Island Blend

We're grateful to 2 farmer/owners for the beans that make up HICS Island Blend:

Caixa Da Fruta - Brazil

Magdalena - Colombia

900 - 1100 MASL Brazil

1400 - 1800 MASL Colombia

(MASL = metre above sea-level)

Caixa Da Fruta - Brazil

Caixa Da Fruta comes from Cocatrel Direct Trade, which is a branch of Cocatrel Cooperative, founded in 1961 in Tres Pontas. There are over 6000 members who are part of the cooperative and they have 11 different buying points across the region. All the coffee is electronically tagged and recorded on delivery with a unique QR code giving full traceability on all the coffees for the growers to know exactly where their coffee is. Over 50% of the members of the cooperative grow coffee on land that is less than 10 Ha in size.

The coffee is dried in static boxes. These are 1 m deep boxes with a capacity for 15,000 liters volume of cherry which equates to 25-30 bags of green coffee. The boxes have a vented grill at the bottom to allow for air to be circulated from below up through the drying coffee. There are two thermometers at different depths to ensure a safe temperature always below 40 degrees Celsius. They are referred to as static due to the coffee remaining still in the boxes and not being turned or rotated during drying. After it is dried, the coffee is then left to rest for approximately 1-2 weeks before being milled. This method has allowed the production of more fruity and prominent profiles from the usual profile we associate with Brazil natural coffee. 

 

Magdalena - Colombia

This coffee comes from the biggest farm in Colombia, based around the beautiful area of Salgar in Antioquia. The Green Coffee Company was established in 2017 with the mission to change the dynamic of Colombian production using innovation, expertise and quality to bring consistent coffees to clients around the world.

The total farm size is now 4000ha, built up by acquiring 40 farms where they are able to implement full control over all aspects of production, from agronomy through to post harvest process and export. GCC have invested heavily in technology, and have two centralised wet mills which have the capacity to deal with 360 000kg of cherry per day. These wet mills use advanced technology of cherry colour sorters and electronic tracking throughout the process which has helped them reduce the volume of water needed to produce coffee by over 21 million litres.

At GCC there is also a strong focus on the environment and social conditions that are part of the philosophy of the supply chain. On the farms they are working actively to protect the watershed by planting over 26,000 non coffee trees on the land. They manage 55% of this land as well as having 153ha of designated reserved forest. They have planted over 2 million coffee trees of castillo and colombia on land that used to be used for cattle production. In the nursery, they have completely eliminated the use of plastics.