Behind every coffee, there is a story. Our roasters go to great lengths to tell their customers where their coffees come from, who produced them and what makes them unique.
It helps us to picture the lush valleys and clouded mountains where hard-working coffee growers carefully cultivate the delicious coffees that we get to enjoy every day.
What we love to do is to tell the stories of the roasters who we work with. They often fall through the cracks because so much attention is being given to the coffees but we believe that they are just as important. They help us get to get the full picture.
One story that I particularly love is the one behind Cocóra Specialty Coffees, one of the three roasters from our upcoming April ’20 coffee box.
It began after Julia Vevere and her parnter Haris Veveris got in their car in their native Latvia and started driving. They drove and drove towards the sun until the road ended near Malaga in Spain where they made their new home.
Frustrated by the lack of readily-available specialty coffees in the region, they began to entertain the idea of starting their own café where only the most delicious coffees would be served and later on also roasted.
During a recent interview with the charming couple, Haris explained his predicament at the time: “When we went to the local supermarkets, we could only find Lavazza coffees in the ‘foreign section’. It was terrible!”
While cities like Madrid and Barcelona have seen their fair share of specialty cafés and roasters appear on the scene over the past few years, smaller ones like Malaga are still far behind.
“Before the current crisis, there were so many new cafés that were planning to open,” Julia said. “We really hope they will all be able to open this year still.”
It is, indeed, hard to predict what the long-term effect of the current shutdowns will be on the specialty coffee scene across the world but here’s to hoping that it is just a temporary dip.
Haris and Julia, in any case, went ahead with their dream to start their own roasting business and soon founded Cocóra Specialty Coffees, a boutique brand that is helping locals, expats and visitors alike to enjoy great coffee.
He got his training from Sandra Azevedo in Portugal and Joana Alm in Sweden who helped him to learn the basic skills necessary to work with bright fruity coffees and over time, he developed his own style that really appeals to the local palate.
We’re excited to welcome these guys to The Coffeevine as our second Spanish roaster of the year after Right Side coffee in February.
The coffee that they will be roasting for us is a gorgeous and vibrant washed Ethiopian coffee from the Banko Gotiti processing station in Yirgacheffe.
Produced by hundreds of small-holders who deliver their coffees to Haileslassie Ambaye, this coffee is a typical representation of a clean and balanced Ethiopian coffee. Oh, we love them so!
Cocóra Specialty Coffees is joined by Danish super stars La Cabra and Gwilym Davies’ new roastery The Naughty Dog. Order yours here.
THANKS FOR READING THIS ARTICLE ABOUT COCÓRA
DID YOU KNOW THAT WE RUN EUROPE’S #1 COFFEE SUBSCRIPTION?
Every month, we work with three awesome roasters and deliver their freshly roasted coffees to customers all over the world. In our April ’20 coffee box: La Cabra, Cócora and The Naughty Dog.
