JAVA...NOT JUST A NICKNAME.

There is an Island of Indonesia that shares its name with a common nickname for coffee; Java. Historians credit this nickname to the explosion of coffee in Europe sometime in the 17th century. The Dutch, taking newly found coffee plants from Ethiopia to their newly colonized Islands off of Indonesia, are to thank for the amazing coffee that comes out of Java today. The area’s volcanoes and rich soil make Java an ideal place to grow coffee. Soon realizing this, the Dutch were exporting a substantial amount of Europe’s supply of coffee from these islands. And thus, referring to coffee generally by the nickname “Java” was born.

These particular coffees were brought to us by our importing partners and friends at Sustainable Harvest. This is the same company who invited us to Popayán, Colombia last February to meet Liliana and the wonderful people of Federación Campesina del Cauca (FCC). We cherish our friendship with Sustainable Harvest and the relationship that we’ve built over the years. So, naturally, anytime they recommend that we try a coffee, we do!  This is exactly how we ended up with these coffees from Java.

Sustainable Harvest came up with the genius idea to send out samples + roast profiles to organize a virtual cupping session. This provided an awesome opportunity to hop on Zoom to compare flavor and profile notes of these coffees with other roasters and people in the industry from all over the world.

It felt so special to sip, spit, and talk coffee again with friends, new and old.  During the cupping, we were shown a presentation on how Java is making its way back into the specialty coffee scene with improved growing, harvesting, and processing techniques.

We were so pleasantly surprised by the naturally processed coffee’s dynamic and fruit-forward tasting profile. The washed process coffee was approachable and smooth tasting. We had hardly pushed “leave conversation” before Natalie was emailing the importer requesting bags of each. Like, for real though. We weren’t joking about how seriously we take recommendations from Sustainable Harvest. 

So here they are for you to enjoy today! A few weeks back, Dan wrote about stepping out of your comfort zone, which  Natalie and I truly took to heart with buying these coffees. We gave an origin that we don’t usually drink a try and now we get to share this new adventure with you, our subscribers. Enjoy!