The bulk of our purchasing in Guatemala is from smallholder producers in Huehuetenango. Whereas previously we were prepared to scour the country while satisfying these goals, these days we realise that our limited resources are best applied to working more deeply in more confined area. With this in mind, we’re now focussing our work […]

We love Colombia. Colombian coffee provides the consistent backbone of our espresso blends, the shining juiciness of our single espresso roasts and the ‘warm hug’ profile among our filter menu. In short, it’s the cornerstone of our menu. It is no surprise that a great number of our dearest producer relationships are Colombian too… there […]

FROM FARM TO ROASTERY – AN ADVENTURE STORY   We’ve explored how we buy coffee at the farm gate, in parchment form. We know what our producers receive for their crops and that they’re able to live good lives. The next part of the story is getting the coffee from the farm in a far […]

  GREEN COFFEE SOURCING AND TRANSPARENCY   On Monday, we sent out some information about our sourcing program to our wholesale network, and we want to share this here too.   Our commitment going forward is to increase our transparency around the way we work and the prices we pay. Today we’re offering a more […]

We just can’t stop drinking Guatemalan coffees at the mo, and this week we’re excited to give you a sneaky peek at some coffees we have coming up: Small Batch long-time lover Guillermo Sanchez; and a first-time purchase from Cornelius Lopez in the form of his Pacamara varietal. Guillermo Sanchez who runs his family’s historic estate San José […]

Guatemala is absolutely one of our favourite places to source coffee. Working with smallholder producers and purchasing their parchment coffee directly from them, year after year, has been an exercise in patience, humility, and seriously good vibrations. While most buyers content themselves with enacting their direct-trade with larger producers, dealing in green exportable coffee negotiated […]

IT’S CHRISTMAS IN JULY. THANKS KENYA We’re proud to kick off our new season Kenyan coffees with three gems. Unsurprisingly, given what you know of us (the fact that we do our own tricks in the sourcing department in a big way), this is just the tip of a Titanic-sized iceberg that will be melting […]

This month is all about one particular, and very very special Ethiopian co-operative: Duromina. It blew us away on arrival (again) and we couldn’t help but go all out and roast it for both Filter and Espresso brewing. From the Agaro region of Jimma, Duromina is close to our hearts. We have hung our hats on this coffee […]

Pronunciation Key: no-Eh kin-ay-Us This month is a proud one for us. The Quinayas family, near and dear to our hearts for a long time now, have produced outstanding quality to the tune of taking up three of our eight slots for feature coffees. We’re pretty bloody fussy, so that’s no easy achievement.We’re ever impressed […]

We are very very sad to farewell autumn (our roasters are the only source of heat at SBHQ, Jamie is getting a bit sick of trying to cook all our coffee when the rest of us are huddled around the flame). Winter will bring us all sorts of show-stopping whizbangers from Africa and Guatemala, so this […]