Crown Jewels – What’s Next

Colombia Alquemista Coferments

• Release schedule: 12/13 Galaxy Hop Cofermented Gesha
• 12/20: Lychee Coferment and Nitro Watermelon Coferment

Colombia La Argentina Juliana Guevara & Wbeimar Lasso Washed Gesha

• Release schedule: 12/20.
• This is our second consecutive season sourcing.
• Terraza is the name for the farm owned and managed by Juliana Guevara and Wbeimar Lasso – the duo behind Terra Coffee. It’s basically a variety garden, and while we hope to offer their Pink Bourbon, Caturra, and Chiroso cultivars in the future, we figured we could go big, full Kramer, with the entrance. Wbeimar Lasso, a Colombian Cup Tasters Champion, agro-industrial engineer and third generation coffee producer, is also a bit of a tinkerer with processing – notoriously responsible for multi-fermentation stages coordinated across small farms in Huila – delivering us some of our most unique and interesting coffees with consistency and regularity.

Rwanda Kivubelt Murundo –

• Release scheduled: 1/3
• This menu classic returns for the fifth consecutive season, if my math is correct. Should be online in the first week or two of the new year.
• Kivubelt was established in 2011 by Furaha Umwizeye, after returning to Rwanda with a master’s degree in economics from Switzerland. Born and raised in Rwanda, Umwizeye’s goal with Kivubelt is to create a model coffee plantation, as sustainable in agriculture as it is impactful in local employment and empowerment. The company began with 200 scattered acres of farmland in Gihombo, a community in Rwanda’s coffee-famous Nyamasheke district that runs along the breathtaking central shoreline of Lake Kivu. 

Peru Finca Tasta

• Washed, honey, and natural coffee all booked and confirmed, we expect to release them mid-January.
• Finca Tasta is located in Peru’s central forest; the farm was their late mother’s project, and the Edith and Ivan have since taken over operations. In the last handful of years, they’ve refined their processing methods and expanded their operations, and hope to become a beacon of specialty coffee and sustainability. Edith and her brother Ivan are leading by example, focusing on sustainability and independence by diversifying crops beyond just coffee to include food for themselves and their workers. They harvest three varieties of plantains, yucca, beans, corn, tomatoes, pine trees, sugarcane, raspberries, blackberries, and pumpkins. 

Bali Anaerobic Natural(s)

• Multiple lots booked and confirmed.
• It will be shipped this week, ETA mid February.

Ecuador Galo Morales

• Sidra and Gesha lots confirmed. ETA mid-late January.
• Finca Cruz Loma, run by Galo Morales and Maria Alexandra Rivera, is the latest arrival in a series of superlative Ecuadorian coffees in Royal’s warehouse. In recent years Galo’s name has appeared in various regional and national cupping competitions in Ecuador, if not all-out winning then certainly placing top 3, and setting multiple price records to boot. Two years ago, Morales was the proud first-place champion of Ecuador’s national quality competition, the Taza Dorada. His winning lot sold for an astounding $100 per pound – another record for Ecuadorian coffee prices. Finca Cruz Loma is setting the standard for coffees from this region.  

Bolivia Yulissa Chambi

• Washed and anaerobic washed lots confirmed but not yet booked, will consolidate with existing contracts shipping soon.
• The epicenter in the rise of Bolivian specialty coffee is in the los Yungas region, where most farms were first established after a wave of migration to the region caused by Bolivia’s Agrarian Revolution in the 1950s. And nearly a century later this lot emerges from a single 10-acre farm belonging to Yulissa Chambi and her family. Yulissa is in her early 20s and working on her university degree but also comes with a family that has been growing coffee in the Yungas region of Bolivia for over 60 years.

Burundi

• Selection process complete, final milling underway. Pending presship approvals, we should see arrivals in the late winter/early spring from both Long Miles and JNP.

Colombia Mastercol Microlots

• Sidra, Geshas, Java, Pink Bourbon, all booked with hopeful arrival February.

Timor-Leste & Sumatra

• Washed & Anaerobic booked, ETA March/April.

Brazil

• Offer samples still being vetted. Bad weather this year affecting quality and availability of microlots, nothing confirmed yet.

Tanzania

• Offer samples incoming, TBD. Anticipating late winter/early spring arrivals of multiple cultivars and processes.

Costa Rica

• Selection process ongoing, expecting El Vapor natural to return, along with Anaerobic OG from El Diamante.

Ethiopia

• Sidama (first of new crop) reserved and hopeful January shipment for April (!!!) arrival.