Small doesn’t mean worse.
We’ve been buying coffee from Willy, through the importer 1000 Hills, since the very beginning of HAYB. When last year Willy told us he was having issues with his cherry size sorting machine and that his lot included mixed screen sizes, we asked just one thing: “Willy, we get it—but how does it taste?” We were assured that on-site the coffee tastes just like every year—everything exactly where it should be. We ordered samples and decided to go for this lot, even though the beans vary significantly in size. Because taste comes first, right?
If we had decided not to take this batch, the farm would have had to sell it on the local market for much less money or somehow sort it again—sending only the larger beans to Europe and leaving the smaller ones in Rwanda. The result would be the same: less income for Mahembe Farm. I’m really glad we have this coffee, because it’s a perfect example of what I love most about coffee—flavor comes first.
I love drinking coffee when someone serves it to me or going in blind at the cupping table. In a cupping like that, this coffee easily outshines the competition. So, what about you—do you still think size matters?
