Currently brewing:

Random coffees from Black & White Coffee Roasters; everything they have is good. Also the Columbian decaf that Sey carries. Brandywine’s co-ferments are great too.

What is specialty coffee?

Specialty coffee can be described as a subset of the global coffee business that aims to produce and distribute high-quality coffee where one can “taste” the characteristics of the coffee bean’s origin country. In contrast to coffee from mainstream cafes where the coffee is produced from a blend of beans, the specialty coffee industry predominately works with single-origin coffee. In the US, this is sometimes also called the third wave of coffee. In addition to producing amazing coffee, the world of specialty coffee also prioritizes the welfare of coffee growers. For example, see this recent paper on a recently re-discovered coffee species and the Rainforest Alliance.

Until a few years ago the geographic characteristics of a farmed either doomed or blessed one as a coffee producer; but recent develops in how one processes the coffee cherry has enabled farmers to have more control over the flavors present in the coffee they produce.