August Coffee of the Month: Burundi Colline Ninga

$ 18.00 $ 20.00

Colline Ninga is our coffee of the month for August!

This is our fourth year working with the Long Miles Coffee Project in the Muramvya province of Burundi, and we couldn’t be happier to roast Colline Ninga three years running .

Burundi has produced coffee for quite some time, but the country's progression towards producing high quality specialty coffee was interrupted in the 1990s and early 2000s by political unrest and ethnic violence spilling over the border from Rwanda, during and after that country's genocide.  Despite this, and the challenges of being a poor, landlocked country, farmers from Burundi are successfully improving their coffee each and every year, and specialty coffee's higher prices seem to have a major impact on quality of life in the country's coffee growing regions. Moreover, we love the flavors of a great coffee from Burundi.

Colline Ninga is grown by small farmers in Bukeye area of the Muramvya province, and produced by the Long Miles Coffee Project.  Long Miles is a project founded by Ben Carlson, an American living in Burundi.  Ben, upon seeing the difficulties Muramvya farmers faced, built several washing stations in the region, and has worked with area farmers to help them fetch better prices. By working with the farmers to develop stringent quality practices at the farm level, then washing and milling the coffee with meticulous care, ensure that the coffee is of the highest quality possible.  By working with Huckleberry and other roasters in advance of the harvest, the Long Miles Coffee Project is able to pay the farmers a higher price for their coffee than they would receive otherwise

Ninga is a specific hillside community (colline is French for hill), and this coffee comes exclusively from the Long Miles farmers living on that hill.  After tasting samples from different hills, and different periods of the harvest, Ninga stood out again this year, along with our other offerings from Gitwe.

Blue Orchid Blend

$ 16.00

Blue Orchid is Huckleberry’s house espresso blend.  We serve this coffee every day in our cafes, and it is designed to be approachable, both as espresso and as a brewed coffee, with and without milk.  If you’ve ever had a great latte experience at one of Huckleberry’s cafes, Blue Orchid was the base.

While the Blue Orchid blend does change frequently, we try to maintain a sweet, full-bodied, chocolate and caramel flavor profile by using Central and South American coffees specifically chosen for those qualities.  This is great tasting comfort coffee, and is a well-rounded crowd pleaser, especially if some of that crowd likes cream in their cup, or is still making the transition from darker roast profiles into specialty coffee.   We love intense floral aromatics, but some mornings we just want the chocolate, toffee, and a bit of milk in our mug, and for those days, Blue Orchid is our go-to.

The current version of Blue Orchid is a blend of Brazil Fazenda Santa Ines and a washed coffee grown from Guatemala called Atitlan El Grano. 

For more information on roasting and shipping, visit our FAQ page. 

Costa Rica El Cedral Natural

$ 23.00

This winter our head of education, David, visited Costa Rica as a supervisor for the Roasters Guild and Barista Guild of America origin trip.  He visited dozens of mills and farms, and tasted even more coffees, but El Cedral was the #1 standout coffee for him. So, we agreed to purchase some before David even got back to the USA.

El Cedral is also Huckleberry's first natural-processed single origin coffee we've roasted outside of Africa. We were waiting for a natural that met the same standards we've come to expect from Ethiopia and Burundi, and this one is a banger. We taste strawberry lemonade, pineapple and tropical fruit, and rich almond pastry (David says bearclaw, but we thought that was a bit specific for the bag, and we figure some folks might not know we meant pastry, not animal). El Cedral's got the clean fruit we've come to expect from the best African naturals, plus some of the richer backbone we love in washed Central American coffees.

This is one of two coffees we'll roast this year from CoopeDota, a cooperative of growers based in the Dota cantón of Costa Rica's Central Valley.  This cooperative is a leader in Costa Rica's push for sustainable coffee, and was the first carbon neutral coffee producer on the planet. While our other CoopeDota coffee, Santa Maria, was grown on multiple smallholder farms, El Cedral is a single farm, collectively owned by all of CoopeDota, that operates as an experimental model farm to help individual farmers learn better growing and processing practices.

This natural fruitbomb is a gem, and unique for us at Huckleberry. It won't be around long, and if you've loved other naturals like Ardi, Wenago, and Gitwe Natural, we'd suggest brewing up a bit of this before it's gone. 

Costa Rica Santa Maria

$ 17.00

Santa Maria is one of two coffees from the Cooperativa de Caficultores de Dota (CoopeDota) in Costa Rica that Huckleberry will roast this year. While El Cedral Natural is stunning and fruit-forward, Santa Maria is more subtle, but equally delicious. This washed coffee exudes balance while maintaining complexity, and showcases why great washed Central American coffees are among the most versatile and easy to drink. Santa Maria has milk-friendly flavors of walnut and creamy nougat, while also packing plenty of grape-like fruity complexity and orange-like brightness.

Costa Rica has been a global leader in the push for a more sustainable coffee trade, and within Costa Rica, CoopeDota has been a leader among producers. In 2011 the cooperative produced the world's first certified carbon neutral coffee, and is known for its work to reduce both its carbon and water footprints. To that aim, while we say that this coffee is washed, it's actually eco-pulped. Most washed coffees use fermentation and a whole lot of water to remove the coffee seed's inner fruit (mucilage) before drying. CoopeDota forgoes the fermentation breakdown of that sugary fruit, and runs its coffee through a machine called an EcoPulper, which uses dramatically less water than traditional washing. All in all, as our head of education David Fasman learned while visiting the cooperative earlier this year, reducing water use throughout the coffee's journey is a point of pride for CoopeDota.

We're super excited to begin showcasing CoopeDota's coffees in 2017 - not just because the cooperative is a leader in sustainable practices, but also because the coffee is damn tasty. Santa Maria has a lot going for it - fruity pop, milk-friendly nuttiness, creamy body and depth. This coffee is going to be a go to for us in the mornings while warming up the roaster, on Fetco at our Pecos St cafe, and makes for a delicious single origin espresso, too.

Ethiopia Adado

$ 19.00

Bright, juicy, and refreshing, washed Ethiopian coffees might be the perfect coffees for summer.

Ask a coffee roaster what their favorite coffee growing region is, and quite a few of us will mention Yirgacheffe. Ethiopia is the birthplace of coffee - this is where the arabica species originally evolved, and where it still grows wild - and the combination of heirloom varieties, high altitudes, and meticulous washing create coffees that are uniquely light and vibrant, particularly in comparison to the Central American coffees more common here in the USA. And within Ethiopia, Yirgacheffe has a well-earned reputation for producing some of the country's best, brightest, and most floral coffees.

Adado is the name of a washing station in the Yirgacheffe town of Shara, and our first washed coffee from Ethiopia's 2017 harvest.  Hundreds of smallholder farmers from Shara sell their coffee cherry to Adado washing station, where it is washed and dried on raised beds to exacting precision. It's super clean and sweet, with flavors of cane sugar and watermelon, and packs the fruity, mouthwatering brightness we've come to love from our favorite Yirgacheffes. On top of the cane sugar and watermelon, we taste key lime and peach, with a delicate, rose-like florality.

We gush over washed Ethiopian coffees, but to be fair, they're not the first beans we reach for if we're looking to pair with milk. But, if you like your coffee black, if you like your coffee refreshing, and you like your coffee complex and dynamic to the last drop, Adado is the ticket. 

Ethiopia Ardi

$ 19.00

Ardi is back!

This exceptional natural processed coffee from the Sidama region of Southern Ethiopia has been a favorite of ours for several years running. As in year’s past, Huckleberry is excited to offer this amazingly fruity coffee, and this year’s crop is a juicy, clean standout.

Coffee is the seed of a fruit, and most of the coffee we roast and drink is washed - that is, the fruit is removed from the seed before drying.  For Ardi and other natural-process coffees, the coffee is dried with the fruit still intact, and the dried cherry is removed during milling.  This process imparts a uniquely fruity, jammy quality to the coffee, though improper and uneven drying carries a distinct risk of off, funky flavors and early fading.

Our importer, Samuel Demisse of Keffa Coffee, works directly with washing stations in the town of Kilenso Mokonisa, Sidama to ensure that Ardi is picked and processed to the most exacting standards.  Approximately 1500 farmers contributed to this year’s crop of Ardi, and 200 women carefully manage the coffee’s drying process, removing over- or under-ripe cherries and constantly rotating the cherries to ensure evenness.

This year's crop has all of the juicy strawberry we've come to expect from Ardi, and is one of the cleanest Ardis to date. Milk chocolate, tropical fruit, and mixed berry jam round out the cup.  Juicy, fruity, and jammy, just in time for peak iced coffee season!

Guatemala Atitlán el Grano

$ 17.00

Central American coffees are beginning to arrive in the US, and we're starting off this part of the year with a returning favorite and our most hands-on producer relationship - Atitlán el Grano, grown by the AProCafé grower's association around the shores of Lake Atitlán, Guatemala.

Lake Atitlán is a truly stunning body of water, surrounded by mountains on all sides, and three volcanoes on its southern shore.  The coffee growers of AProCafé are based on the southwest shore of the lake and the slope of Volcan San Pedro. Their rich volcanic soil, combined with well-managed organic growing practices and careful processing, contribute to a delicious coffee year after year.  AProCafé farmers also consider themselves stewards of the environment, growing their coffee with only organic inputs and taking care to properly treat their processing water.  Petrochemical fertilizers and improperly treated water from washing stations have contributed to various environmental problems in the area, including increased algae on the lake over the past decade.  AProCafé is one of several grower groups around Atitlán working to improve the environment while also producing tasty coffee.

El Grano has all of the deep chocolate, sweet nuttiness, and crisp acidity that we've come to expect from high altitude, well-produced Guatemalan coffees, and is a perfect example of Central American versatility. Great on its own, great with milk, tasty as both brewed coffee and espresso. This flavor profile and the cooperative's commitment to sustainable development around Lake Atitlán make this coffee an annual favorite of ours, and we're excited to roast and brew it for you here in Denver.

For several years now, Huckleberry has taking a more hands-on approach to working with AProCafé, with the goal of helping the group produce exceptional and unique coffees in the years to come.  Two years ago we worked to bring in the association's first single farm microlots, and last year we used our Sister Winter Holiday Blend to assist its growers with leaf rust prevention.  For 2017, we're expanding both of these programs, and setting aside an additional premium to assist the group with quality initiatives.  Take a look at our blog to read up on these efforts, and our most recent trip to Guatemala.

This particular coffee represents the whole grower association's joint effort, but over the next few months you should also keep your eyes peeled and pourover cones ready for some Huckleberry-exclusive microlots grown by individual farmers from AProCafé. For Atitlán el Grano, expect a crowd-pleaser, with milk chocolate, caramel, crisp apple, and almond butter flavors.

Phantom Limb Blend

$ 17.00

Phantom Limb is the wilder of Huckleberry’s two blends.  We designed the Phantom Limb to focus on fruit-forward flavors that one might not expect from a traditional espresso or drip blend.  When we have a coffee or two that work great as a fruity, bright, but still full-bodied espresso, we create a new version of Phantom Limb, and pull it in our cafes for straight shots and smaller milk beverages.

Unlike Blue Orchid, which sticks to a consistent flavor profile, Phantom Limb changes more drastically from one version to the next.  This current version showcases two coffees from Sidama, Ethiopia, one washed, one natural-processed. Each version of Phantom Limb will taste great as espresso and drip, but is intended to showcase the unexpected, unique flavors of its components, rather than adhere to anyone’s idea of a “traditional” espresso.

Even though we tend to use Phantom Limb as espresso in the two Huckleberry cafes, it’ll still taste great as a brewed coffee at home.  Expect jammy, fruity sweetness, tangy brightness, and a syrupy body.

Current Blend:  All from the Guji area of Sidama, Ethiopia: Sidama Hantate Natural and Sidama Guji Gr 1 Washed.

Current Tasting Notes: raspberry and blackberry, lemon brightness, floral aromatics, subtle cocoa.

Many people suffer from phantom pain, limb loss or limb difference (including customers of ours) and therefore with every purchase of this blend we try to raise awareness and money by donating a portion of proceeds to local amputee support organizations. Our very next set of stickers will include a short line explaining just that so stay tuned. All of our coffee blends are named after songs that have significance for our company's history. Phantom Limb is a song by The Shins that was one of the first conversations that Koan and Mark ever had.

Here's a link to one of the three organizations that this blend supports.

For more information on roasting and shipping, visit our FAQ page.

Rwanda Kanzu

$ 19.00

As little as 3-5 years ago, quite a few of us coffee folks looked down on Southern Hemisphere African coffees in comparison to early summer arrivals from Ethiopia and Kenya.  Luckily for us, Rwanda and Burundi are producing some of the world's best, most interesting, and seemingly constantly improving coffees, and sending a strong message to check those old preconceptions at the door.  Kanzu's back in Huckleberry's lineup for the second year, and we think it's g-d delicious.

Kanzu comes to us from the Nyamesheke district on the southern shore of Rwanda's Lake Kivu.  One of the reasons we love Rwandan coffee is that the Lake Kivu area is planted almost entirely in Bourbon, a coffee variety that lends great Rwandan coffees like Kanzu a deep, sugary, syrupy sweetness.  Beyond variety though, Kanzu is blessed by great growing conditions and great work.  The Kanzu washing station sits at 1900 meters above sea level, with many of its farmers bringing their coffee cherry down from even higher in the Nyamesheke hills.  These incredibly high altitudes, combined with excellent harvesting and farming practices, and world-class processing at the washing station, contribute to Kanzu's sparkling brightness and sweet, clean flavors.  

Aleco Chigounis of Red Fox Coffee Merchants works with the Kanzu washing station to separate out lots from specific weeks of Rwanda's harvest, each with subtle differences.  This year we chose a lot from week 12, and we couldn't be more excited to roast and brew it for you.  Deep maple syrup sweetness, cranberry and lemondrop candy brightness, refreshing floral complexity. It's our second year roasting Kanzu, and we're stoked again.

Sampler Pack

$ 30.00

We made you a sample pack!

Koan Goedman and Mark Mann, co-founders of Huckleberry Roasters, are products of the 1980's, which means a lot of things, but guarantees two: a soft spot for the classic musical mixtape and being perpetually indecisive. 

For better or worse (we think better!), here's your chance to reap the rewards. Huckleberry gets that having options doesn't make your decision-making any easier. So, for our fellow indecisively-inclined coffee drinkers who might want to try four coffees from different parts of the world, we're proud to present our coffee sample pack!

When ordered, our head roaster will hand select four of our absolute favorite single origin coffees and send it to the address of your choosing. Each box contains four total packs. Each pack will contain approximately 3-5oz of whole bean coffee. We will not include packing slips or receipts with these orders, so the box makes for a great gift!   

***Coffee pictured is not necessarily the coffee you will receive.***

 All photos provided by Needmore Designs and Unpacking Coffee. 

Skeleton Key Decaf

$ 16.00

We love coffee for a lot of reasons. We love the flavors of a cup that's been sourced, roasted, and brewed with care, and we love sitting down with friends and a few mugs.  Most of the time, we love that subtle kick of caffeine, too.

Sometimes though, we like to have a bit of coffee when we're already way too wide awake, so offering a great decaffeinated coffee is important to us at Huckleberry.  Skeleton Key is the same decaf coffee that we serve in both of our Huckleberry's cafes, and we're finally bagging it for you to bring home and enjoy after dinner, or whenever you're craving coffee without the jitters.

Skeleton Key is a seasonally-rotating coffee chosen for versatility, with chocolatey and nutty sweetness and a round body.  It works well as espresso or drip, with or without milk, and we only use Swiss Water Processed or Mountain Water Processed beans.

The current version of Skeleton Key is a Swiss Water Processed coffee from Huehuetenango, Guatemala.

For more information on roasting and shipping, visit our FAQ page. 

You and Whose Army? (Fundraising Blend)

$ 19.00

The world can seem topsy turvy at times. Huckleberry has never been shy about being honest and upfront about the values that drive our company forward. In some cases, we raise funds for our long-time coffee producing partners in Guatemala through our seasonal Sister Winter Holiday Blend. In other cases, we partner with Sprudge and ACLU to take a stand against anti-immigration policies.

More specifically, the changes brought on by the last presidential election have changed the political climate in a way we find dangerous in the short term and counter-productive in the long term. Rather than stew about it for years and feel frustrated by not being able to "do anything because we're coffee people", we have made the decision to harness the power of our coffee relationships and the passion of the coffee community to turn our collective despair into action. If you're feeling similarly, we invite you to join us as we partner with local artists to launch our new fundraising blend, You And Whose Army?.

For this blend, we are donating a portion of every bag sold to a charity we believe deserves attention and a helping hand for the work they are doing. Each unique label design benefits a new cause, chosen together by Huckleberry and the featured artist. 

To kick off the You and Whose Army? fundraising efforts, we have partnered with Colorado based artist Olive Moya of Olive Illustration to raise funds for Planned Parenthood. Not only did Olive design this color-popping label, but she also transformed a boring white wall at our 4301 Pecos Street cafe into a radical mural. You should absolutely check it out (see photo)!

Coffee wise, You and Whose Army? is a blend of washed Latin American and Ethiopian coffees blended for filter brewing. It'll work for espresso, too as long as you like bright and fruity espresso shots. The current blend is 50% Colombia Nariño Consaca and 50% Ethiopia Sidama Guji. In your cups, look for chocolate, caramel, raspberry lemonade, and floral flavors.

So, yes, we're coffee people - not lawyers, political lobbyists or grassroots organizers - but we're determined to still make a difference! Times of change also call for steadying cups of tasty coffee to awaken your democratic spirit. After all, the only thing that’s ever changed the world is a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens.

To keep with our tradition of naming all blends after songs we like, this blends is named after a fantastic Radiohead song. 

We ride tonight.