{"title":"2025 Freezer Sale","description":"\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eOur 2025 Freezer Sale sold out in less than a day during the early access for 2026 subscribers: \u003cem\u003eThank you\u003c\/em\u003e. We look forward to launching our 2026 season soon and anticipate that approximately half of the releases will be available for public sale.\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e","products":[{"product_id":"004-lino-rodriguez","title":"004 - Lino Rodriguez","description":"\u003ch3\u003e2025 FREEZER SALE UPDATE (2025-12-17):\u003c\/h3\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cem\u003eFrom Christopher: \u003c\/em\u003eThis was among my favorite of Aviary's releases in 2024 and I was thrilled to discover some 2.35kg of green still vacuum-sealed and buried in the freezer. For our 2025 freezer sale, we roasted it hot and fast on our P3000 in an effort to see just how expressive we can make this coffee. It came out a bit lighter than our 2024 release—but still tastes bright and jammy.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003chr\u003e\n\u003ch3\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eA stunning expression of a washed Pink Bourbon from six-time Cup of Excellence awarded producer Lino Rodriguez in Colombia.\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/h3\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cem\u003eFrom Christopher\u003c\/em\u003e: \"I first purchased coffee from Lino Rodriguez in 2017 after being paired with him by Salomé Puentes, then of Caravela Coffee (now of Teco Coffee in Guatemala) to conduct processing experimentation in an effort to improve the cup characteristics of the Castillo on his family farm through controlled fermentation. Lino is a quality-driven producer who studied agriculture in university; he manages his family's farm and processing methodically and with an openness to new practices. At the blind calibration cupping with Lino, there was a coffee that scored higher than the rest on the table—a coffee that was later revealed to be a washed Pink Bourbon grown by Lino. The erroneously-named Pink Bourbon, now understood to be an Ethiopian landrace, has quickly gained favor among buyers and producers alike both for its resistance to disease and roya, high productivity and high quality potential. Lino's was the first I tasted—and since then, he has supplied seedlings to countless producers in Palestina on his way to wins and top-placements in the Cup of Excellence in 2018, 2019, 2020, 2021, 2022, and 2023. This coffee is an exemplar of the quality I hope to find in a Pink Bourbon that alludes to its Ethiopian lineage and presents in the cup with complexity and tangy-savory-sweet notes of fig, nectarine, blood orange and lychee.\"\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eRead the blog post to put this coffee into \u003ca href=\"https:\/\/christopherferan.com\/2024\/03\/31\/the-cost-of-quality\/\"\u003econtext\u003c\/a\u003e.\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Aviary","offers":[{"title":"200g","offer_id":47730838110512,"sku":"004-retail","price":34.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0849\/8305\/4640\/files\/Tiles-23mar-01.png?v=1711200964"},{"product_id":"008-basha-bekele","title":"008 - Basha Bekele","description":"\u003ch3\u003e2025 FREEZER SALE UPDATE (2025-12-17):\u003c\/h3\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cem\u003eFrom Christopher: \u003c\/em\u003ePerhaps the most contentious and controversial of our 2024 releases, this coffee offered an incredible lens into the challenges of working with smallholder microlots in a country without infrastructure equipped to efficiently mill or export them. As we noted during the original lot, when this lot arrived, as two 60kg sacks, one was punctured; upon cupping each bag separately, I discovered that they were quite different in the cup. In an effort to create a uniform experience, I roasted each bag separately and then blended them. This may have inadvertently created some (but not all) of the oddities that many—including me—observed in this coffee: incredible cup-to-cup and bag-to-bag variance. It's tempting to regret this choice as it's suboptimal from a customer experience standpoint—but I believe it's a living testament to the beautiful chaos of coffee as an organic, agricultural, heterogenous product. \u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eI discovered 3 kg of green from this coffee in the freezer, still vacuum sealed, as I prepared to thaw coffee for the 2025 freezer sale. I'm not sure which bag this coffee came from—but I've thawed it to roast on the P3000 as a way to bring new life to this coffee.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003chr data-mce-fragment=\"1\"\u003e\n\u003ch3 data-mce-fragment=\"1\"\u003e\u003cstrong data-mce-fragment=\"1\"\u003eThe third and final of our smallholder washed coffees from the 2024 harvest in the Southern highlands of Ethiopia comes from \u003ca href=\"https:\/\/allianceforcoffeeexcellence.org\/ethiopia-2024\/\" title=\"Ethiopia 2024 Cup of Excellence\" rel=\"noopener\" target=\"_blank\"\u003e2024 Cup of Excellence #1 winner\u003c\/a\u003e Basha Bekele. Processed using a hand-pulper and a protocol devised by Christopher Feran, this coffee underwent a yeast-controlled fermentation. The resulting cup is complex and bright with notes of apricot, lime, kumquat and jasmine with a blueberry-cherry undertone.\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/h3\u003e\n\u003cp data-mce-fragment=\"1\"\u003e\u003cem data-mce-fragment=\"1\"\u003eFrom Christopher\u003c\/em\u003e: \"At this point, Basha Bekele needs no introduction; the top winner of the 2024 Cup of Excellence competition in Ethiopia has built a reputation for producing exceptionally high-quality dry processed coffees at his drying stations in Bensa—in Bombe, Kokose, Shantawane and, this year, Murago. I \u003ca rel=\"noopener\" href=\"https:\/\/christopherferan.com\/2024\/05\/07\/the-hegemony-of-poured-concrete-and-washed-ethiopians\/\" target=\"_blank\"\u003efirst met Basha\u003c\/a\u003e in early 2019, but beginning in the 2023 harvest, through my work with Crop to Cup and alongside CoQua I began to collaborate more closely with Basha on post-harvest processing practices. Ahead of the 2024 harvest and his win in CoE, we focused our work on cherry sorting and selection, flotation and drying improvements—including implementing the use of shade across his drying stations.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp data-mce-fragment=\"1\"\u003e\"As with Mate Matiwos (AVIARY#007) and Bekele Belaychow (AVIARY#005), we also bought Basha a GEM hand pulper. With it, Basha produced two small lots for Crop to Cup: a white honey process (using the same protocol as Mate and Bekele) as well as this one—one using an inoculation of Lalcafe INTENSO yeast to control the fermentation.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp data-mce-fragment=\"1\"\u003e\"The use of yeast inoculation to control coffee fermentation is a technique I've been fascinated by for nearly a decade. While traditional 'spontaneous' fermentations often offer greater cup complexity, I've enjoyed the process control, predictability over outcomes, and improvements in shelf life gained by using yeast controlled fermentation as a tool.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp data-mce-fragment=\"1\"\u003e\"For this lot, I wanted to try to create a lot that tasted like kumquats—clean, focused citric acidity with sweetness to support it—and I believed using a yeast controlled fermentation would be the way to achieve it. Because \u003cem\u003eSaccharomyces Cerevisae\u003c\/em\u003e does not generate acidity (acidity being a byproduct of bacteria in coffee fermentations), we'd need to start with the appropriate genetics and growing conditions—such as those at Basha's farm of young 74158 plantings at soaring elevations of nearly 2300 meters in Bensa.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp data-mce-fragment=\"1\"\u003e\"The resulting 240kg of green coffee was split between Aviary and one other roaster; it came into Aviary's hands as a result of skittishness surrounding the shipping disruptions in the Red Sea leading to a contract cancelation. I was confident in the process, knowing how carefully controlled both the fermentation and drying process were—and happily contracted the available two bags while they were still awaiting departure at the port of Djibouti.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp data-mce-fragment=\"1\"\u003e\"And though perhaps I could attach a premium to this lot given its relative exclusivity and given Basha's ascendence through his win in the Cup of Excellence, by shipping via ocean rather than air, it reduced the cost of the lot relative to the others Aviary has offered from Ethiopia this year. Thus, I've decided to make it the most affordable of Aviary's releases to date.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp data-mce-fragment=\"1\"\u003e\"While this is not the highest-cupping coffee Basha produced this year—nor is it technically the highest-cupping coffee Aviary has roasted from Ethiopia in 2024—it's one of my favorites: a \u003cstrong\u003ebeautiful, clean, complex, acid-foward washed Southern Ethiopian profile presenting with notes of apricot, lime, jasmine and kumquat and undertones of blueberry that cools to cherry.\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp data-mce-fragment=\"1\"\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eRead \u003ca href=\"https:\/\/christopherferan.com\/2024\/05\/07\/the-hegemony-of-poured-concrete-and-washed-ethiopians\/\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\" target=\"_blank\"\u003ethis blog post\u003c\/a\u003e and \u003ca rel=\"noopener\" href=\"https:\/\/christopherferan.com\/2024\/10\/29\/fear-of-the-outsider\/\" target=\"_blank\"\u003ethis blog post\u003c\/a\u003e to put this coffee into context.\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp data-mce-fragment=\"1\"\u003e\u003cem\u003eThis is a coffee with limited availability (~96kg) and is available both in 200g boxes and 1kg bags.\u003c\/em\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp data-mce-fragment=\"1\"\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eUPDATE\u003c\/strong\u003e \u003cstrong\u003e2024-09-21 from CF\u003c\/strong\u003e: During receipt of this coffee at Aviary's roastery, I discovered that one of the two bags had been punctured by one of the warehouses preceding the delivery. We don't know by whom, and we don't know when—but 8kg of coffee were lost. We have updated the available quantities to reflect this. I performed a physical and sensorial evaluation of each bag; the exposure to oxygen created differences between the two bags. To create a uniform experience for customers, we will be blending these two bags (post-roast). Tasting notes have been updated to reflect this development.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp data-mce-fragment=\"1\"\u003e \u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Aviary","offers":[{"title":"200g","offer_id":49040477946160,"sku":"008-retail","price":25.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0849\/8305\/4640\/files\/008_-_Basha_Bekele.png?v=1725742492"},{"product_id":"010-nancy-mendoza","title":"010 – Nancy Mendoza","description":"\u003ch3\u003e2025 FREEZER SALE UPDATE (2025-12-17):\u003c\/h3\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cem\u003eFrom Christopher: \u003c\/em\u003eOur initial roast of this coffee was \u003cem\u003eextremely \u003c\/em\u003elight—too light for many preferences, including my own. While the florality was soaring, the cup lacked the bright fruit that I'd found in my initial evaluations. For our freezer sale, we're roasting this on the Roest P3000 and aimed to bring this beautiful Gesha back to its original form: tangy, bright and complex.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003chr\u003e\n\u003ch3\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eThe first coffee of our 2025 season comes to us from the same cooperative that brought us AVIARY#002. A young third-generation coffee grower in Cajamarca, Peru, Nancy Mendoza. received Gesha seeds from Costa Rica via her friend Wilder Garcia and planted them at her 2 hectare farm in pursuit of better prices for her coffee.\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/h3\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eFrom Christopher: \"Peru, with its soaring elevations and strong cooperative architecture, has quickly established itself as a producer of exceptionally high-quality and sought-after coffees. The adoption of exotic cultivars such as Gesha from collections in Panama and Costa Rica has led to higher prices for many of Peru's smallholders, who grow, on average, on less than 2 hectares of land each.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\"As I was exploring coffees to feature for 2025 season, I reached out to the supply chain partners we'd worked with in 2024, in the hopes of repeating at least a portion of our purchasing through the same producers. Joel from Yellow Rooster noted that he was importing individual producer separations from the same cooperative led by Maria Nieves, who produced AVIARY#002, Alpes Andinos—including many from women. \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\"\u003eWhile women remain both marginalized and minorities within the global supply chain, research demonstrates that involving women in finances of production leads to greater financial security and producer equity. \u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\"\u003e\"This coffee, exported through Alpes Andinos, comes from Nancy Mendoza—a young, quality-focused producer who grows on 2 hectares in Cajamarca—and presents in the cup with \u003cstrong\u003evibrant florals of jasmine and lavender supported by structured acidity and a fruited character that presents as pineapple, blackberry and mandarin\u003c\/strong\u003e.\"\u003c\/span\u003e\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\"\u003e\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Aviary","offers":[{"title":"200g","offer_id":49496463376688,"sku":"010-retail","price":39.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0849\/8305\/4640\/files\/010_tile.png?v=1738283819"},{"product_id":"011-lino-rodriguez","title":"011 - Lino Rodriguez","description":"\u003ch3\u003e2025 FREEZER SALE UPDATE (2025-12-17):\u003c\/h3\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cem\u003eFrom Christopher: \u003c\/em\u003eOver my career as a buyer, there are few producers who have consistently produced coffees that end up in my top 10 coffees of the year—Lino is one of them. In nearly a decade of buying his coffees, he's stunned me with his continual exploration of the interplay between process and variety, and this Gesha was no exception. One of my favorite coffees of this season, it's accompanied in this re-release by a small amount of his Aviary drop from last year, AVIARY#004. For this re-release, we attempted to match the style and expression of the original release, which we loved.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003chr\u003e\n\u003ch3\u003e\n\u003cstrong\u003eThe second coffee of our 2025 season comes to us from a favorite producer of our 2024 season: Lino Rodriguez. A \u003c\/strong\u003e\u003cstrong\u003esix-time Cup of Excellence awarded producer, Lino's reputation for quality is rivaled only by his professionalism and sincerity.\u003c\/strong\u003e\n\u003c\/h3\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eFrom Christopher: \"I've been buying coffee from Lino Rodriguez for almost ten years—since before he won the Cup of Excellence or built the reputation he has today. In the years I've roasted coffee from Lino and his family, I've bought Tabi, Castillo, Caturra, and Pink Bourbon from their farm—but never Gesha. This is notable only because Gesha—which was introduced to Colombia in 2005—was one of the first exotic cultivars Lino planted, as a result of a planting program sponsored by Banexport in 2010.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\"Through the program, Banexport provided seeds—purportedly from the Esmeralda estate in Panama—with the guarantee of purchasing any of the coffee produced. After a few years, the program ended as the pricing for gesha became uncompetitive. However, the trees remained.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\"Aviary's first release of 2025 from Nancy Mendoza was a Gesha from the CATIE collection in Costa Rica resulting from the FAO Mission to Ethiopia in 1964; the mythology of the gesha germplasm grown by Lino, sourced from Panama, is that it originated earlier, collected from Ethiopia in the 1930s and then sent to Tanzania and Kenya, from where it made its way to Panama and infamy.\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\"\u003e\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\"\u003e\"This coffee, which Lino exported through his cooperative in Palestina and shipped my home via Fedex, presents in the cup with notes of \u003cstrong\u003ejasmine, orange\u003c\/strong\u003e \u003cstrong\u003eblossom\u003c\/strong\u003e \u003cstrong\u003eand pomegranate with a blood orange and brown sugar sweetness.\"\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Aviary","offers":[{"title":"200g","offer_id":49549781631280,"sku":"011-retail","price":34.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0849\/8305\/4640\/files\/011tile.png?v=1740016456"},{"product_id":"012-emmanuel-rusatira","title":"012 - Emmanuel Rusatira","description":"\u003ch3\u003e2025 FREEZER SALE UPDATE (2025-12-17):\u003c\/h3\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cem\u003eFrom Christopher: \u003c\/em\u003eIf I had to hazard a guess, I'd say this coffee was the sleeper of the season—a stunningly sweet, structured and clean washed Bourbon that captures the beauty of Rwandan coffee. What it lacked in florality or loud fruit tones it made up for in layers of sweetness. I hope that, through this re-release, which is somewhat lighter than the original release, it finds a new and appreciative audience.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003chr\u003e\n\u003ch3\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eThe third coffee of our 2025 season comes to us through a collaboration with Emmanuel Rusatira of Baho in Rwanda and Sundog Trading. This microlot showcases how intentional processing and drying can produce a clean, articulate coffee that can hold up even to extended transit times.\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/h3\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eFrom Christopher: \"I'm enthusiastic about supporting young importing companies when I can, particularly when they've committed to marketing coffee from a particular producer or supply chain. This interest—coupled with my love for coffee from Rwanda—led me to begin buying from Ben Bowdoin and his company, Sundog Trading, in 2020.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\"In the 1970s and 1980s, coffee played a central role in the economy of Rwanda and provided a living for hundreds of thousands of smallholder coffee farmers and their families. The industry collapsed, however, following the implosion of the International Coffee Agreement, which devastated prices, and the genocide that followed in the aftermath. Following the end of the genocide, coffee production took a central role in the economic and cultural reconstruction of Rwanda.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\"One of the genocide's survivors, Emmanuel Rusatira, would go on to first manage washing stations for other exporters and then eventually found his own export company and washing stations—establishing his company with a mission of celebrating his \u003cem\u003ejoie de vivre \u003c\/em\u003eand the perseverance\u003cem\u003e \u003c\/em\u003eof the Rwandan while promoting meaningful economic opportunity for his community.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\"For Sundog's 2024-2025 import, I collaborated with Ben and Emmanuel, writing a series of processing and drying protocols to explore not only the cup impacts of controlled fermentation but also how slow, shaded drying could improve the durability of the green coffee over long transit times. This proved to be prescient—as transit delays kept the coffee afloat for three months longer than anticipated. Emannuel oversaw the processing himself, isolating cherry from growers at the highest elevations around Muzo hill.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\"\u003e\"When this coffee arrived, I was delighted with how well it withstood its long journey, presenting in the cup \u003cstrong\u003ewith sweet notes of cherry cola, caramel and blood orange.\"\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Aviary","offers":[{"title":"200g","offer_id":49651703218480,"sku":"012-retail","price":32.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0849\/8305\/4640\/files\/012tile.png?v=1742919310"},{"product_id":"013-demetrio-sanchez-pino","title":"013 - Demetrio Sanchez Pino","description":"\u003ch3\u003e2025 FREEZER SALE UPDATE (2025-12-17):\u003c\/h3\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cem\u003eFrom Christopher:\u003c\/em\u003e Looking back at 2025, this is the coffee I'm most grateful to have another opportunity to roast and taste. Comparing my notes between my initial sample roast on the Roest and the later production roasts, it's the coffee with the most divergence in cup. I'm excited for the opportunity to present this stunning award-winning Gesha in a new light.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003chr\u003e\n\u003ch3\u003e\n\u003cstrong\u003eThe fourth coffee of our 2025 \u003c\/strong\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eseason continues this year's exploration of non-Panamanian Geshas and comes to us from the Copa de Oro competition hosted by Osito Colombia. Demetrio Sanchez Pino's washed gesha scored second-place in the Western division but was consistently among the highest-scoring coffees each round of the competition. \u003c\/strong\u003e\n\u003c\/h3\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cem\u003eFrom Christopher\u003c\/em\u003e: \"Though I was not able to attend this year's Copa de Oro competition, I asked the team at Osito if they'd be willing to share the cupping and offer sheet from the competition afterward so that I might have the opportunity to purchase any unsold lots. \u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\"Following \u003ca rel=\"noopener\" href=\"https:\/\/christopherferan.com\/2024\/03\/16\/calibration-quality-and-the-myth-of-infallibility\/\" target=\"_blank\"\u003emy analysis\u003c\/a\u003e of last year's competition and my experience in Garzón, I knew the type of coffee I was hoping for: one that scored consistently high in each round of the competition and among the top 5 of each individual cupper. Cupping scores are impacted by table placement, but I was curious if this sort of comparative analysis from a large enough data set and based on my own experience could lead me to the coffee I was looking for—without ever dipping a spoon. \u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\"The coffee I ended up selecting turned out to be in keeping with the theme I'd established for this season of Aviary—an exploration of geshas grown outside of Panama, where the prices paid, while still higher than traditional varieties, were a far-cry from the prices paid during the Best of Panama auctions.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\"To be honest: I prefer Demetrio's to those record-setting coffees.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\"As far as producing regions of Huila go, La Plata is the dark horse of the Copa de Oro competition—not as well known for its microclimates as San Agustín, or elevations and varieties as Palestina, or famous producers like Gigante and Cauca—but as Osito's purchasing manager Didier Pajoy has consistently shown me in our nearly decade of work together, its quality potential is staggering.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\"Demetrio's 5 hectare farm is at soaring elevations in La Plata—2100 to 2200 masl—where he grows Gesha originally brought to Colombia by Banexport from the Esmeralda estate (\u003cem\u003ethe same program from which Lino Rodriguez \/ AVIARY#011 got his gesha\u003c\/em\u003e) as well as Colombia, Caturra, Pink Bourbon and Arushi intercropped with corn, avocado, and arracacha. \u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\"Aviary's first release of 2025 from Nancy Mendoza and fourth from Maria Nieves were Geshas from the CATIE collection in Costa Rica resulting from the FAO Mission to Ethiopia in 1964; the mythology of the gesha germplasm grown by Demetrio and Lino Rodiguez, sourced from Panama, is that it originated earlier, collected from Ethiopia in the 1930s and then sent to Tanzania and Kenya, from where it made its way to Panama and infamy.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\"This coffee is juicy, vibrant and complex with notes of just-ripe mango and candy-like sweetness in a cup dominated by \u003cstrong\u003enectarine, jasmine, pineapple, and orange blossom.\"\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Aviary","offers":[{"title":"200g","offer_id":49707747410224,"sku":"013-retail","price":44.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0849\/8305\/4640\/files\/013tile.png?v=1745342893"},{"product_id":"014-maria-nieves","title":"014 - Maria Nieves","description":"\u003ch3\u003e2025 FREEZER SALE UPDATE (2025-12-17):\u003c\/h3\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cem\u003eFrom Christopher: \u003c\/em\u003eWe're once again rehydrating this coffee for the freezer sale—using vacuum to better homogenize moisture in the lot ahead of roasting in the hopes of reducing cup variance. As the Roest P3000 uses inlet as its control schema, we will be roasting this one manually to ensure that it roasts evenly—rehydrated coffees tend to require significantly more energy in the middle of the roast to drive off excess moisture. \u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003chr\u003e\n\u003ch3\u003e\n\u003cstrong\u003eThe fifth coffee of our 2025 season continues this year's exploration of non-Panamanian Geshas and comes to us from the producer of one of Aviary's first releases: Maria Nieves. Like Nancy Mendoza, Maria planted Gesha seeds that came to Peru via\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003cstrong\u003e Costa Rica in an effort to improve her family's prosperity through the cultivation of high-quality specialty coffee.\u003c\/strong\u003e\n\u003c\/h3\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cem\u003eFrom Christopher\u003c\/em\u003e: \"The first year of production of Maria Nieves' Gesha trees resulted in a coffee that was not only the highest-scoring coffee of all coffees I bought in 2023-2024, but also one of my favorite coffees of Aviary's first season. Ahead of the 2025 season, I committed to purchasing Maria's coffee again—my third purchase through Yellow Rooster, and second from Maria Nieves Tantalean Fernandez, whose leadership of Asprocafe \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\"\u003eAlpes Andinos ensures a fair price for the members of the cooperative.\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\"When we buy coffee year-over-year, we help to mitigate risk for producers and create stability. Though Aviary's purchasing volume was small, the high premium paid to Maria helped to offset a season of overall lower yields.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\"The chaos of the universe often makes itself part of the profile of the coffees we enjoy, and the story of this coffee is no different. Harvest and export in Peru in 2024 came during a particularly tumultuous period. Lower yields and a rapidly-rising market created not only liquidity challenges but also led to defaults for many cooperatives in the country. These problems delayed exports—as did \u003ca href=\"https:\/\/www.bbc.com\/news\/videos\/cvg6zrvdq7qo\" rel=\"noopener\" target=\"_blank\"\u003ehuge waves that struck the Peruvian coastline\u003c\/a\u003e during peak export season.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\"When this coffee did eventually make its way to the Port of New Jersey, three months late, it had been exposed to heat, humidity and long transit times—all of which are detrimental to quality. I'd paid a premium for a coffee that arrived faded. I immediately vacuum-sealed and froze the coffee at -20ºC as a way to protect it from further degradation until it was ready for release.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\"This situation, I believe, is when roasters show not only their character but their skill. I noted paper flavors in the cup—a hallmark of fade—but rather than rejecting the coffee based on quality, forcing the importer to liquidate at a loss, I used rehydration and roasting techniques that I'd developed to render this coffee as close as possible to its former glory—which had presented with\u003cstrong\u003e notes of bright raspberry, tangerine and jasmine.\"\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\"\u003e\u003cstrong\u003e\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Aviary","offers":[{"title":"200g","offer_id":49753156944176,"sku":"014-retail","price":36.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0849\/8305\/4640\/files\/014_tile.png?v=1745343531"},{"product_id":"015-layo-teraga","title":"015 - Layo Teraga","description":"\u003ch3\u003e2025 FREEZER SALE UPDATE (2025-12-17):\u003c\/h3\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cem\u003eFrom Christopher: \u003c\/em\u003eFor 2025 in Ethiopia, I played favorites: Layo Teraga is my favorite cooperative in all of Ethiopia and every year produces some of my favorite coffees. The profile is one that is somewhat unfamiliar to many consumers relative to those coming from the highlands of Yirgacheffe or Agaro, but it rewards us in the cup with vibrant stonefruits, high acidity, and a rue-like fruity herbaciousness. I adore this coffee—and I'm excited to roast it again. For this re-release, we took the roast slightly lighter to allow the clean florality to punch through.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003chr\u003e\n\u003ch3\u003e\u003cstrong\u003e\u003ciframe width=\"560\" height=\"315\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/I16MZhUVEvI?si=mOqeNRJVK17Cmcll\" title=\"YouTube video player\"\u003e\u003c\/iframe\u003e\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/h3\u003e\n\u003ch3\u003e\n\u003cstrong\u003eThe sixth coffee of our 2025 \u003c\/strong\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eseason takes us to Uraga, Ethiopia, where the Layo Teraga cooperative and its 1814 smallholder members produce stunning traditional washed and natural coffee across three processing stations. This washed coffee comes from a two-week separation from Site 01, the cooperative's highest elevation station, and bursts with complex, fruited acidity.\u003c\/strong\u003e\n\u003c\/h3\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cem\u003eFrom Christopher\u003c\/em\u003e: \"It's not difficult for me to pick favorites among Ethiopia's smallholder cooperatives: Layo Teraga stands alone not only for the quality of its coffee, but the professionalism and ambition of its management. The name 'Layo Teraga' comes from the words in the local language meaning 'fertile soil' and 'freedom fighter'—a \u003cspan\u003eportmanteau that appropriately describes the cooperative. \u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\"In the Ethiopian export system, cooperatives have generally organized under the umbrella of a larger Union for the purposes of marketing and exporting their coffee. This structure provided specialized services for the cooperative, enabling them to focus on the production of coffee, while paying the Union to facilitate all other activities associated with the export. Not all Unions, however, serve their members equally—and additional layers within a transaction not only reduce transparency and efficiency but also introduce the opportunity for skimming, corruption and gamesmanship.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\"But ahead of my first visit to Layo Teraga in 2022 while I was working to source coffee for Crop to Cup Coffee Importers, the cooperative had, with its sister cooperative in Yirgacheffe (Homa) broken away from its Union with the intention of directly exporting its coffee to buyers. By obtaining its own export license, the cooperative no longer relied on the Union to market or negotiate pricing for its coffee—and with the ability to receive USD as payment, could diversify its activities to include importation of products for sale in Ethiopia, improving the financial security of the cooperative—and thus, the prosperity of its members.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\"The horizontal organization of smallholders into cooperatives or associations is one way that producers can access better-paying specialty markets, manage risk, and negotiate a higher price through collective bargaining. While these structures can take many forms—formal and informal—Ethiopia's cooperatives, particularly in the West, have for decades been a model of how well-run organizations can improve individual producer welfare.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\"Because of the successes of its export and import activities, Layo Teraga—which operates a processing station in Boye and one in Koche in addition to its highest elevation site in Layo, which was built in 2011 and specializes in washed coffee—was able to not only last year able to pay a dividend payment to its members of 5 birr per kilogram of cherry, but has reinvested its profits in the community.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\"The impact that a cooperative can have relative to an individual smallholder scales with success of each season. For this reason, winning loyalty and year-over-year purchasing from buyers is a priority of the cooperative's young management. The improvements and projects funded by the cooperative include: building the main road from in town (enabling easier delivery and movement of coffee and thus easier payment); an electric power station (to provide electricity for the stations and community), classrooms for children of the members; and a banking system providing advanced payments to members through the harvest for anticipated cherry delivery. As of this year, the cooperative had begun work to provide clean, potable water to the community.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\"During my visit to Layo in December 2024, we asked for the cooperative to create two-week separations of the harvest in its warehouse to enable us to cup through and select the highest-quality lots for export. This coffee comes from a separation at the early end of the peak harvest and presents in the cup with \u003cstrong\u003evibrant tropical and stonefruit notes of apricot, peach and pineapple highlighted with jasmine and pink lemonade\u003c\/strong\u003e.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\"I made a short documentary about my sourcing work for Crop to Cup in Ethiopia during the 2024-2025 season including \u003ca href=\"https:\/\/youtu.be\/fkl5QVYIAo0?t=119\" rel=\"noopener\" target=\"_blank\"\u003ea chapter on Layo Teraga\u003c\/a\u003e. There, you can get a look at the processing station and more background about the cooperative.\"\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Aviary","offers":[{"title":"200g","offer_id":49859835953456,"sku":"015-retail","price":33.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0849\/8305\/4640\/files\/015tile.png?v=1748635206"},{"product_id":"016-kerehaklu","title":"016 - Kerehaklu","description":"\u003ch3\u003e2025 FREEZER SALE UPDATE (2025-12-17):\u003c\/h3\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cem\u003eFrom Christopher: \u003c\/em\u003eThis coffee turned out to be the most polarizing release of 2025. For some, it offered a sweetness- and floral-forward optimistic presentation of the potential for Indian Arabica; for others, it fell too outside of the normal Aviary profiles: a bit less fruit-forward, a bit less integrated in the cup. I will take ownership of that: any successes that an individual coffee might have are all owed to the producer; any failures were mine. I'm hoping that in the freezer sale, I do a better job showcasing the brilliant work by Pranoy and Ajoy Thipaiah and execute a roast style that better suits this mosto-inoculated SL9.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003chr\u003e\n\u003ch3\u003e\u003cstrong\u003e\u003ciframe width=\"560\" height=\"315\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/5TjRiAf6dVg?si=pE6eKFEl_MwM3l5S\" title=\"YouTube video player\"\u003e\u003c\/iframe\u003e\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/h3\u003e\n\u003ch3\u003e\n\u003cstrong\u003eThe seventh coffee of our 2025 \u003c\/strong\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eseason comes from Chikmagalur, India, where Ajoy Thipaiah and his son Pranoy produce coffee under dense forest canopy at Kerehaklu estate. This washed Selection 9 microlot was processed using a fermentation inoculated with a mosto cultured from the farm's microflora and presents tropical and tangy with complex acidity and sweetness.\u003c\/strong\u003e\n\u003c\/h3\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cem\u003eFrom Christopher\u003c\/em\u003e: \"While perhaps better known for its tea or spices, India's stature as a coffee producing country continues to grow—not for producing Robusta and Monsooned Malabar, but rather high-quality specialty Arabica. About a five hour drive west of Bangalore, toward the Arabian Sea, a group of coffee growers in Chikmagalur produce coffee that has, in recent years, caught the attention of quality-minded roasters in the U.S. and Europe: producers like Kerehaklu, who only began to focus on specialty coffee in 2019.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\"After our collaboration for \u003ca rel=\"noopener\" href=\"https:\/\/aviary.coffee\/collections\/coffee-archive\/products\/xx2-pranoy-thipaiah\" target=\"_blank\"\u003eAVIARY#XX2\u003c\/a\u003e, Pranoy and I were eager to find a new coffee to release under the Aviary moniker, so in February I boarded a plane to visit India for the first time.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\"Kerehaklu doesn't seem like a place where high-quality coffee should grow; sitting at modest elevations of just 1100 meters above sea level at the foothills of the Mullayanagiri range in Southern India, temperatures in Chikmagalur routinely surpass 30ºC—far above the ideal temperatures for growing Arabica. Yet under the forest there, temperatures remain cool and comfortable for both humans and coffee.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\"Agroforestry and Participatory Forest Management models of production are of particular interest to me (Aviary's earliest releases, from Finca\u003ca href=\"https:\/\/aviary.coffee\/collections\/coffee-archive\/products\/finca-esperanza\"\u003e Esperanza\u003c\/a\u003e and \u003ca href=\"https:\/\/aviary.coffee\/collections\/coffee-archive\/products\/001-fsjm\"\u003eFinca San Jerónimo Miramar\u003c\/a\u003e exemplify this type of cultivation). Aroforestry can not only function to \u003ca href=\"https:\/\/dailycoffeenews.com\/2025\/06\/18\/in-india-coffee-agroforestry-systems-may-also-work-as-seed-nurseries\/\" rel=\"noopener\" target=\"_blank\"\u003epreserve local biodiversity\u003c\/a\u003e but also \u003ca href=\"https:\/\/www.baristahustle.com\/sequestering-carbon\/\" rel=\"noopener\" target=\"_blank\"\u003esequester carbon\u003c\/a\u003e and improve farmer incomes through diversification of products. But directly, as at Kerehaklu, agroforestry can also improve quality—by reducing temperatures, mulching the soil, and protecting from erosion of topsoil during heavy rains (such as during the monsoon season in India).\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\"As Pranoy wrote in \u003ca rel=\"noopener\" href=\"https:\/\/christopherferan.com\/?p=1719\" target=\"_blank\"\u003ea guest piece for my blog as a companion to this release\u003c\/a\u003e, the focus at Kerehaklu is on the soil. the Thipaiah family converted the farm to a fully-organic and biological farm two decades ago and as a result, the biodiversity of the farm has grown. To honor and harness their native microflora, Pranoy made the decision to eschew all commercial inoculants for 2025, instead culturing 'mostos' that began with coffee cherry pulp, sugar and botanical materials collected from around the farm such as lime leaf, fig leaf and coffee blossoms. Overtime, these were fed with coffee cherry juice and pulp, creating distinct populations of microorganisms in each that Pranoy used as starters for fermenting coffee.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\"Among its cultivars of Arabica, Kerehaklu grows Selection 9—a cultivar descended from an Ethiopian variety, Tafarikela (or sometimes Geisha and S.12 Kaffa), crossed with Hibrido de Timor—which was developed in India and has proven to be widely-adaptable with exceptional cup quality.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\"For 2025, I wanted to continue to explore the intersection of plant genetics with human interventions and asked Pranoy to create a lot using SLN 9 for Aviary.\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\"During my visit, we cupped through three tables of samples from Kerehaklu's peak Arabica production, blind—in each set, I selected as my favorite coffees that turned out to be SLN 9 washed coffees processed using a method that Pranoy has been refining for Kerehaklu. One of those coffees, Lot E, became AVIARY#016 and presents in the cup with \u003cstrong\u003etangy, tropical, bright lactic-citric acidity and notes of tamarind, apricot, red apple and orange.\u003c\/strong\u003e\"\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003chr\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eRead \u003ca rel=\"noopener\" href=\"https:\/\/christopherferan.com\/?p=1719\" target=\"_blank\"\u003ePranoy's piece about India's coffee production\u003c\/a\u003e, \"\u003cmeta charset=\"UTF-8\"\u003eWe’ve been here all along.\"\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Aviary","offers":[{"title":"200g","offer_id":49894274367792,"sku":"016-retail","price":33.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0849\/8305\/4640\/files\/016tile.png?v=1750106948"},{"product_id":"017-tagel-alemayehu","title":"017 - Tagel Alemayehu","description":"\u003ch3\u003e2025 FREEZER SALE UPDATE (2025-12-17):\u003c\/h3\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cem\u003eFrom Christopher: \u003c\/em\u003eWithout exception, of the several hundred I cupped, this was my favorite washed coffee to come out of Ethiopia in 2025—enough said. I'm thrilled to roast it again and chose to roast in a slightly lighter style than its original release to allow the expressiveness and complexity of this coffee to shine.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003chr\u003e\n\u003ch3\u003e\u003cstrong\u003e\u003ciframe title=\"YouTube video player\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/qlZfDcuVKfg?si=OaHGoSLtEIe9N8Th\" height=\"315\" width=\"560\"\u003e\u003c\/iframe\u003e\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/h3\u003e\n\u003ch3\u003e\n\u003cstrong\u003eThe eighth coffee of our 2025 \u003c\/strong\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eseason takes us to Goro, Hambela, Ethiopia, where Tagel Alemayehu operates a washing station and processes cherry from approximately 130 registered smallholder outgrowers. This washed coffee—two years in the making—comes from a two-week separation from peak harvest and presents in the cup acid-forward with sweet, structured stonefruit notes.\u003c\/strong\u003e\n\u003c\/h3\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cem\u003eFrom Christopher\u003c\/em\u003e: \"I first visited Tagel Alemayehu's station in Hambela in December 2023. That year, I'd hoped to contract a container of washed coffee from the station for Crop to Cup's 2024 import, but back then, the station wasn't operating; finance issues and a foreign currency shortage made overproduction of coffees—particularly washed coffees, which under Ethiopia's coffee regulations must be exported—risky for exporters like Tagel.  \u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\"And so the motor sat silent; the grassy hillside, covered during normal seasons with hundreds of raised beds, sat empty. A washing station at 2350 meters at the top of the hillside—chilly and windy even in the dry season—didn't make any coffee.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\"Private washing stations dot Southern Ethiopia like clover—enterprises designed to produce volumes of coffee efficiently and move it to export, often through vertically-integrated channels—and I don't normally buy from them. From financial transparency and traceability of cherry to the way that outgrowers are paid, the interests and motivations of private washing stations owner rarely align with my own.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\"But in Tagel, I saw not only alignment but a tale that inspired those in the community we spoke with—that redemption, through hard work, can follow misfortune. Tagel grew up in Hambela, the son of a coffee supplier who built the largest milling business in the Blue Hora area. When the coffee market collapsed, his father lost his business to the bank. Tagel worked as an accountant and cherry collector for export companies, learning the business, and built his reputation for precision and savvy while saving the money he earned—enough to buy his father's mill back from the bank.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\"Eventually, he returned home to Hambela and built this station in Goro, where he hopes to bring his own children up in the coffee business.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\"On the road leaving the station during that first visit, we'd seen a farmer bringing cherry up the road on our way in and stopped him to ask who he was selling it to: he beamed, proudly, telling us that he was selling it to Tagel. In a year when competition for cherry meant that ripeness and cherry selection was a challenge across the country, the cherry brought by this farmer gleamed bright-red. While the common practice in private washing stations is to offer a single payment to producers on delivery of cherry, Tagel registers the producers he buys from and provides a second payment at export—like cooperatives do—incentivizing growers to not only sell cherry to him but treat their coffee with the same care in picking that he promised to undertake in processing and marketing.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\"While we weren't able to buy coffee from Tagel that year, we asked that he'd stay in touch—and to please let us know if he planned to make washed coffee at his station in Hambela.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\"And he did: We returned to the station a year later, in December 2024—Moata riding shotgun in Tagel's car, Tagel flexing the reflexes he steeled in his youth as a race circuit driver, rocketing at 90kmph up the mountain with U2's \"Songs of Innocence\" clanging through the car's unimaginably bad speakers. When we got to the top of the mountain, the station's motor whirred; the beds were full.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\"This coffee, a reward after two years of effort, is a small part of a two-week separation representing peak harvest bursting with complexity, stonefruit and acidity presenting in the cup with \u003cstrong\u003esweet notes of just-ripe Alphonso mango, tangerine, peach and pink lemonade.\u003c\/strong\u003e\"\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Aviary","offers":[{"title":"200g","offer_id":49902237942064,"sku":"017-retail","price":33.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0849\/8305\/4640\/files\/017tile.png?v=1750287636"},{"product_id":"018-san-jeronimo-miramar","title":"018 - San Jerónimo Miramar","description":"\u003ch3\u003e2025 FREEZER SALE UPDATE (2025-12-17):\u003c\/h3\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cem\u003eFrom Christopher: \u003c\/em\u003eIn the initial release of this coffee, I erred on the side of light—resulting in a coffee that needed significant rest but was clean and sugary in the cup. For the freezer release, we're aiming to push development slightly (but not too much!) further, to bring out a slight bit more of the raspberry tone coming from the honey-processed day lot that makes up about 30% of this lot.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003chr\u003e\n\u003ch3\u003e\u003cstrong\u003e\u003ciframe width=\"560\" height=\"315\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/ba7Dy35FTqA?si=UT39YLfEA0mQLUFa\" title=\"YouTube video player\"\u003e\u003c\/iframe\u003e\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/h3\u003e\n\u003ch3\u003e\n\u003cstrong\u003eThe ninth coffee of our 2025 \u003c\/strong\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eseason takes us to the slopes of Volcán Atitlán where the Bressani family—fourth-generation coffee growers—operate a dairy and coffee farm, San Jerónimo Miramar, using a regenerative, agroforestry model. This gesha—adapted to their farm but originally from the CATIE collection—is an Aviary exclusive blend of three small day lots (two washed and one honey) presenting as a bright cup with notes of jasmine, tangerine, apricot, raspberry and pineapple.\u003c\/strong\u003e\n\u003c\/h3\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cem\u003eFrom Christopher\u003c\/em\u003e: \"Most of the buying I do for Aviary is from smallholders whose primary source of income is coffee production. Smallholders produce the majority of the world's coffee and are very often not only among the most disadvantaged members of the value stream not only in terms of income and market access but also risk.\u003cspan class=\"Apple-converted-space\"\u003e \u003c\/span\u003eMeanwhile, estates are not only larger in scale but commonly have owners whose privilege and access is greater than those of smallholders. Estates typically employ and house dozens or hundreds of people—entire communities in and of themselves—so while their impact can be greater than those of a smallholder, the burden for acting responsibly and doing less harm is even greater, still.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\"But for that reason, I've long admired the work that the Bressani family—fourth generation coffee growers—are carrying out at Finca San Jerónimo Miramar. FSJM is a testament to what can be achieved when efforts, values and expertise are carried through generations over a century—and a showcase of how farm management can create resiliency for the future.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\"I first purchased coffee from FSJM for Aviary's first season, in 2024, and made a point of visiting the farm ahead of the 2025 season so see the farm and its industry-leading soil fertility management programs up close. And the truth is that what I saw at FSJM gives me hope: it offers, I think, a tangible demonstration of how a different approach to coffee production—a fully-organic forest system with diversified revenue streams—could offer not only greater resiliency for producers in the face of climate change, but also stability in the face of market volatility.\u003cspan class=\"Apple-converted-space\"\u003e \u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\"The focus at FSJM is the soil. I spent most of my visit with Giorgio Bressani, who manages the coffee production at FSJM, talking about nutrient cycling, and how layers of shade canopy create topsoil—improving humidity control, reducing the temperature of surface soil and feeder roots, mulching the trees with organic matter, preventing erosion and leeching of nutrients, and resulting in healthier, more disease- and climate-resistant trees.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\"All of the efforts at FSJM don't just lead to healthier trees and more fertile soil—they create a microclimate.\u003cspan class=\"Apple-converted-space\"\u003e \u003c\/span\u003eWalking just 10 meters at the edge of the farm to an adjacent property, I felt the texture of the topsoil change. Where on FSJM, topsoil is 3cm or more, here it was just a millimeter. the topsoil at FSJM below the surface is \"cool enough to drink a beer\" (all credit to Giorgio for that phrase) but at the adjacent farm, it's hot to the touch. The stress on the trees showed—with lower productivity and density in the nodes, less glossy leaves, higher defoliation, and a warmer ambient temperature.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\"Economic resiliency and diversification is also at the heart of the system here. Coffee is just one revenue stream—also planted here are valuable cash crops like cacao, cardamom, fruits as well as hardwoods—with the the dairy operated by the family, first established by Giorgio's grandfather in the 1950s, providing true economic security. Even in difficult years for the coffee market, the farm is able to sustain not only the Bressani family but the hundreds of families who rely on the farm's operations for a living.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\"The scale of effort at FSJM is matched only by the ambition of the team—which includes not only Giorgio and his siblings but 350 highly trained and precisely deployed pickers and a professional staff of experts who oversee everything from the nursery and breeding operation to composting to the pasturing of cows and pruning and maintenance of trees to replication of mycelium and wasps to combat broca—not to mention processing, drying, milling, and export, nor the dairy factory nor hydroelectric plant that generates the power for the farm, dairy, mill and town.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\"The impressive infrastructure of FSJM is the work of literal generations—beginning with Giorgio's great-grandfather, Cesare, who started the family in coffee; expanded by his grandfather, Valentin, who built much of the infrastructure; re-invented by his father, Mark, the \"Cheese Man\" who laid the foundations for innovations in quality with a natural vision; and lived today by Giorgio and his siblings who brought the farm into the 21st century both in terms of farm practices and market access.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cspan class=\"Apple-converted-space\"\u003e\"\u003c\/span\u003eWhile some projects in coffee are either focused on cloning, pure genetics and certified seed, FSJM employs dynamic genetic management at its nursery and in the fields, actively selecting and breeding the best performing trees based on their characteristics (disease resistance, yield, cup performance) and those seemingly best adapted to the farm. This means intentionally allowing adaptation and evolution to happen—encouraging resiliency while selecting for desirable traits while reducing genetic bottlenecks. For this reason, FSJM has unique cultivars in its collection that outperform their traditional counterparts both on the table and in the field.\u003cspan class=\"Apple-converted-space\"\u003e \u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cspan class=\"Apple-converted-space\"\u003e\"The Gesha planted on the farm originally came from the CATIE institute collection in Costa Rica, a descendant of the 1964 FAO mission to Ethiopia—but through farm management practices, is uniquely adapted to the microclimate and conditions at FSJM, rendering a somewhat different cup outcome and performance in the field.\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\"This coffee is a blend of three small day lots—two washed, and one honey process—that I selected after cupping through every separation of Gesha produced by the team at FSJM during the 2024 harvest. In the cup, this coffee presents \u003cstrong\u003ebright and vibrant with notes of tangerine, apricot, raspberry, jasmine and pineapple.\"\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Aviary","offers":[{"title":"200g","offer_id":50027313168688,"sku":"018-retail","price":39.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0849\/8305\/4640\/files\/018tile.png?v=1754337914"},{"product_id":"019-angel-arturo-paz","title":"019 - Ángel Arturo Paz","description":"\u003ch3\u003e2025 FREEZER SALE UPDATE (2025-12-17):\u003c\/h3\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cem\u003eFrom Christopher: \u003c\/em\u003eI greedily chugged my reserve box of this coffee from its initial release—my favorite of the 2025 season—and missed out on its full evolution as the coffee rested and ripened. I won't make that mistake again—which means that I'll be keeping additional boxes of this one for myself. It's a treat to be able to re-release and enjoy this one again. For this re-release, we attempted to match the style and expression of the original release, which we loved.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003chr\u003e\n\u003ch3\u003e\n\u003cstrong\u003eThe tenth coffee of our 2025 \u003c\/strong\u003e\u003cstrong\u003ecomes from Cup of Excellence winner Ángel Arturo Paz, a third-generation coffee producer whose farm, El Itacayo, sits on the border of a wildlife preserve. This gesha lot—from seed sprouted from Hacienda La Esmeralda—is an Aviary exclusive and one of the first lots Arturo dried using his new drying room, presenting as a bright, juicy, structured cup with notes of orange blossom, citron, yuzu, Calamansi orange, mango, green melon, apricot and lemongrass.\u003c\/strong\u003e\n\u003c\/h3\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cem\u003eFrom Christopher\u003c\/em\u003e: \"I first got to know Arturo Paz through his coffee, which I cupped blind on a table showcasing the 2021 Cup of Excellence winners from Honduras. His selection—a gesha from El Itacayo—placed eighth, but was my favorite of that year's top 20. I don't typically participate in COE auctions, though, and didn't have another way to buy his coffee. Because of the stature of his perhaps better-known and more outwardly jubilant cousin and Cup of Excellence legend, Benjamin, there's no shortage of demand for Arturo's coffee.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\"Most of the time, there's an extreme power imbalance in the relationship between buyer and seller—even in scenarios of direct trade. While roasters may have specific interest in a coffee or producer, they have virtually unlimited other options should a coffee not meet their price, quality or availability expectations. Sellers, on the other hand, typically have limited market access or export sales channels that might create competition for their coffees and put them in a stronger posture for negotiation. But because of their reputation for quality, skill as producers and businesspeople, kindness and integrity, Arturo and Benjamin have fostered a loyal network of buyers who purchase 100% of their coffee year over year, positioning themselves to not only command the price they receive for their coffee but also decide which buyers and which companies they'd like to sell to.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\"It's this upending and inversion of traditional coffee supply chain dynamics—resulting from a producer's investment in and commitment to quality—that fascinated me, even though I knew it would be unlikely that I could ever buy coffee from Arturo or Benjamin as it was already pre-contracted, in full, forever by existing clients.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\"A third-generation coffee producer, Arturo and his family own and operate a dry mill and export company in Santa Barbara. In 2012, Arturo and Benjamin began planting their own plots of coffee—Arturo on the border of a wildlife preserve at elevations up to 1700 masl, creating a buffer zone protecting the wildlife and ecosystem of the rainforest and creating a wet, cool microclimate ideal for production of high-quality coffee—using Gesha seeds obtained from Hacienda la Esmeralda in Panama (originally collected from Ethiopia in the 1930s and then sent to Tanzania and Kenya, from where it made its way to Panama and infamy).\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\"Nearly four years after tasting his coffee for the first time, in April 2025, I met Arturo in person after an introduction at SCA Expo in Houston by my friend and colleague Kylee Clancy of \u003ca href=\"https:\/\/www.vervecoffee.com\" target=\"_blank\"\u003eVerve Coffee\u003c\/a\u003e—longtime buyers of coffee from both Arturo and Benjamin. By then, Arturo had had collected multiple more Cup of Excellence wins (#27 in 2023, #7 in 2024, #9 in 2025) and his coffee had found its way onto the menus of some of the most-acclaimed roasteries in the U.S. After a brief conversation—where we shyly traded photos of drying rooms (Arturo had just completed building his) and ideas about how to optimize their use—Arturo suggested that he might have coffee for me to taste.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\"This lot is the result of that conversation and the final of Aviary's 2025 exploration into the genetics of Gesha and Ethiopian lineage coffees—and the second lot ever dried in Arturo's dark-room. I am honored to have the opportunity to present this intensely sweet coffee that is layered with juicy notes of \u003cstrong\u003emango, red currant, citron, Calamansi orange, lime and yuzu that modulates to green melon and apricot sweetness and citrus as it cools\u003c\/strong\u003e.\"\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Aviary","offers":[{"title":"200g","offer_id":50082735292720,"sku":"019-retail","price":44.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0849\/8305\/4640\/files\/019_tile.png?v=1756497689"},{"product_id":"020-yusuf-al-aalam","title":"020 - Yusuf Al Aamal","description":"\u003ch3\u003e2025 FREEZER SALE UPDATE (2025-12-17):\u003c\/h3\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cem\u003eFrom Christopher: \u003c\/em\u003eI received countless messages asking if there was any of this coffee available \u003cem\u003esomewhere, somehow!\u003c\/em\u003e I was happy with the profile I'd set for the production roast and so, yes, there was some set aside for the freezer sale—which we're making available now. We'll aim for the same balance of punchy-fruit and sugary sweetness but will endeavor to push acidity slightly higher for this re-release.\u003cstrong\u003e\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003chr\u003e\n\u003ch3\u003e\n\u003cstrong\u003eThe eleventh coffee of our 2025 season \u003c\/strong\u003e\u003cstrong\u003ecomes through a collaboration between Aviary, Mokha King and Yusuf Al Aamal that almost never happened—a honey process Yemenia designed to push the bounds of risk and possibility and examine the nuance and geopolitical realities behind the international coffee trade—presenting in the cup with intense sweetness and notes of raisin, fig, date, white raspberry, violet, mulberry and red apple.\u003c\/strong\u003e\n\u003c\/h3\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cem\u003eFrom Christopher\u003c\/em\u003e: \"Outside of Ethiopia, nowhere has a stronger claim to being the birthplace of Arabica as we know it today than Yemen. For nearly 200 years, beginning in the 15th century, Yemen was the world's sole commercial producer—changing only when, \u003ca rel=\"noopener noreferrer\" href=\"https:\/\/christopherferan.com\/2025\/07\/08\/weve-been-here-all-along-pranoy-thipaiah\/\" target=\"_blank\"\u003elegend has it\u003c\/a\u003e, seeds were smuggled by an Indian pilgrim named Baba Budan who planted it in Chikmagulur, India (origin of AVIARY#016). Geographically isolated and with a climate distinct from the montane forests of Ethiopia, \u003ca href=\"https:\/\/www.nature.com\/articles\/s41598-024-64074-9\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\" target=\"_blank\"\u003egenetics in Yemen drifted over its centuries of cultivation there\u003c\/a\u003e, becoming more tolerant of the dry, hot conditions and developing deeper roots to tap water from the aquifers in the terraced farms on the face of the \u003cspan\u003eJabal \u003c\/span\u003eḤarāz mountains\u003cspan\u003e.\u003c\/span\u003e \u003ca href=\"https:\/\/www.researchgate.net\/publication\/340012724_Authentication_of_Coffea_arabica_Varieties_through_DNA_Fingerprinting_and_its_Significance_for_the_Coffee_Sector\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\" target=\"_blank\"\u003eDescendants of these accessions—Bourbon and Typica\u003c\/a\u003e—made their way to the Western Hemisphere.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\"That is to say: while Arabica may have originated in Ethiopia, coffee from the Americas that came to dominate global trade is more closely related to those coffees from Yemen.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\"Traditionally, coffees in Yemen are grown on the terraced mountainside by smallholders who dried the cherry as naturals, sometimes conditioning it in caves. The intensely winey, musky, complex profile that often results is one that I struggle with—and I've long wondered how \u003cem\u003eYemenia\u003c\/em\u003e coffees would taste if we were able to process them in a way such that we could present these ancient varieties in cups less influenced by process.\u003cstrong\u003e\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\"And so, in July 2023, I reached out to Hudaifa Tayeb of Mokha King. I knew that Mokha King had worked with \u003ca href=\"https:\/\/www.hatchcrafted.com\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\" target=\"_blank\"\u003eHatch Coffee\u003c\/a\u003e to produce an anaerobic natural and asked Hudaifa if he'd be open to trying something I'd never heard of in Yemen before: a wet process. He was keen.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\"Hudaifa's deep roots in Yemen would be integral to executing a novel process in a place I had never been. Hudaifa grew up in Yemen but fled with his family in the early years of the country's civil war—taking the last flight out of the country before flights were suspended during the incursion of the Houthis into Sanaa—spending months drifting in a Homerian journey between Addis Ababa, Djibouti and Dubai before being granted a refugee visa in Canada. There, he established Mokha King with his brother Hassan, who was still living in Yemen, as a way to bring economic opportunity to their family and community in Yemen.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\"To produce the lot for Aviary, Hudaifa and Hassan partnered with a fourth-generation coffee producer, Yusuf Al-Aamal. Hassan met Yusuf in 2015 after learning the history of Yusuf's family farm, which dates back to the beginning of Yemeni coffee cultivation more than 500 years ago. Born in Sharqi Haraz, Yusuf moved to Sanaa in pursuit of work after graduating high school in Manakha. The economic challenges posed by the war brought him back to Sharqi Haraz, where he planted and produced coffee on his family's farm, and, in 2019 sold his first crop to Mokha King.\u003cspan style=\"font-size: 0.875rem;\"\u003e\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\"Though Sharqi Haraaz does not face the water shortages that threaten other parts of the country, I developed a honey process protocol to minimize water usage in an effort to produce a robust protocol that could be broadly useful. The coffee would be floated, pulped using a hand-pulper and fermented in mucilage before drying under shade on raised beds, without washing. I contracted 60kg in August 2023 in the hopes of releasing it for Aviary's first season in 2024.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\"As I would not be traveling to Yemen myself to oversee this work, I relied solely on intermediaries—most of whom I'd never met—and needed to be willing to accept the risks of not only a producer executing a process for the first time, but also the risks and logistical challenges presented by exporting from Yemen.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\"Governance in Yemen is fragmented: since its civil war, the Houthis control Sanaa and much of the north of the country, while the \u003cspan\u003einternationally-recognized government controls parts of the South and East from its capital in Aden (and from abroad, with its leaders scattered) with influence from The Southern Transitional Council in the South and Aden. \u003c\/span\u003eThe area of Yemen where much of Yemen's coffee grows—including Yusuf's—remains under the control of the Houthi regime while the port of export in the South is under the control of the internationally-recognized government.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\"The Houthis, formally named Ansar Allah, positioned themselves during the 2011 Arab Spring uprising using Zaydi Shia Islamist, nationalist-populist rhetoric opposing political corruption, economic neglect, and elite dominance—rhetoric which helped the movement gain strength sufficient to later take control over Sanaa. The Houthis' use of sexual violence, oppression of women, violence against journalists, landmines and child soldiers have been widely documented and internationally condemned; isolated and under sanctions, the group relies primarily on financial support from Iran to fund its activities. \u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\"Ceasefires brokered between the warring factions by the UN in 2022 offered some relief to Houthi territories and enabled commercial flights to resume in Sanaa, but without foreign aid, access to ports of export and without access to the revenues generated by oil reserves controlled by the internationally-recognized government in the South, public sector workers in Houthi-controlled territories have for years gone unpaid; public infrastructure like electrical services have failed; the healthcare system has collapsed; poverty and food insecurity have risen with the broader economic failure. This has left the Houthis deeply unpopular: while difficult to generalize broadly (and difficult to conduct in Yemen), \u003ca href=\"https:\/\/sanaacenter.org\/the-yemen-review\/july-sept-2024\/23516\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\" target=\"_blank\"\u003epolling shows as little as 8% support\u003c\/a\u003e for the Houthis among people living in the areas they govern.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\"The Israeli government's response to the October 7, 2023 attack on Israel by Hamas—a response which has been \u003ca href=\"https:\/\/www.pbs.org\/newshour\/world\/leading-genocide-scholars-organization-says-israel-is-committing-genocide-in-gaza\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\" target=\"_blank\"\u003edeemed a genocide by scholars\u003c\/a\u003e, \u003ca href=\"https:\/\/www.npr.org\/2025\/07\/17\/nx-s1-5468953\/historian-omer-bartov-on-why-he-believes-israel-is-committing-genocide-in-gaza\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\" target=\"_blank\"\u003ehistorians\u003c\/a\u003e and \u003ca href=\"https:\/\/www.ohchr.org\/sites\/default\/files\/documents\/hrbodies\/hrcouncil\/sessions-regular\/session60\/advance-version\/a-hrc-60-crp-3.pdf\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\" target=\"_blank\"\u003ethe \u003c\/a\u003e\u003ca href=\"https:\/\/www.ohchr.org\/sites\/default\/files\/documents\/hrbodies\/hrcouncil\/sessions-regular\/session60\/advance-version\/a-hrc-60-crp-3.pdf\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\" target=\"_blank\"\u003e\u003cspan\u003eUN Human Rights Council’s Independent International Commission of Inquiry\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/a\u003e—presented an opportunity for the Houthis in the face of flagging domestic support and an emerging political crisis.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\"In late 2023, the Houthis began carrying out drone and missile attacks on ships on the Red Sea—ostensibly in support of Palestine, stating that the attacks \u003ca href=\"https:\/\/www.aljazeera.com\/news\/2023\/12\/19\/yemens-houthis-will-not-stop-red-sea-attacks-until-israel-stops-gaza-war#:~:text=Israel%2DPalestine%20conflict-,Yemen's%20Houthis%20'will%20not%20stop'%20Red%20Sea%20attacks%20until%20Israel,post%20on%20X%20on%20Tuesday.\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\" target=\"_blank\"\u003ewould continue\u003c\/a\u003e until 'crimes in Gaza stop and food, medicines and fuel are allowed to reach its besieged population.' In its statements, Ansar Allah drew on historical support of Palestine within Yemen that \u003ca href=\"https:\/\/www.merip.org\/2024\/01\/the-houthis-sovereign-solidarity-with-palestine\/\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\" target=\"_blank\"\u003epredates the creation of the state of Israel\u003c\/a\u003e and positioned itself as the leader of the so-called Axis of Resistance, aiming to \u003ca href=\"https:\/\/www.cbc.ca\/news\/world\/yemen-houthis-government-red-sea-1.7101447\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\" target=\"_blank\"\u003ebolster both support in Yemen\u003c\/a\u003e and \u003ca href=\"https:\/\/carnegieendowment.org\/research\/2025\/02\/leverage-beyond-yemen-ansar-allah-and-its-iraqi-alliances?lang=en\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\" target=\"_blank\"\u003esupport from regional governments.\u003c\/a\u003e The attacks, which the \u003ca href=\"https:\/\/www.mei.edu\/publications\/houthis-see-domestic-and-regional-benefit-continued-red-sea-attacks\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\" target=\"_blank\"\u003eHouthis initially claimed were meant to target Israel,\u003c\/a\u003e disrupted global shipping—as well as oil exports from the internationally-recognized government.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\"In a \u003cem\u003ecosmically irrelevant\u003c\/em\u003e footnote and consequence of the Houthi resistance, the initial lot produced by Mokha King for Aviary's first season—shipped in January 2024—was caught in the crossfire. Damaged on the Red Sea, it never arrived.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\"Hudaifa was distraught as he told me the news, fearful of how I'd react. But I understood the risks of what we'd hoped to achieve and the difficulty of this work and asked him if he'd be willing to try again; I told him I'd find a way to pre-pay for the lot upfront—some $20 per pound—as a way to mitigate his risk of loss. That conversation and the lot that resulted from it was the inspiration for the creation of \u003ca href=\"https:\/\/aviary.coffee\/products\/complete-2026-season\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\" target=\"_blank\"\u003eAviary's full-season reservation model\u003c\/a\u003e, which enables me to not only take risks that live outside the bounds of possibility for most coffee roasting companies, but also live up to my obligations as a buyer by sharing risk if and when I can.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\"Our second attempt was processed by Hassan Tayeb in December 2024 and January 2025 using cherry from Yusuf Al-Aamal. This time—after countless payments at border crossings and eight months in transit—it made it to the U.S.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\"This is the magic of coffee; in the cup, we taste something from another world. Its complexity serves as a metaphor for the complexity of the context in which it was created: a place that I've never visited—and where most people won't have the opportunity to go—and where I'm certain the producers, agents, intermediaries, truckers and exporters involved in its production risked and committed more than I can possibly imagine to make this coffee possible.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\"On August 29, over two years after our first conversation about the project—with the genocide of Palestinians still ongoing, and with ships on the Red Sea still under Houthi attack—I tasted the resulting coffee for the first time: \u003cstrong\u003ea honey processed Yemeni Jaadi that presents with Liberica-like sweetness, complex, winey acidity and notes of white raspberry, fig, date and mulberry.\"\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003chr\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cem\u003eThe modern history of Yemen and the politics of the Middle East is exceedingly complex—far more complex than I can sufficiently do justice in telling the story of a coffee. To learn more, I highly recommend the \u003ca rel=\"noopener noreferrer\" href=\"https:\/\/www.npr.org\/podcasts\/510333\/throughline\" target=\"_blank\"\u003eThroughline\u003c\/a\u003e podcast from NPR.\u003c\/em\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Aviary","offers":[{"title":"200g","offer_id":50109447700784,"sku":"020-retail","price":60.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0849\/8305\/4640\/files\/020_tile_29cf3e4f-8936-48e8-a88a-c5486a79fa42.png?v=1763064384"},{"product_id":"021-renato-martinez","title":"021 - Renato Martinez","description":"\u003ch3\u003e2025 FREEZER SALE UPDATE (2025-12-17):\u003c\/h3\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cem\u003eFrom Christopher: \u003c\/em\u003eThis is the only coffee that shares the exact same profile as its original release—having been roasted on the same day and using the same machine. Blue fruit shifts to red hibiscus as it rests with citrus acidity, dense structure, velvety body and caramel sweetness—this is everything I want in a washed Typica from anywhere in the world.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003chr\u003e\n\u003ch3\u003e\n\u003cstrong\u003eThe twelfth and final coffee of our 2025 season \u003c\/strong\u003e\u003cstrong\u003ecomes from a single producer in Mazeteca in Oaxaca, Mexico—a washed process  presenting in a bright, fruited cup with notes of pomegranate, hibiscus, lime and melon. \u003c\/strong\u003e\n\u003c\/h3\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cem\u003eFrom Christopher\u003c\/em\u003e: \"Specialty coffee's fascination with transparency information is one that, I believe, arises from noble intentions. By identifying a producer—by name and by face—and telling their history with a record of the price they were paid for their coffee, we seem to believe we're closing the distance that coffee travels through complex supply chains across the world.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eWhile transparency \u003cem\u003ecan\u003c\/em\u003e serve as a tool to mitigate concerns of financial exploitation by showing that a 'fair price' was paid, the way we report it may lack sufficient context by which a consumer could make a determination around fairness or equity. Further, while bridging the gap between consumers and producers can help producers access a broader, more specific, more competitive market and thus receive a better price, it's also possible to levy criticisms against this practice—particularly if it relies on tokenization of a producer's image to sell coffee or imply a closeness or relationship that doesn't genuinely exist. That is to say: good intentions don't protect against all possible scenarios or contexts.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\"In some situations, using imagery or details about a producer to market a coffee—with sufficient specificity to identify them locally—can create risks to their security and safety, particularly when the price paid for a coffee is dramatically out of step with the local price in places with limited government participation in daily life. In these contexts, we explore the tension between consumers’ and roasters’ desire for transparency and the practical realities of working in and buying from conflict zones—places torn apart by war, politics and history.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\"There, to hold the fabric of communities intact, sometimes we must not stand apart, but stand together.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\"Sierra Mazateca in Mexico is one such context that \u003ca href=\"https:\/\/christopherferan.com\/2024\/11\/24\/agents-middlemen-and-how-the-work-is-actually-done\/\" target=\"_blank\"\u003erequires careful consideration\u003c\/a\u003e as well as an understanding of the problematic history of encounters between indigenous communities and outsiders, security threats from narcotraffickers and federales, and the social risks posed by operating outside the local norms. After the collapse of the \u003cem\u003eejido \u003c\/em\u003esystem of land use under President Carlos Salinas de Gortari's neoliberal 'reforms,' many indigenous communities moved into the highlands—intentionally far from the reach of government, and in lands too inaccessible for exploitation by the government or corporations. Most of the communities don't speak Spanish—instead speaking Nahuatl or Mixtec or Zapotec or Maya or Mazatec—and the difficulty of navigating the terrain compounded their isolation, making accessing or aggregating coffee as difficult as the importance of those communities maintaining internal social cohesion and preserving their cultural identity.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\"After the ICA collapsed, so too did prices for coffee—which by 1983 accounted for 35% of Mexico's agricultural exports. The Coordination of Coffee Grower Organizations estimates that as a result of the ensuing coffee crisis, Mexican coffee growers would have lost 65% of their potential revenues since the start of the crisis. As a result, 71% of coffee growers stopped using fertilizers, 40% reduced pruning, and 75% stopped investing in control of pests, leading to lower qualities, yields and resiliency ahead of the coffee leaf rust outbreak in Latin America in 2012.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\"In response, many of the coffee growers in Mexico—who today number more than 500,000, 85% of whom are indigenous and with 95% growing coffee on fewer than 3 hectares of land—organized into informal cooperatives or otherwise collaborated to mitigate their risk and attempt to access the best price for their coffee.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\"Buying coffees like this one in the way it was purchased—outside of those cooperative structures and bypassing local coyotes who have operated as virtual monopolies and suppressed prices and capturing any premiums paid themselves—is difficult, requiring the building of trust over years and a delicate hand. If the price paid were to be discovered locally it could incite jealousy, theft or, in some cases, violence—or merely break trust and the social contract in the community, eroding longstanding social bonds as well as access to market for those communities.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\"And so we present this coffee under an assumed name—and without a portrait. It's not merely an act of respect—it's in keeping with the spirit of the agreement we've made with the third-party agent whose relationships we rely on to access coffees in these communities and whose staff on the ground must maintain their own networks of trust. \u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\"In the end, we have a coffee that is able to speak for itself: an old rootstock Typica processed in a traditional manner that presents in the cup with fruited notes of \u003cstrong\u003edried raspberry, pomegranate, hibiscus, lime and bright orange acidity.\"\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Aviary","offers":[{"title":"200g","offer_id":50249851896112,"sku":"021-retail","price":35.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0849\/8305\/4640\/files\/021tile.png?v=1762807030"}],"url":"https:\/\/aviary.coffee\/collections\/2025-freezer-sale.oembed","provider":"Aviary","version":"1.0","type":"link"}