Specialty Coffee is discipline, respect, collective commitment and dedication.
We have already written in previous posts about the multiple hands and work that are behind a cup of quality coffee, and we know that the gear runs through this collective organization.
We have also said that for us the coffee has the producers' names.
Our mission of connecting people through coffee remains more alive than ever, even more in a year like 2020 in which social distancing and digital proximity had a determining role in the relations, professional or personal ones.
The Specialty Coffee is by essence connection. It has the power and the magic of promoting encounters and meetings and approaching people. For this reason, we say that coffee is bridge, house and street, it is always taking us to somewhere. It is ubiquitous in everyone’s routine: at home and out of home, alone or with a companion.
We also said that the world of coffee is cyclical and a no ending one and as it’s a new thing, we must recognize that many researchers, scientists and curious people have started to walk the path of various possibilities that can be accessed through varieties’ genetics, fertilizing and phytosanitary management, harvest techniques, post-harvest processing, controlled fermentation, storing, roasting and brewing methods.
We know that Specialty Coffee is the lack of defects and in practical ways it means that in a farm, from planting to post-harvesting many bodies sweated blood to aim a successful goal. Success in this case is represented by proper crop management, harvesting at the right timing when coffee fruits are at their maturation peak, choosing the best processing and monitoring it, registering experiences and taking notes like temperature, pH, brix, period of fermentation and others variables. Otherwise, it might become a coffee by chance and how will the lot be produced again?
After that phase, roasters will sweat with a lot of research, discipline, roasts and cuppings to identify the matching profile to each coffee. It is necessary playing with variables like time, air flow, temperature, the beginning and the end of the roast.
Yet there is the work of those people in the coffee chain that we have not mentioned and above all the work of the ones behind the scenes. Up to the moment, we have just talked about people and will continue talking because it’s our way of valuing and acknowledging each one’s role. Respecting the coffee as a fruit, a bean and a beverage is respecting the sweat of the people who touched it.
After all, Specialty Coffee is not by chance.
2020 was a challenging year. But it has also aroused our ability of always reinventing ourselves. Taking a deep breath, being grateful and moving on is necessary. We wish you a safe New Year’s Eve, plenty of peace, light, and hope for the new cycle that it’s about to begin. We are one!
Best Regards,
Yuki Minami and Andrezza R.