Blog

At the end of each year, we take a look back over how well we have lived up to our mission, stayed true to our values, and kept up focus on the guiding principles that inspire and motivate us at Cafe Imports: Quality, Service, Education, and Progress. This year’s Progress Report is condensed into a single analysis of our engagement with our communities, our educational outreach, and our efforts toward the development of ever-better coffee quality. Click to read the full report.

We know that water is wet, but that fact alone isn’t enough to capture water’s immense power. That power is evident in coffee, not simply in the cup but also in the seeds themselves: Water activity (Aw) is the relative equilibrium that exists (or doesn’t exist) between the vapor pressure inside a food or a coffee seed as compared with the surrounding humidity or environment. In perishable foods, it is a significant measure for the sake of safety and the prevention of food-borne illness, but in coffee, it’s a significant measure…why, exactly? Click to find out.

How is a roaster or green-coffee buyer supposed to know what coffees are arriving when? With the first edition of the Cafe Imports Specialty-Coffee Harvest Chart, natch.

Cafe Imports Europe is sehr froh to remind our customers that they are welcome to order from our position in one of two European warehouses: Vollers U.K. located in Bury St Edmunds, or Schwarze & Consort in Hamburg, Germany.

There are hundreds of varieties with individual proper names planted all over the world, and many of them grow differently, look different, and certainly taste different from each other—but when you dig below the soil and research each plant’s roots, you’ll often find yourself tangled in a network of related, crossed, back-crossed, and derivative genetic lines that, well, often lead back to one or two or three main branches.

Humans love fermented foods so much you’d think we’d have pickled ourselves by now: We can’t seem to get enough bread, sauerkraut, wine, yogurt, cheese, chocolate, or, of course, coffee. Well, coffee’s not a fermented beverage per se, but fermentation does play a part in the creation of this drink we love, and since we are insatiably curious about every step in the process we have attempted to learn and absorb as much as we can about the importance and the impact of fermentation on coffee quality and flavor. Click here to read more about what we’ve discovered in our reading, research, and experience.

In response to many of the questions, concerns, and conversations happening in the global specialty-coffee community lately, we wanted to take a moment to share what we know and how we feel about the current state of the C Market.

We are pleased to invite roaster of all sizes to participate in the World Coffee Research check-off fund through their partnership with Cafe Imports Europe! Read more about how small change from you can make big change for coffee.

Colombia is a special place to us in general at Cafe Imports, but it’s also the coffee-growing country where the Best Cup competition was born: Along with our partners at Banexport, we created this regional competition to highlight the best and brightest within several of the country’s specific growing areas, beginning with Cauca and Huila. For this year’s cupping contest and auction, we are thrilled to expand our reach to the Nariño and Tolima departments in order to discover even more top-shelf lots from the world’s best smallholder producers.