How Recent Heat Waves Affect Your Coffee

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If you’ve looked at the weather lately, you’ve probably noticed the heat wave! In New Jersey, we have been sweltering with temperatures nearing one hundred degrees, and in places of the earth closer to the equator, temperatures have soared even higher. If you know a little about coffee, you know that it grows best in hot temperatures… so is this heat a good thing, or another part of what has been called the “coffee crisis?” Read on to find out some answers!

Too Hot for Comfort
While coffee beans do require high temperatures to grow, there is a limit. When temps are too high, especially combined with drought, volatile storms, or other weather challenges, your coffee supply could be affected! Most coffee farmers choose a very specific elevation and climate to grow the best beans in these areas, but when weather patterns change drastically, you may experience poor results.

The “Coffee Crisis”
In addition to the weather, the news is reporting on a “coffee crisis” driven largely by a historic overproduction of coffee—for the past two years, Brazil, one of the world’s largest coffee-producing nations, has produced excess coffee, driving prices down. Many high-profit coffee companies take advantage of this, putting their regular farmers out in the cold. This has driven many farmers out of business, or caused them to struggle to keep food on the table during the coffee crisis. Ironically, once this excess supply is used up, the price of coffee will likely increase as so few farmers remain.

How Lavanta Stays Stable
How does Lavanta Coffee Roasters continue to provide high-quality coffee at a reasonable price? We cut out of the middle-man of the high-profit coffee companies! We work directly with sustainable farmers, seeking women-owned, Fair Trade, and organic farms whenever possible, and have a robust supply chain. We make it our mission to make sure our farmers get paid a fair price so they can keep producing wonderful coffee for us. Try some next time you visit our local coffee roaster shop in New Jersey!

If you’ve looked at the weather lately, you’ve probably noticed the heat wave! In New Jersey, we have been sweltering…
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So what is a Peaberry?

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Well you definitely can’t make soup or pie with it but you can brew a delicious cup of coffee! Looking at a typical coffee bean you will see it is flat on one side but round on the other. Normally inside each coffee cherry there are two beans or seeds that face each other on their flat sides. In about 5% of the cherries, only one of the two seeds gets fertilized and upon maturity is smaller, denser and more rounded than the other 95% of beans.

Some people believe that because the nutrients the plant produces for two seeds is received by only one seed, these little footballs are of higher quality. No, they do not taste notably different than their normal counterparts. The premium associated with peaberry lots comes from the extensive labor and sorting process, not the overall quality difference.

Tanzania is one of the most widely known coffee-growing countries that consistently separates a huge chunk of their coffee into Peaberry lots. With its bright acidity and aggressively flavorful roast, Tanzanian Peaberry is a medium to bold coffee with some fruity and sugar notes plus a slight tannic finish. However, peaberries do not only grow in Tanzania but in every coffee-growing country! On average, about 5% of every un-sorted bag of coffee beans are peaberries.

The Sumatra Peaberry Arabica Coffee is known to be a novelty coffee with good reason. This beautiful coffee is a very clean coffee that offers a rustic earthy sweetness, with big hints of chocolate and caramel. With a medium to dark roast, there are also spicy notes of clove and cinnamon making it a great dessert coffee.

When you are in the mood for a low acid and overall rich full body, special coffee, try a cup of cute peaberry.

Well you definitely can’t make soup or pie with it but you can brew a delicious cup of coffee! Looking…
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100% Kopi Luwak Green with Authenticity Certificate

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Legend has it Kopi Luwak was discovered in Indonesia under Dutch colonial rule. During that time, native farmers and plantation workers were forbidden from harvesting coffee for their own use from the cash-crops and were left to scrounge around the plantations.

The civet cat eats only the ripest of coffee cherries and passes the seeds—the coffee beans—without digesting them. During digestion these beans would also have all the extra fruity bits stripped off by enzymes, resulting in a thoroughly clean result! Locals would collect these deposits off the jungle floor and brew the beans into what tasted much better than the conventional coffee of the time.

“The secret of this delicious blend,” enthuses the Indonesia Tourism Promotion Board, “lies in the bean selection, which is performed by a luwak, a species of civet cat. The luwak will eat only the choicest, most perfectly matured beans which it then excretes, partially digested, a few hours later. Plantation workers then retrieve the beans from the ground, ready for immediate roasting.”

The aroma is rich and strong, and the coffee is incredibly full bodied, almost syrupy. It’s with a hint of chocolate, and lingers on the tongue with a long, clean aftertaste. Kopi Luwak began showing up in North America during the 1990s at the height of the Starbucks-inspired gourmet coffee craze. It has been sold in the U.S. for up to $600 per pound and can fetch as much as $30 for a single brewed cup in some parts of the world.

Visit our website for more information www.lavantacoffee.com

Legend has it Kopi Luwak was discovered in Indonesia under Dutch colonial rule. During that time, native farmers and plantation…
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Facts About Sualwesi Toraja Coffee – White Eagle

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Critical coffee lovers nationwide are investing in a sweet, spicy, and clean coffee made from beans grown in a secluded part of the Indonesian mountains on the tropical island of Sulawesi. The geographic location is so remote that it takes four days of horseback riding on the hard dirt road to get into this region where the Toraja coffee beans grow. The high elevation with equally high humidity levels are two of the main reasons why this smooth, creamy blend with hints of delicate sweetness is worth the trouble.

Located deep in the jungle surrounded by hundreds of indigenous bird species and countless flora and fauna, the White Eagle coffee is sustainable as coffee can get. The 250-year old Toraja trees are typically small and begin producing coffee after only five years of being in the ground. After an extensive selection of picking the coffee cherries are put into a pulper to remove nearly all of the coffee fruit. This unique processing method, known as the Giling Basah wet-hulled method, is what gives producers a run for their money! The remaining thin layer of mucilage on the beans is left there for an additional 24 hours. After that removal the beans are dried and now ready for roasting.

Due to this extensive process the beans typically roast unevenly. But it is the uneven roast that is key to the resulting medium to dark flavor. Just one cup of the Sulawesi Toraja White Eagle earthy beverage with its pronounced aromatics of tobacco spice is perfect to round out a sweet breakfast or dessert!

Since Toraja Sulawesi beans are 100% arabica and carefully culled, only the best beans are utilized for customers Known as the Crown Jewel of all Toraja arabicas, Sulawesi Toraja White Eagle is kept separate from other coffees. On average only 300-600 vacuum-sealed bags are produced from each crop annually.

Ready to join the club of Sulawesi Toraja White Eagle coffee buyers? For more information / Contact us today.

Critical coffee lovers nationwide are investing in a sweet, spicy, and clean coffee made from beans grown in a secluded…
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WHAT IS DIRECT TRADE IN COFFEE?

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What is Direct Trade in Coffee?
Have you ever stopped to wonder where the coffee beans that end up in your cup of coffee came from? Do you know if your coffee supplier does? At Lavanta Coffee Roasters we sure do—because we participate in Direct Trade agreements. Read on to find out what this program is, how it works, and how it helps us make you a better cup of coffee!

What is Direct Trade?
Those who participate in the Direct Trade program know exactly where their coffee beans came from. While we might not know our farmers directly, the Direct Trade program serves as a monitoring and controlling body, imposition strict standards and checking for quality along each step that your coffee bean takes from the plant to your cup.

What Good is Direct Trade?
Direct trade is great for three things? The environment, the people who labor to grow the coffee, and the end consumers. Direct Trade ensures that harvests are more likely to be sustainable, ensuring the highest performance for the environment. The program pays farmers and laborers above the market price so they can afford to keep making these quality improvements. This results in a great cup of coffee from the best beans available.

How Does Lavanta do it?
We keep close relationships with our suppliers to ensure ongoing great quality of our coffee. We take it a step further than most and have built our own Direct Trade lines, working closely with the farmers, harvesters, and others involved in the coffee business. This helps us to offset some of the costs by eliminating the “middleman” who seeks to profit off of this step, and allows us better control of our supply line.
To find out more about our Direct Trade program, visit our website at https://lavantacoffee.com. For the best coffee in New Jersey, visit Lavanta!

What is Direct Trade in Coffee? Have you ever stopped to wonder where the coffee beans that end up in…
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