Knowledge Base
Coffee & Tea Guides
Brew better and explore more — buying guides, how-tos, and explainers for every coffee and tea ritual.
Explainer
Malawi Tea: Africa's First Tea Origin
Malawi tea was the first grown commercially in Africa. Here is its Shire Highlands terroir, why most of it becomes CTC blend tea, the hand-crafted Satemwa specialty estate, what it tastes like, and how it compares to Kenya.
Explainer
Georgian Tea: The Caucasus Origin Reviving After the Soviet Era
Georgian tea grows at one of the northernmost limits of cultivation, on the Black Sea coast of the Caucasus. Here is its terroir, its Soviet boom and collapse, and its hand-made organic revival.
Explainer
Dian Hong: Yunnan's Golden-Tipped Black Tea
Dian Hong is Yunnan's golden-tipped black tea: a modern classic developed in 1939 from the big-leaf assamica plant, prized for honey-malt sweetness, cocoa and baked-sweet-potato notes with very little astringency.
Explainer
Fujian Tea: The Chinese Province That Invented Four Tea Categories
Fujian, on China's southeast coast, is the birthplace of white tea, the heartland of oolong, the origin of the first black tea, and the home of jasmine tea. Here is how one province invented four legendary tea categories.
Explainer
Nepal Tea: Himalayan Orthodox Tea from Ilam
Nepal tea is high-grown Himalayan orthodox tea from Ilam: delicate, honeyed and muscatel. Here is where it grows, its gardens and flushes, what it tastes like, and how a young, smallholder-driven specialty origin found its own voice.
Explainer
Kagoshima Tea: Japan's Early-Harvest Green Tea
Kagoshima tea is the green tea of southern Japan: the country's earliest shincha, grown on volcanic soil, made in the mellow deep-steamed style, and drawn from an unusually wide range of cultivars. Here is what makes it distinct, how it tastes, and how to brew it.
Explainer
Shizuoka Tea: Japan's Largest Green-Tea Region
Shizuoka is Japan's largest and most historic tea region, spread below Mt. Fuji, and the home of fukamushi (deep-steamed) sencha. Here is what it tastes like, where it grows, its districts and cultivar, and how it compares with Japan's other tea regions.
Explainer
Kenyan Tea: The World's Biggest Black-Tea Exporter, Explained
Kenyan tea is the world's largest exporter of black tea — bright, brisk, coppery CTC grown high in the Rift Valley. Here is where it grows, the smallholders and KTDA behind it, and Kenya's own purple tea.
Explainer
Papua New Guinea Coffee: Garden Farms, Highlands and Flavor
Papua New Guinea coffee is a bright, fruity, clean highland arabica grown mostly in tiny family gardens rather than on estates — and much of it descends from Jamaica Blue Mountain seed. Here are the regions, the varieties and what to expect in the cup.
Explainer
Ecuadorian Coffee, Explained: Altitude, Galapagos and Flavor
Ecuadorian coffee is a small, scarce and unusually varied origin - grown in the Andes, on the coast, in the Amazon and on the Galapagos Islands. A guide to its regions, altitudes, the Sidra variety, and the paradox of an origin that sends its best beans abroad while bringing commodity coffee in.
Explainer
Salvadoran Coffee, Explained: Bourbon, Pacamara and Flavor
Salvadoran coffee is sweet, soft and gently bright arabica from El Salvador's volcanic ranges. Why the country still grows heirloom Bourbon when almost no one else does, how it bred Pacamara, its six regions, SHG grading and flavor profile.
Explainer
Nicaraguan Coffee: Jinotega, Maragogype and Flavor
Nicaraguan coffee is mild, balanced, shade-grown arabica from the northern highlands — chocolate and caramel with a citrus lift. A guide to Jinotega, Matagalpa and Nueva Segovia, the giant Maragogype elephant bean and where it really came from, Pacamara, and how the cup compares with its neighbours.
Explainer
Ugandan Coffee: Native Robusta, Bugisu Arabica and Flavor
Uganda is one of the very few places on earth where robusta grows wild and native - and it also makes a bright, wine-like arabica on the volcanic slopes of Mount Elgon. A guide to the regions, altitudes, trade terms and flavor of Ugandan coffee.
Explainer
Honduran Coffee: Regions, Rise and Flavor
Honduras out-produces every other Central American country, yet its coffee spent decades anonymous in blends. A guide to why, plus the six regions, the varieties, the rust crisis and what Honduran coffee tastes like.
Explainer
Timor Coffee: The Hybrid That Saved Arabica
Timor coffee is a mild, cocoa-sweet organic arabica from Timor-Leste — and the birthplace of the Hibrido de Timor, the accidental arabica-robusta cross that gave the world its rust-resistant coffee. Here is the origin, the regions, the flavour and the hybrid that changed everything.
Explainer
Yemeni Coffee: Mokha, Ancient Terraces and the Word Mocha
Yemeni coffee is where the coffee trade began: wild, winey, natural-process arabica grown on ancient stone terraces, made from heirloom plants found nowhere else, and the source of the word mocha. Here's the origin, the port, and the cup.
Explainer
Sulawesi Coffee: Toraja, Wet-Hulling and Flavor
Sulawesi coffee is the cleanest of Indonesia's classic earthy origins — full-bodied, low-acid Toraja arabica with cedar, cocoa and warm spice. Here is where it grows, what wet-hulling does to it, and why it cups cleaner than Sumatra.
Explainer
Rwandan Coffee: Bourbon, Washing Stations and Flavor
Rwandan coffee is sweet, floral, citrus-and-red-fruit washed arabica — and almost all of it is one variety, Bourbon. A guide to the hills, the shared washing stations that turned a bulk origin into a specialty one, the regions, the flavor and the potato defect.
Explainer
Bali Coffee: Kintamani, Subak Abian and Flavor
Bali coffee is a clean, citrus-forward arabica from the volcanic Kintamani highlands around Mount Batur - and it tastes nothing like Sumatra. Here is why washed processing and the subak abian cooperatives make this origin singular.
Explainer
Yunnan Coffee: China's Coffee Region, Explained
Yunnan coffee is Chinese arabica from the far southwest, and it is nearly all of China's crop. Here is why catimor shaped its reputation, what the regions taste like, and how it became a real specialty origin.
Explainer
Philippine Coffee: Barako, Liberica and a Four-Species Origin
The Philippines is one of very few countries growing all four cultivated coffee species, and its signature is barako — a bold, smoky liberica that is also the rarest thing it grows. The regions, the flavors, and the rust epidemic that explains the whole species map.
Explainer
Tanzanian Coffee: Peaberry, Kilimanjaro and Flavor
Tanzanian coffee is bright, fruity, medium-bodied washed arabica from Kilimanjaro's volcanic slopes and the Southern Highlands — and the origin that made peaberry famous. Here's what's true, what's marketing, and what AA and PB actually mean.
Explainer
Peruvian Coffee: Regions, Organic Farming and Flavor
Peruvian coffee is mild, sweet, nutty and gently bright washed Arabica, grown almost entirely by smallholding families high in the Andes. A guide to its regions, its honest organic story, the leaf rust reckoning, and how it compares to Colombia and Brazil.
Explainer
Kenyan Coffee: AA Grading, SL28 and Why It Tastes So Bright
Kenyan coffee is the world's benchmark for blackcurrant-bright, juicy acidity — and the reason is a pair of trees selected in the 1930s, not the soil story everyone repeats. Here's the SL28 history, the double wash, and why AA is a bean size rather than a quality score.