Blend Saisonnier 333g bag

Coffee is a seasonal fruit, harvested at different times in different places around the world. Our blend brings together fresh coffees that we are already proud to source and to roast, creating something consistent, unique, and versatile. Though the individual coffees within the blend will change as the seasons pass, we uphold Blend Saisonnier’s character by carefully selecting two coffees from our menu that evoke familiar expressions of sweetness and brightness, often anchored together by a third coffee that will not appear as a single-origin. In addition to reinforcing our blend’s consistency of flavour, we look to an off-menu coffee for our third component because it allows us to engage with supply chains that may otherwise not make it to our menu. Currently, our blend contains La Asuncion and La Rejoya from our single-origin lineup. The third coffee is from the Coocamu Cooperative, Rwanda, which we visited on last year's trip to Rwanda and Burundi. 

Coocamu is on the shores of Lake Kivu, and is by all definitions a very challenging place to produce coffee. Crop to Cup describes the place as having "...steep hills [that] drop directly into the lake, with some of their contributing members even growing their coffee on small islands in Lake Kivu. Those members have to carry the coffee cherry by boat to the washing station the same day of picking. After that, the only way to get the pulped and dried coffee from the washing station to the dry mill is to wait for a break in the rain, then put it on a boat with a roof for a quick boat ride to Gitesi, a port with a loading dock" 

Despite the logistical challenges and an array of infrastructural/organizational ones as well, the cooperative and its management team have risen to the occasion, addressing each issue identified in Crop to Cup’s 2018 visit and making tremendous progress by our visit, in 2019. The raw, objective cup vibrancy of these offerings remains a bit milder than the Rwandans on our single-origin menu, but as our partners at Crop to Cup decided to make a "good-will purchase to keep them moving in the right direction," we too are happy to have an appropriate place in our lineup to feature some of this coffee. In the years ahead, do not be surprised if this coffee is featured more prominently on our menu, but for now, it will reinforce Blend Saisonnier’s syrupy, malty sweetness and rich body, lending a touch of pleasant spice to the finish.