Origin of the Month
Our monthly coffee selections!
Learn about our monthly coffee selections! Every 30 days we bring in a new exotic origin and a new premium origin every quarter.
Origin of the Month
Papua new guinea LahamenegU Eastern Highlands
This is the second coffee we have brought you from the Eastern Highlands of Papua New Guinea. The first, Eastern Highlands Goruka was the Origin of the Month for July 2022 and was a huge hit. That said, PNG coffees are always very good.
This coffee was grown in three PNG provinces, Eastern Highlands, Simbu, and Morobe. It was processed using the washed process. In this process, coffee cherries are placed in tanks of water to sort the ripe (good) cherries from the unripe (bad) cherries. The ripe cherries sink to the bottom, the unripe cherries float. Damaged or defective cherries will also float to the top. Once sorted, the coffee cherries are then run through a de-pulping machine that removes the skins of the cherries and moved to fermentation tanks that remove the remaining fruit remnants from the beans (seeds), inside. The final step is to dry the beans until they reach the optimal moisture level; which is usually 12-14 percent.
Washed processing is becoming very popular in the coffee world because of the cup profile that results. Cup profiles of washed coffees tend to more accurately reflect the characteristic taste and flavor imparted to the coffee by the natural environment in which it was produced.
Nine million people call PNG home; 2.5 million of them are involved in some way with coffee. Coffee is the second leading agricultural product for PNG (palm oil is first).
This Lahamenegu coffee was grown at about 5500 feet above sea level, and it is really good. It was graded at an “A” designation, which means it a balanced, uniform, clean, cup with a distinct body and aroma. The cup score of this coffee is 85.5. While enjoying this one, you may catch flavor notes of dark chocolate, brown sugar, green tea, and stone fruit.
Origin of the Quarter
Haiti Blue Pine Central Plateau
The history of Haiti is an incredibly moving story of French colonization, vicious and brutal slavery, rebellion, strained attempts at independence, embargo, and authoritarian, despotic dictatorship. In fact, it was colonized by the French in 1659 and named Saint Domingue. In 1715, the coffee plant was introduced and by 1788, Saint Domingue supplied half the world’s coffee.
The monstrous slave labor conditions led to one of the world’s only successful slave rebellions but by 1791, the island’s coffee plantations had been almost completely destroyed. In 1802, Napoleon sent over 20,000 troops to the former colony to reclaim Haiti, and the Haitian people defeated them, too. After fighting hard for its freedom, Saint Domingue was renamed Haiti. By 1949, Haiti had become the world’s 3rd largest coffee producer. However, in 1957 Francois Duvalier was elected President, which led to an embargo by the United States that lasted till 2005.
The coffee plants are Typica and Blue Mountain varietals. This coffee was grown at an elevation of 4300 feet above sea level by a coop made up of 680 farmers. It is smooth, creamy, and shade-grown. This coffee is exceptional, so much so that members of this cooperative are typically paid about 300% higher wages than fair trade minimums. It is that good. The body of this coffee is clean and smooth, with low acidity and balanced natural sweetness. There are floral aromas that heighten the senses in anticipation of that first sip. The cup score of this coffee is 86.