2024 Crown Jewel Year in Review

Crown Jewel Year in Review

2024 has been a complicated year by many metrics, but in spite of challenges from logistics to market swings and more, we are thrilled and grateful for the continued success of our Crown Jewel program.

These little boxes of coffee have seen an explosion in potential this year, and we wouldn’t be here without the support of both our supply network and our customers. Thank you for sharing in our success.

This year we released over 2100 individual boxes of 44 unique Crown Jewels from 17 countries, including 22 unique cultivars and almost 50,000lbs of coffee. Each of these figures represents an increase over 2023’s numbers.

Processing & Innovation

Of the 44 lots, half were sourced from individual farmers, and we increased our experimental offerings, notably including six cofermented coffees and a lactobacillus inoculated coffee. We also introduced “low/high intervention” language to help indicate whether processing methodology was traditional or experimental. Even with a rise in innovative techniques, low intervention washed lots remain the most common processing type we sourced this year, at just under 50% of our releases, followed by low intervention naturals at just over 20%.

Cultivar Selections

Interesting cultivars are no stranger to our Crown Jewel menu with a multiple lots featuring Gesha, SL-28 and, Pink bourbon this past year. Other unique entries include a Sudan Rume from Luiz Paulo’s Santuario Sul in Brazil, Gayo II from the Junus family in Sumatra, and a Typica Mejorado from Galo Morales’ Finca Cruz Loma in Ecuador.

Including Pink Bourbon, Gesha, Sudan Rume, and the 1970’s JARC selections, Ethiopian “landrace” coffees made up over a quarter of our variety selections this year. Nearly one in every eight of the Crown Jewels we released was a hybrid cultivar, and almost 20% of the coffees were one of coffee’s original two legacy cultivars, Typica or Bourbon.

Noteworthy Producers

Yulissa Chambi is a star producer with this being her third year of harvest at only 23 years old. Her brother Felix Chambi helps her from the exporting end to get her coffees marketed and sold. Each time we source from them, we have had the chance to get both the washed and natural lot from her farm which are an exemplary display of the intersection of processing method and cultivar. Yulissa is now taking on CQI and working towards getting her Q certification.

Neel and Kavita Vahora are another brother-sister duo whose estates in Tanzania have been showcased multiple times throughout the years. The Vohora’s farms have been around since the 70’s and have taken on expansion, innovation and consistency during this period. Their releases this year continue on the theme of displaying processing method and cultivar with a SL-28 cultivar in both a natural and washed processed, in addition to a washed Gesha.

We featured many other repeat performances from some of our greatest hits in the past, including Wbeimar Lasso and Juliana Guevara (Terraza, Colombia), Edith and Ivan Meza (Finca Tasta, Peru), Mahembe Murundo (Kivubelt, Rwanda), Turihamwe Turahsabora (JNP, Burundi), Ducurai village (Café Brisa Serena, Timor-Leste), Ermitaño Huillca Quispe (Café Origenes, Peru), Luiz Pedro Zelaya Zamora (Bella Carmona, Guatemala), Rosalba Cifuentes (Mayan Harvest, Mexico), Galguera Gomez (Yoloxochitlán, Mexico), Mahiga and Ichamama (Othaya Group, Kenya), Desta Gola and Halo Hartume (Ethiopia), and El Vapor (Coopedota, Costa Rica).

2024 brought in some new sourcing partners to the Crown Jewel line up as well. Mr. Asabi’s estate from Sumatra came in hot with some wild experimentation to show off on the form of this lychee cofermented wet hulled coffee, taking inspiration from the abundance of lychee grown in the region, a native fruit to southeast Asia. Co-fermentation is already wild enough, but the Asabi estate went the distance with a second round of sprayed lychee juice while the coffee was drying. It was an impressive feat for this coffee to have so much consistency and we don’t often see co-ferments come out of Indonesia and marketed in the U.S.

We also sourced multiple cofermented coffees from Edwin Noreña, including hopped Geshas and a Pink Bourbon, as well as watermelon and lychee coferments. Noreña’s “Alquemista” project on his family’s farm, Finca Campo Hermosa, has been at the bleeding edge of this type of innovative production methods.

We welcomed many new producer partners to the Crown Jewel program this year, including Luiz Paulo Pereira and Eliezer Jose Calvi (Brazil), Takele Mammo (Ethiopia), Wilson Ramon Jóven, Huver Castillo, and Eduardo Armero Martinez (Colombia), and Walter Argueta (Honduras).

Onward and Upward

Thank you for growing with us and supporting this program. The team gets to work closely and support producers and exporting groups doing amazing work. By supporting these smaller projects, you are making sure that we continue to support them year after year. Relationships are invaluable in the coffee industry, and those that we have cultivated in order to get you these top tier lots has been an exciting journey for us since 2016.

As we grow, we hope to continue to offer you coffees you know you can trust in sourcing practices and cup quality. This next year we are looking to work on four key points of our program.

• Increased variety of Indonesian and Central American offerings
• New unique cultivar selections
• Improved Ethiopian volumes
• Earlier arrivals across the board

There are many pieces in movement already and we have some exciting stuff coming up for Q1 of 2025. Get ready for a release of expanded coffees from Indonesia which includes Sulawesi and Bali, a large selection of unique varieties from Colombia, and the return of menu favorites like Yulissa Chambi, Edith, and Ivan Meza.

Cheers to another great year of Crown Jewels!

Are you a Crown Jewel customer? Please consider taking our survey to help us improve your experience.