It’s August and we’re back with another exciting round of featured coffees! This month’s offerings include two incredible Geishas from a Mexican coffee legend plus our climate-critical Cold Brew Blend. Featured Microlot: Finca Garabandal, Mexico This month’s microlot release is bittersweet. Earlier this year, Mario Fernandez Sanchez of Finca Garabandal passed away at his home […]
This past March, we lost our good friend and partner, Mario Fernandez Sanchez. When we decided to make Mexico a priority for our sourcing program, we contacted Mario via his son, Mario Fernandez Jr., a colleague of Joel’s at CQI (at that time) and now the technical director at SCA. We’d purchased very little coffee […]
COE is back! After two years of canceled events and scaled-back competitions, Cup of Excellence held its first in-person international juries in Mexico and El Salvador in May. A couple of weeks later, I had the honor of heading down to Guatemala to participate as a juror in the third competition of 2022’s Central American […]
As we enter summertime here in Texas, we’ve got a lot to be excited about. I could list all the fun Austin activities that pair best with Lone Stars and frozen margs, but this isn’t that kind of blog. In the coffee world, summer means lots of new arrivals, especially from Central America and East […]
The Q Grader Arabica exam is the highest level of professional certification for a coffee cupper. As I detailed in my previous post, it is a grueling set of nineteen exams set over six days that test your olfactory, gustation, and your ability to score coffees of various origins, processing methods, and qualities. I offer […]
Dear Little City friends and family, Welcome! Little City has a new website along with new coffee subscription options! We are proud to offer you a much easier and more beautiful shopping experience and hope it will also be a resource for you to learn more about us, our partners, and coffee in general. Look […]
This past January I hit a milestone when I taught my 100th CQI course. I have had the pleasure of helping many people on their coffee journey and I can only hope that they have learned at least as much from me as I have from them. One of the main classes I have taught […]
This year we decided to travel to Mexico a little earlier than planned. Typically we would head down later in the season—in March or April, as the harvest begins to wind down and we have a wider range of coffees to cup, including much of the higher-altitude coffees and microlots that come later in the […]
At Little City we always aim to expand our microlot offerings by regularly bringing in coffees from new origins. And whenever possible we make it a priority to travel to those origins to meet with potential direct trade partners and expand our knowledge of their customs, production systems, and trade models. For years, Kenya has […]
