If you go looking for information related to the producing side of coffee, usually you'll be met with all sorts of language about the farms themselves - The scents of jasmine fireworks as you pass through a farm in full flower; The grounding wet earth smell reaching out
When I opened the Tyee this morning, an article about the nearly failed stone fruit harvest in BC stopped me cold. How could there be no peaches this summer? We take the annual stone fruit availability for granted here on the coast - First come cherries, then the tiny underripe
Originally published in our subscription zine for June 2024 Rattling around in the corners of the drawer of our front entryway are chive seeds saved from last year. I meant to plant them to expand the chive patch outside our apartment window in East Van- currently the only thing in
Crickets are the backing track to our zippy inhales through the door, cracked to the street. A motorbike zooms by while dogs start a muffled song from across the block. Each last zip in the room is a gasp, as if aspirating will liberate the whole story cradled in the
A mineral smell of wet soil kicks up into the dewy air and occasional wild glassy pink raspberries blur past as our sweet stubborn truck insists its taken this trip hundreds of times, with hundreds more to come. The navy 90's toyota pickup tires defiantly slipping and gaining
Whenever I'm on instagram, I usually find myself pavlovian-ly tapping over to David Zilber's profile to see what he's reading, or what fermentation project he's up to. In one post, the (once head of fermentation at Noma) juggernaut forms the Venn diagram
It's funny that we tend to expect immutability out of coffee, the most mutable thing around. We're obsessed with replicating a taste experience. There are countless permutations, decisions (often amounting to a spit second) while roasting that inevitably impact the end result. Maddeningly, many of you
Coffee industry folk say remarkably little about fungi. Is Big Ag influencing us? Multinationals hold a seemingly deep dependence on selling synthetic fertilizers and fungicides to large cooperatives, who sell to smallholder farmers at a discount. This arrangement suits these powerful actors, assuming producers uphold multi-year fixed-price contracts. These are
originally published November 2021 Our human tendency is to separate science and art as different modalities – But let’s explore this challenge – Are they not singular? Swiss naturopath and somewhat of a mystic, Emma Kunz, would work in secret with pendulum in hand, creating kaleidoscopic visions from the ‘blueprints’. After
originally published July 2021 If you’ve been with us for awhile, you can likely rattle off a few hybrid varieties (Castillo, Colombia or Ruiru 11 anyone?) and you possibly appreciate their ability to be more resilient in the face of climate change while still tasting great. How do hybrids
This journal was originally posted in June 2021 Earlier this month, I hopped on a zoom call with our friend Raul Perez, who manages and runs Finca La Soledad as well as El Llano (where both coffees for the June subscription box were grown) along with his dad Henio Perez
*from our archive, originally published in our newsletter September 2020 Nate and I have been talking to each other a lot about green coffee (because of course, that’s what happens when your entire household is coffee focused). Often we’re both thinking many months into the future when we