Knowledge Base
Coffee & Tea Guides
Brew better and explore more — buying guides, how-tos, and explainers for every coffee and tea ritual.
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Angolan Coffee: Africa's Fallen Robusta Giant
Angola was once one of the world's largest coffee exporters, built on northern robusta. War collapsed the industry — now a slow revival is bringing it back.
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Madagascar Coffee: The Island's Robusta, Arabica and Wild Species
Madagascar grows mostly earthy lowland robusta alongside a small highland arabica sector, but its real botanical treasure is the wild Coffea species scattered across the island, many of them naturally low in or free of caffeine.
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Venezuelan Coffee: The Andes' Forgotten Origin
Venezuela was once among the world's top coffee exporters. Discover the mild, sweet Maracaibo coffees of the Andes and how a great origin quietly faded into obscurity.
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Haitian Coffee: The Caribbean's Historic Typica Origin
Haiti once grew roughly half the world's coffee. Meet its old-growth mountain Typica — mild, low-acid, and chocolatey — and the Caribbean cooperative revival trying to bring this historic origin back.
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Flores Coffee: Indonesia's Volcanic Island Origin
Flores, the volcanic "flower island" of eastern Indonesia, grows some of the country's most distinctive Arabica. A guide to Bajawa, Ngada, its smallholders, wet-hulled and washed lots, and how the cup differs from Sumatra and Sulawesi.
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Gayo Coffee: Sumatra's Aceh Highland Origin
Grown around Takengon in Aceh, northern Sumatra, wet-hulled Gayo runs cleaner and more balanced than classic Mandheling — herbal, citrusy, brown-sugar sweet, and largely smallholder-grown under strong organic and fair-trade cooperatives.
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Oaxaca Coffee: Mexico's Mild, Chocolatey Highland Origin
Grown by smallholders in the highlands of southern Mexico, Oaxaca coffee is the gentle, chocolatey side of the country's cup — home of the feather-named Pluma. Here is what shapes its flavor, how it is grown and processed, and how to tell it apart from neighboring Chiapas.
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Chiapas Coffee: Mexico's Largest, Highland Origin
Chiapas is Mexico's biggest coffee state — a smallholder, organic, shade-grown highland origin known for a mild, chocolatey, gently acidic cup.
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Cauca Coffee: Colombia's High-Plateau Origin
A guide to Cauca coffee from southwestern Colombia — the high Popayán plateau, volcanic soils, cool nights, and clean washed cups of panela sweetness and gentle citrus, and how it differs from Nariño and Huila.
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Nariño Coffee: Colombia's High-Altitude Southern Origin
In Colombia's far south near the Ecuadorian border, the Nariño department grows some of the country's highest, brightest coffee — sweet, citric, and complex cups from tiny volcanic smallholdings where cool nights and equatorial sun slow the cherry down.
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Guji Coffee: Ethiopia's High-Altitude Origin That Broke Away From Sidamo
Guji, a high-altitude zone in southern Ethiopia's Oromia region, spent years sold as Sidamo before earning its own name. Here is how it differs from Sidamo and Yirgacheffe, why its heirloom coffee tastes so distinct, and what separates its floral washed cups from its berry-drenched naturals.
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Sidamo Coffee: Ethiopia's Great Washed Highland Region
Sidamo (Sidama) is the broad southern-Ethiopian highland region behind much of the country's famous washed coffee — bright, floral, citrus-clean heirloom Arabica, and the original umbrella that once held both Yirgacheffe and Guji before they earned their own names.
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Washed Process Coffee: Clean, Bright and Terroir-Forward
Washed (wet) processing strips every trace of fruit before drying, letting a coffee's origin, acidity and floral clarity speak for themselves.
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Natural Process Coffee: Dry-Processed and Fruit-Forward
Natural process coffee dries the whole cherry in the sun, giving intense fruity, berry-and-winey sweetness and a heavy body — here's how it works.
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Caturra Coffee Variety: The Compact Bourbon Mutation
How a single-gene dwarf mutation of Bourbon, born in Brazil, became the compact backbone of Colombian and Central American coffee.
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Typica Coffee Variety: The Ancestral Arabica
Typica is the original Arabica variety behind most of the world's coffee — prized for a clean, elegant cup yet fragile and famously low-yielding.
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Bourbon Coffee Variety: The Arabica Behind Great Cups
A plain-English guide to the bourbon coffee variety — its Réunion island origin, sweet cup, colour sub-types, and the many cultivars it spawned.
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Zambian Coffee: Estate-Grown Arabica from the Northern Plateaus
Zambian coffee is a small, quality-focused southern-African arabica — clean, sweet and citrusy, grown mostly on estates across the Northern plateaus.
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Congo Coffee: Revival on the Shores of Lake Kivu
A guide to Congo coffee — the bright, washed Kivu Arabica, its post-conflict cooperative revival, and how the DRC became one of Africa's most exciting origins.
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Burundi Coffee: Highland Bourbon from the Heart of Africa
A guide to Burundi coffee — the tiny landlocked origin whose high-altitude washed Bourbon rivals neighbouring Rwanda for bright, berry-sweet character.
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Myanmar Coffee: An Emerging Highland Arabica Origin
Myanmar coffee is an emerging highland Arabica origin from Shan State and the Mandalay hills, prized for sweet, citrus, floral, honeyed cups.
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Laos Coffee: The Bolaven Plateau Origin Story
How Laos coffee grew from French colonial arabica into a dual robusta-and-specialty origin rooted in the volcanic Bolaven Plateau.
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Dominican Republic Coffee: The Caribbean's Balanced Cup
A guide to Dominican Republic coffee — its mountain regions, washed Typica beans, mild nutty-chocolate flavor, and deep-rooted domestic coffee culture.
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Bolivian Coffee: Yungas, Caranavi and the Rare Andean Cup
Bolivian coffee is a rare, high-grown washed Arabica from the Yungas around Caranavi — clean, sweet and floral. Here is the full origin story.