(Picture provided by Café Imports)

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Region: Carmo de Minas, Minas Gerais

Farm: Fazenda Santa Ines

Altitude: 900-1050 masl

Processing Method: Natural

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Cupping Notes provided by Café Imports: "Peanut, almond, chocolate and tart."

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Coffee growing in Carmo de Minas has been the business of the Pereira family since 1979. When the family started managing the 215 ha. farmland at Fazenda Santa Ines, it was already planted in coffee, but they opted on planting new varieties and updating the work model in order to improve quality and productivity. At the time the family took over management at Santa Ines, the Carmo de Minas region was experiencing problems with quality. The family hired experts to help improve quality, they introduced new harvesting/processing techniques, and they also implemented the newest farm technology available. Immediately the coffees from Santa Ines began to stand out in regional and national contests, establishing a reputation of quality amongst the specialty coffee market.

In 2005, a sample from Fazenda Santa Ines won first place in Cup of Excellence Brazil, with a world record 95.85 score.

(Picture provided by Café Imports)

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Region: Hulia

Farm: Various small holder farmers

Processing Method: Washed

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Cupping notes provided by Café Importers: "Dark chocolate, lemongrass and nutmeg flavor, sweet and citric with a creamy mouthfeel."

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This is not your Juan Valdez. The chocolate tones makes this coffee a fan favorite and an all around great tasting, everyday coffee.

In an effort to be a better partner to our coffee-farming friends in the South of Colombia by buying more of their fine coffee and paying a premium better than they can find in the local market, we are strengthening our relationships while simultaneously introducing a product to Specialty Coffee roasters that is solid, flexible and relatively inexpensive. This is a win-win for producers and roasters, and ultimately the consumer.

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The average coffee farmer in Cauca, Huila, and Nariño has about 1.5 hectares of coffee land and will produce about 50 bags of coffee per harvest. During the few months of harvest season, he or she will bring to town on a Saturday 10 or so bags of pergamino, or parchment coffee, to sell. We pay a premium based on cup scores. Higher score equals higher premium: 90 points is over 4 times market value. Above 88 points means a microlot premium, and 86 points equals our Regional Select premium.

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Before Gran Galope, the other coffees, anything below 86 (that's where most of the coffee lies), received the FNC price or the posted street price. In today's market of about $1.20, this standard price is simply an unfortunate break-even price for an entire year's worth of what we all know is hard, committed, and disciplined work.

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(Picture provided by Café Imports)

Region: Tarrazu

Processing Method: Fully Washed

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Cupping notes provided by Café Imports: "Mild, sweet and clean with pumpkin seed, cocoa and peanut flavor."

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Cafe Vida is a all around great coffee, capturing the classic characteristics of a washed Costa Rican coffee, suitable for both blending and as an accessible single-origin offering. Café Vida is perfect for any occasion and goes well with anything. Cafe Vidais sourced based on quality and profile, and carries limited or no traceability.

Region: Yirgacheffee

Processing Method: Natural

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Ethiopia is said to be the birth place of coffee. That is what makes Ethiopian coffee so great, the complete mix of varietals. It is estimated that somewhere between six thousand and ten thousand varieties exist naturally in these highlands, the origin of coffee - The cross pollination of genetics is totally amazing. For those that enjoy a more robust flavor, this is the coffee for you.

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Processing Method: Washed

Cupping notes from Café Imports: "Sugary sweet with tangy acidity and a smooth mouthfeel; lots of lemon and grapefruit flavors with red grape, graham and a nutty aftertaste."

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"Kichwa Tembo" means "elephant head" in Swahili, and, for Café Imports, the mark represents the strength in these cups. Our Kichwa Tembo coffees represent a classic, hardworking Kenyan profile: Sweet tropical fruit balanced by complex savory elements of herb and tomato, and a creamy body.

We strive to offer high-quality Kichwa Tembo coffees in addition to our more traceable Kenyan microlots and factory-specific lots (washing stations are often called "factories" in Kenya).

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Region: Jaltenango, Fraylesca, Chiapas

Farm: Finca La Victoria

Altitude: 1450 masl

Processing Method: Washed

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Cupping notes from Café Imports: "Sweet, clean and citric with a peanut aftertaste."

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The type of bean grown on the Finca La Victoria is the Oro Azteca (Aztec Gold) and it lives up to its name. That is why we have decided to call this coffee Huitzilopochtli, after the Aztec god of the sun and of war. The Aztecs believed he was at constant war with the darkness and would have to defeat the night to bring the sun for a new day. Just like this fine coffee will do for you every morning.

Finca La Victoria is owned by Martiniano Ancieto Moreno Alvarado, who has been farming coffee for about 11 years, and has seen his farm's size grow as a result of constant improvement and renovation, including the introduction of coffee-leaf-rust resistant varieties and higher-productivity varieties, and fertilization and management techniques.

The farm has coffee trees planted on 110 hectares, and the lots are processed as both Washed and Naturals. This is a Washed selection: The coffee was picked ripe, depulped, fermented under water for 12 hours, and layed to dry on patios for three days. This is a larger farm than many found in Mexico and throughout Mesoamerica: Finca La Victoria produces between 138,000–150,000 kilograms of parchment coffee annually. Coffee is Martiniano Alvarado's main source of income, and he is proud that he can also offer other families income from working on the farm.

In recent years, one of the biggest obstacles faced on Finca La Victoria has been a scarcity of labor—a common sentiment around Chiapas, where farmers have tended to rely on seasonal employees to travel from Guatemala during the harvest season. "The loss of value of our curency to the Quetzal has caused fewer families to come from Guatemala to cut coffee." However, he is looking forward to continuing to develop his farm and to be one of the best quality coffee producers in Jaltenango.

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Region: Chimbu Province, Chuave District, Eastern Highlands

Farm: Approximately 375 smallholder members of the Keto Tepasi Progree Association

Altitude: 1600-1800 masl

Processing Method: Washed

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Cupping notes from Café Imports: "Sweet and clean with a smooth mouthfeel; caramel, chocolate, apple and lemon flavors with a savory tropical aftertaste."

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Keto Tapasi Progress Association was founded in 2008 as an association of smallholder coffee growers from 18 communities and villages in the Eastern Highlands of Papua New Guinea, in the Chuave District. The organization has around 375 members, who cooperate and collaborate despite the vast differences in both culture and language between their heritage groups. The organization has been Fair Trade–certified since 2011 and certified organic since 2014, and has used the premiums it receives to invest in depulpers as well as warehouse space and transportation.

Smallholders typically own anywhere from a couple to a couple-hundred coffee trees, and sustenance farming on these more "garden-like" plots is common; they call them coffee "gardens," in fact, rather than farms, and the farms themselves have no names and carry no formal demarcation to indicate where one neighbor's land ends and the other's begins. Generally, the farmer members will depulp and ferment their coffee on their own farms; it is bought and sorted in parchment at the central mill in Goroka for drying, in deliveries from 25–65 kilograms.

One the coffee is picked and depulped, the farmers will ferment it dry for one to three days before washing it and laying it to dry on blue tarpaulins for three to four days.

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Region: North Sumatra

Processing Method: Wet-Hulled

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Cupping notes from Café Imports: "Chocolate, lemon and olive flavors; sweet with tart acidity and a smooth mouthfeel."

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Harimau Tiger is a signature coffee capturing the classic characteristics of a Sumatran coffee while also offering a cleaner, sweeter profile and higher cup quality than a standard Mandheling. As with our other signature coffees, Harimau Tiger is sourced based on quality and profile, and carries limited or no traceability.

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Region: Arusha

Farm: Smallholders

Altitude: 1400-2000 masl

Processing Method: Fully washed and Sun Dried

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Cupping notes from Café Imports: "Sweet cedar, soy nut and citric."

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The Tanzanian Peaberry has a flavor all its own. Tanzanian coffees are grown on the slopes of Mount Kilimanjaro (if that doesn't want to make you try it, I don't know what will), under the shade of banana trees—truly an exotic location for this East African coffee. Tanzanian coffee is somewhat similar to the coffee of its neighbor north of the border (that's Kenya, for the geographically challenged): bright, clean, and aggressively complex. The grading process in Tanzania is also the same as in Kenya, where coffee is graded on bean size, and AA is the largest, followed by A and B down the line.

In the United States, a very popular Tanzanian coffee is the peaberry type, and there are a couple of theories about why that's so. Peaberries seem to have a mystique about them. What's a peaberry? It's when a single bean develops inside the coffee cherry, instead of the familiar two "flat beans." Why so many fans of the peaberry? The theory is that all the goodness of the coffee cherry is in only one bean, rather than split among two.

Another reason for the popularity of Tanzanian peaberries is simply a matter of supply. The Japanese buy the bulk of Tanzania flatberries (regular coffee beans) and since the peaberries have been sorted out, a market was needed for the peaberries. Since peaberries have the cult following mentioned above, voila! Exotic Tanzanian Peaberries!

With the exotic name (Tanzania) and the peaberry factor, you can rest assured that we cup and cup to find those cups that truly deserve the praise, and are not just a function of the hype!