If you were to start your own coffee roaster, would you want to be in a big city, maybe tucked away in some industrial quarter somewhere? Or would you like to be in the countryside, surrounded by nature? It can be hard to choose sometimes because each option has its own appeal. Being in the city makes it easier to visit your clients but having your base somewhere else can make you feel more connected to your product and reduce distractions.
Quietly Coffee from Ontario in Canada was a recent example of a roaster who chose to set up camp on a farm to feel more in tune with nature and today, I am happy to introduce you to another contemporary example of a roaster who decided to make his base on a farm on the West Coast of Ireland where he and his partner grow vegetables, keep sheep and roast delicious coffees.
Carrow Coffee from Sligo is a relatively new coffee roaster and one that is making its Coffeevine debut as part of our exciting December ’19 coffee box that will also see us work with Koppi and Root & Branch. The business was set up by Andrew Willis and his partner Paola after the pair spent a significant amount of time living and working in Colombia where Andrew was working as a journalist for Bloomberg reporting on commodities, including coffee.
During this time, he and Paola visited many coffee farmers to get a better understanding of their work and throughout this time, they discovered and developed a real passion for specialty coffee that later on manifested itself in the founding of their own coffee business after the pair returned to Ireland.
For Andrew and Paola, it’s very important to source sustainably grown coffees of the highest possible quality to support projects that help farmers become more self-sufficient and educated on topics like making their own natural fertilizers and reducing water consumption. Indeed, sustainability plays a huge role in Andrew and Paola’s life and greatly influenced the design of their roasting space that was built using mostly natural materials from the surrounding area. This and the beautiful design itself ended up leading to Carrow Coffee winning the prestigious DesignLab award in the category ‘Spaces’ at the World of Coffee this year.
The coffee that we picked for our December ’19 coffee box comes from the Qore Warqee processing station in Kochere and offers a beautiful taste profile with notes of chamomile, green tea and citric notes. It’s a well-balanced coffee that can be considered an excellent example of Ethiopia’s specialty coffee production and one that comes with a Rain Forest Alliance certification that honours the station’s efforts to train its farmers on topics such as composting and mulching.
Please note, our espresso drinkers will receive a Peruvian coffee from the Chingama co-op from Carrow Coffee instead.
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Our December ’19 box ships on 16-12 | Preorders close on 12-12
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