If only we could spend more time at origin! After months in Southeast Asia during the past three seasons, our trips nowadays are shorter but more frequent. The relationships that we have built with our wonderful producers in China and Myanmar are now solid and the specialty coffees coming out are beautiful and consistent. Our main focus is now working with coffee roasters in the UK and Europe to begin and sustain relationships with them, so the green bean coffees they choose includes Southeast Asian as an origin year on year.

Earlier this month, we were back in Menglian, Yunnan (China) with friends old and new, a few weeks before the new harvest gets started. It was a privilege to accompany @imfreda from @origincoffeeroasters to the farms and spend quality time with our partners Yunnan Coffee Traders bringing life to what we’re all trying to do here in this endlessly fascinating and stunning part of the world.

Working to bring specialty coffee from Southeast Asia to the UK and Europe has been a humbling and rewarding journey so far. Seeing the vast improvements in quality and consistency at coffee origins these past three years – as well as tasting the roasted coffee here – has been mind-blowing.

And we’re genuinely hugely excited to follow this season’s new microlot projects under the super experienced, skilled and energetic @joelthegsmith. Expect to see and taste some boundaries being pushed with Chinese coffee this season!