This year, I'm doing something a little different: I'll be buying very small amounts of very special coffees, 20-50lbs, and selling them here as limited edition coffees. I'll be rotating coffees through very quickly, I doubt most will last more than a week, so if something piques your interest, grab it quick! Since these are VERY limited amounts: in the off chance I run out of one Limited Release, you will be sent the next one up. Sold in 1lb increments.

New Sulawesi Organic Bolokan Sulotco Jaya Abadi Natural!

The Dutch originally brought coffee to Indonesia; this farm was turned over to the Indonesian government when Indonesia became independent from the Dutch in the 1940's, fell into ruin, and was abandoned until 1986. A local mill director found the old Dutch house and coffee trees, gained cultivation rights from the government in 1987, and since has turned the old Rantekarua Estate into a progressive gem of coffee production. Five hundred acres of the original 3000 acre farm have been converted to natural forest; the farm is organic, and manure from grazing sheep on the farm provides organic fertilizer. A variety of cultivars are tested on the new Sulatco Farm, and sent out to neighboring farms. Unlike traditional wet-hulled Indonesian processing, natural processing is newer for Indonesia, and challenging because of the frequent rains. The hard work over recent decades has paid off, with a washed varietal from the farm taking 12th place in the 2021 Indonesian Cup of Excellence!

This natural-process coffee is unique and surprising, revealing different layers every session: on one hand, it's weighty, with dark rum, chocolate salted caramel, even a mild umami tamari note; on the other, blueberry pie, tropical fruit, cranberry relish, whiskey-soaked cherry, and herbal lemongrass take the lead. It's a very carefully grown and processed, nuanced coffee, and ideal for pourover or drip, or a scintillatingly edgy espresso. 

New India Ratnagiri Estate Anaerobic Natural! Sold Out!

They say there's a first time for everything; in this case, it's not only the first Indian coffee I've featured, but it's a Limited Release, as well! Many people might be familiar with Monsooned Malabar, a completely different animal, which you can forget right now. This is not that.

Grown on one of Indias premier Estates, Ratnagiri is Rainforest Alliance certified. There are three layers of shade cover, slowing coffee growth and boosting flavor, but also providing a habitat for 50 kinds of birds, as well as monkeys, boar, tigers, leopards, mongoose, and elephants. The area is a Unesco World Heritage site, as well as the birthplace of Indian coffee, and Ratnagiri Estate is serious about preserving the ecology, while producing excellent coffee.

This coffee is anaerobically processed: after an 84 hour extended fermentation in stainless tanks, the coffee is placed on raised beds and naturally slow-dried over 27 days. 

So what do we get? For sure, notes of quality dark chocolate and roasted peanuts, but it's the berry compote, Pom juice, and ripe papaya fruit notes, with exotic spices like cardamom, nutmeg, maybe even patchouli, or mulled rum, that truly make this coffee unique. Great for drip methods and excellent for espresso!

New Panama Elida Estate Catuai Natural! Sold Out!

Elida Estate is renowned for cultivating some of the best coffee on the planet. They were one of the first to isolate the Geisha varietal, which has caught the world by storm; their Geisha has set numerous world records for price, most recently in September 2024 with a 3kg lot that sold for $13,518/kg....a month after they set the record at the Best of Panama auction at $4551/lb for a 100lb lot! The Lamastus family is not a one-trick pony: they excel at processing natural coffees, and this Catuai Natural brings the heat at obviously a much lower cost than their Geishas. 

Elida Estate has been in the family for 4 generations, and it's the highest altitude farm in Panama, with altitudes ranging from 5500-8200ft. A large part of the farm is in a World Heritage Site, Volcan Baru National Park. 

This cup is full of deep, creamy 72% Valrhona chocolate, ripe plum, blueberry, sweet peach, and hibiscus, a sweet and balanced cup that's excellent for pourover and drip, and will make for a wild espresso!

New El Salvador Aida Batlle Natural! Sold out!

Legends exist. In 2003, an unknown female producer came out of nowhere and swept to first place in the Cup of Excellence competition, selling for a record $14/lb. It was astonishing on all counts. How did this happen?

Aida was born in El Salvador, but raised in the US to escape the violence. At the age of 28, she returned to help on the families coffee farm that went back 5 generations. Most coffee from the farm was allocated to a particular buyer, but she was able to experiment with their highest plot of land, Finca Kilamanjaro. Utilizing knowledge she had gained in the US about sustainable food, she switch from commodity coffee practices to something more like organic farming. She began experimenting with the stellar coffee strains of Kenya, namely SL28 and SL34, and the combination of cultivar and terroir shocked the coffee world, winning the CoE. 

Since then, she has been manipulating the variables of cultivar, terroir, picking, and processing to create astonishing, yet supremely delicious coffee. Her hand is involved in every step, every year, from start to finish, and she simply does not rest, constantly pushing her crop forward. She has been a Specialty Coffee Association director, her coffee has been featured in numerous barista championships globally, including the World Barista Championship and World Brewers Cup, and she also posts and interacts occasionally on coffee forums. Relatively recently she started selling her coffee direct, in small enough amounts for me, so here we are, and I'm SO happy to feature her coffee. Yes, it's expensive: welcome to coffee without compromise.

In the cup, fruity intensity is at the fore, with ripe bing cherry and blueberry splitting the berry duties equally, juicy citrus pomello notes, something akin to effervescent dessert white wine, all supported by sweet, creamy, fruity valrhona dark chocolate, deep molasses, almond roca, and ethereal allspice and sage. 

New Colombia Circasia Edwin Norena Watermelon Coferment! Sold Out!

We're starting off the year with a whipcrack in the face of convention! I've featured coffees from Edwin Norena ('El Alquimista', or 'the alchemist') several times before (coffee cofermented with hops, anyone?), and they have always been superb, among the most memorable coffees of the year. When an offering of his pops up, I pay attention, and this coffee does not disappoint: three completely different fermentation processes are used on this coffee.

Fermentation 1: fresh, carefully sorted cherries in fresh water for 96 hours, dramatically causing the fruit to soften and release their sugary juice. 

Fermentation 2: the coffee is depulped, then anaerobically fermented for 48 hours.

While this is going on, the coffee cherry juice from fermentation 1 is fermented on its own, and combined with fresh and dried watermelon, to create and intense flavring solution for the third and final stage.

Fermentation 3: the now cherry-free coffee beans are fermented for 48 hours with the cherry juice/fruit solution from step 2 for 48 hours, then it's carefully dried to 10% moisture.

From the painstaking husbandry of the trees, to the selective harvesting, the precise blend of 3 different strains of coffee, and the imaginative, unique, and skilled processing, this coffee is from start to finish an exercise in pushing boundaries. 

What does it taste like? Watermelon candy. Strawberry Starburst. Hibiscus tea. Juicy Fruit. Obviously good for drip. Espresso? Anything is good for espresso if you're adventurous enough. Are you? 

New Costa Rica Hacienda Sonora Villa Sarchi Natural!

Hacienda Sonora sits at the base of a volcano. Powered 100% by renewable hydroelectric energy, the 100 hectare farm has 45 hectares of biodiverse, shaded coffee trees, and this promotes extremely dense, tasty coffee cherries. Villa Sarchi varietal was discovered in the Sarchi village, in Costa Rica, and it's a mutation of the Bourbon variety. 

This coffee is complex and funky! Densely sweet and heavy bodied, with notes of strawberry jam, red wine, hibiscus cooler, ripe pineapple, and nutmeg or allspice, this coffee showcases what a longer fermentation period and natural processing can do, imbuing the beans with intense flavors of type, origin, and cherry. A juice-bomb espresso, and amazing drip.