Coffee beans

Coffee beans are the simplest route to genuinely good coffee at home. Whole beans hold their aroma far longer than pre-ground coffee — you decide how coarse to grind, how much goes in and how long it extracts. Our organic coffee is 100% Arabica Typica from the Sierra Nevada de Santa Marta in Colombia, hand-picked by Arhuaco families.

Where our coffee beans come from

The beans grow around the sacred site of Nabusimake, at an altitude where coffee ripens slowly and has time to build a denser, more complex cup. They are harvested by the family of Jaider Izquierdo, a local grower and teacher. We buy neither through middlemen nor on the commodity market — the coffee goes from the grower to us, and from us to you. That is why we know which slope the beans came from, when they were picked and how they were dried.

Part of the proceeds from every bag goes towards buying back ancestral land in the Sierra Nevada. In 2020 the Arhuaco community recovered 20 hectares in the Birwa area this way. It is not a marketing sticker — it is the reason this shop exists.

How our coffee tastes

The profile is pronounced but not aggressive: dark chocolate, dried apricot and a soft caramel finish. We roast medium-light — far enough for the chocolate body to carry, not so far that the fruit acidity disappears. It holds up black and with milk, as a morning filter just as well as the base for a flat white.

If you are choosing beans for the first time and are not sure what to look at, read our guide on how to choose coffee beans — it covers the difference between arabica and robusta, what the roast date is for, and why origin matters more than price.

Which bag size to choose

Size is not about the price per kilo but about how fast you drink it. Whole beans are at their best for a few weeks after the bag is opened, so a six-month stockpile makes little sense.

• 250 g — for trying it out, or for one person having a cup a day. Lasts roughly two to three weeks.
• 500 g — the most common choice for a couple or a household brewing twice a day.
• 1 kg — coffee beans 1kg make sense when a lot gets drunk in your house, or for an office. Lowest cost per cup; just decant the beans into a smaller jar in batches so the rest does not go stale.

Grinding and brewing

With whole beans the grinder matters more than the machine. Always grind right before brewing — ground coffee loses its aroma in minutes, not days.

• French press: coarser grind, roughly 60 g per litre of water, 4 minutes of extraction.
• Pour-over and filter (V60, Chemex): medium grind, water around 92–94 °C, 2.5–3 minutes total.
• Moka pot: finer grind, but not espresso-fine — otherwise the coffee scorches.

Exact ratios and a step-by-step method are in our guide on how to brew coffee beans at home.

Organic certification and direct buying

The beans are certified organic — grown without chemical fertilisers or pesticides, harvested once a year and by hand. This is not a coffee carrying the official Fairtrade International mark; our model is different and in some respects more direct: we buy straight from grower families at fair prices, with no intermediaries, and part of the money returns to the community through the Arhuacos Endowment Fund.

How to store coffee beans

Beans belong in an airtight container in a dry, dark place — not next to the stove and not in the fridge. The enemies are air, light, moisture and temperature swings. The bag has a one-way valve, so unopened the coffee keeps well; once opened, count on a few weeks of peak flavour. More in our guide on how to store coffee beans.

Coffee as a gift

Coffee is a gift that gets used rather than left in a drawer — and here you are giving a story along with it. If you are choosing for someone else, have a look at coffee as a gift: what suits the way they brew, and how not to get the bag size wrong.