carmo de Minas. Aprocam introduced the idea of processing pulped naturals on Carmo de Minas and Hélcio was the first producer to get the machines for this process.

Since that development at Santa Lucia, Hélcio has worked with universities and scientists, and he has taken trips to other coffee producing countries to further his knowledge on the production of specialty coffee. Today, Hélcio and Fazenda Santa Lucia maintain a worldwide reputation for quality Brazilian coffees. Fazenda Santa Lucia is 740 hectares with 100 hectares of coffee: Yellow Bourbon, Yellow Catuai, and Acaia.

This is a model farm of the Carmo de Minas region and is innovating in both quality and production methods with hopes of producing 4500 bags in the future.

VUNGA

Nyabihu District, Rwanda

Variety: Red Bourbon
Process: Washed
Harvest date: May - June 2022
Fermentation: After being pulped, the coffee is left to ferment for 6 - 10 hours before being laid to dry
Drying time: 25 - 35 days dried on raised beds
Drying temperature: 28°C Max. - 15 °C Min.  
Altitude: 1650 - 2000masl
Region: Nyabihu District, Rwanda
Rainfall:  1850 mm/year
Humidity: 70%

Vunga is a cooperative that has partnered with Muraho Trading Co to assist with finance and education. The team at Vunga is led by women and has 260 active members who contribute. The operation is not of huge scale, but the quality is remarkable, and has been recognized a handful of times with a placement as high as 4th in Cup of Excellence Rwanda. 

All the coffee produced at Vunga is being washed. After being pulped in a Penagos depulper, the coffee is fermented for an average of 6 hours before being laid to dry for 25-35 days on raised beds. When we were there, the parchment was clean, the beds were being raked, shifted and sorted, and the team behind Vunga is always very excited for our visits and to meet foreign buyers.

We believe this cooperative has the potential to achieve amazing cup quality and demonstrate the operations of a sustainable cooperative model in the coffee industry. Daphrose, the station manager, is a very highly regarded and strong willed woman, who asked for feedback on her execution stages at the cooperative. This alone is a sign that great things are to come for the members of Vunga and the coffees they're producing. 

Sitting close to the borders of Uganda and Congo in Northern Rwanda. The terrain surrounding Vunga is rolling hills, banana trees and a cool climate influenced by the Gicice River keeps the maturation of coffee in the area happening slowly, leading to sweet and dense cherries when ripe.