In this edition: six incredible coffees & the latest on the de minimis ordeal.
Not in this edition: a report on Burning Man, where I guess things are not going well?
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Welcome to the first edition of the coffee index.
I've only had the good fortune to taste one of these six coffees (the Bishala), and as my buddy Grant Gamble would say, it's a certified banger. The point of the newsletter is to highlight new coffee released in the past week, but since this is the first edition and everything is new (in a way), I pulled from the full 1500+ coffee spreadsheet.
- Little Waves is a Latina-owned shop in Durham, North Carolina that I had the pleasure to visit in October 2020 when I was covering the final days of that year's presidential election. This coffee piqued my interest because a) it's grown by women in war-torn Yemen and b) Little Waves set out specifically to buy a women-produced lot at the Best of Yemen auction. Tasting notes: Lychee, grilled peach, hibiscus tea, vanilla.
- This one is also roasted in North Carolina, at Hex, another shop I've hit up multiple times on the campaign trail. I have a few coffees in the spreadsheet from Ana Maria & Nicolas Crespo's Pillcocaja farm, but this one stands out because it's a naturally processed Ethiope variety grown in Ecuador. Super unique. Tasting notes: Lilac, golden plum, blackberry.
- Here's a robusta coffee (what!) from Shady & Elias Bayter's venerated El Vergel Estate in Tolima, Colombia. This one is exclusively procured and roasted by Luminous in Las Vegas. I don't think I've ever had a Robusta coffee grown in Colombia, let alone one that was anaerobically fermented. Tasting notes: Brandy, rose, papaya, cacao.
- The only coffee on this week's list that I've tried. I'm primarily a washed coffee drinker, but lately I've been getting into honey processed stuff, and this offering from Blendin Coffee Club in Houston is really fabulous. Syrupy sweet and super clean like the best washed Ethiopian coffees. Tasting notes: Dried apricot, plum jam, wildflower honey.
- Mikey Rinaldo at New Math in Cleveland, Ohio has a variety of coffee from Asia, but this Typica shows how modern coffee processing has indeed made its way to Sumatra. A wet-hulled anaerobic lychee co-ferment from Indonesia. How many of you have tried one of those? Tasting notes: Lychee, mandarin.
- Finally, this coffee from Bluebird Coffee Roastery wasn't on the menu when I ordered three bags shipped via FedEx from small-town Howick, South Africa (arrived in four days!), but everything Dario and his team sent me was perfectly done. I picked this coffee for the inaugural edition because Burundian coffee, specifically the Heza offering from Passenger, was my introduction to specialty coffee and will always have a special place in my heart. Tasting notes: Red apple, white grape, sultanas.
Last year, 4 million packages a day were waved into the United States, bypassing the typical customs inspection under an 87-year-old exemption known as de minimis that kept the import system into the States from getting bogged down by $6 fast fashion t-shirts and, well, my $23 bag of Karogoto from Tim Wendelboe.
U.S. President Donald Trump axed that exemption on August 29, and as such, coffee roasters around the world are scrambling to figure out what it means for them and the fate of the coffee they're sending into the U.S. (Wendelboe informed their state-side customers last month that they'd add a roughly $2 charge to each bag of coffee, plus $6 per order, to cover the new tariffs.)
Others, like Coffee Collective, will temporarily compel you to buy express shipping, which in my case comes to about $26 from Copenhagen to New Jersey.
Ply Pasarj, the co-owner of Rogue Wave Coffee in Edmonton, says his company is willing to lose a little margin in the short term to absorb the tariffs on behalf of their customers, many of whom are not cognizant of the sweeping changes in the economic environment. They will continue shipping coffee as normal for a week and assess how badly they're hit by brokerage fees.
My take: It seems unlikely there's a total reversal in policy, but Trump's M.O. is often to come out swinging and ratchet things back a bit after his buddies complain a little. My guess is we see the exemption return, but maybe lowered from $800 to something more in line with where it stood in 2015. But then again...who knows. It's Donald Trump. Anybody who tells you they know what will happen is not telling you the truth.
Okay that's already more than I'd planned to write. If you have an idea for a future newsletter, want to talk coffee, or have any feedback whatsoever — I'm ready for it, just reply to this e-mail.
Next week: more great coffee, and what it's like to drink it on Mount Everest.
Thanks for reading.
Jeff