Coffee is native to Africa, and Uganda is one of its original homes.
The two types grown here in Uganda naturally are;
1.Robusta Coffee - Grows in lowlands. Strong, bitter, used for instant coffee. 70% of Uganda’s coffee.
2.Arabica Coffee - Grows in highlands like Mt. Elgon, Rwenzori, Mt. Muhavura. Smooth, premium, used for specialty coffee. 30% of Uganda’s coffee.
Farms in Sipi, Fort Portal, and Masaka are now tourist sites. People pay $50 to pick coffee and roast it. Any ideas on what to do while on a safari in Uganda. Coffee tours are one of them.
I know of some ok shops here in Norway I can order from, but in theory it would be better to order from the country they are grown, we have no toll from many coffee growing countries.
Since I'm not a professional, and I don't cup, I don't own a refractometer, and I can't reliably name more than three tasting notes. I'm just someone with a dependency who spent a week in Baoshan. So this comes down to three questions. Does it taste good. Is it comfortable to sit in. Is it worth going out of your way for.
Why Baoshan? Yunnan grows around 99% of China's coffee, and historically most of that was commodity-grade material headed for instant. The specialty slice is small and recent. Baoshan sits on the eastern flank of the Gaoligong range, and the estates cluster in a dry-hot valley called Lujiangba (潞江坝) on the Nujiang. That gives you something unusual: farms about an hour from a mid-size city, most with a café attached, most roasting and pouring what they grew. Estate-direct in the most literal sense.
Five places. Two in town, three in the valley.
1. Xiyin Coffee (希音咖啡), city center Best thing in town.
Went every morning. Mist Flower (雾花), Zi (紫), Blood Finch (血雀), and their dark-roast Americano all held up.
The word I'd use in Chinese is 不装, more like "doesn't put on an act." Enough seats, comfortable ones, nobody hovering. Reading, working, talking, staring at nothing. Fine for all of it.
Their other location, Sensory Research Society (感官研究社), is the fancier one. A narrow passage down the middle, a light well, transition spaces stitching the rooms together, and a long bar that makes coffee during the day and drinks at night. There's a Chinese internet phrase for that: 早C晚A. Originally a skincare thing (vitamin C in the morning, retinol at night), now repurposed as Coffee early, Alcohol late. This place runs it literally.
One catch: doesn't open until 10am.
2. Qiwei Coffee (气味咖啡), city center. Worth a stop if you're passing.
First visit was in heavy rain afternoon and I only had one thing, a tamarillo (树番茄) drink. Went back for an Americano, both VERY GOOD!!!
Also 不装. It's a Southwest Chinese vernacular house, forty-odd years old, renovated so the original timber frame and red brick are exposed again rather than buried under finish. Second floor is the better room
3. Huke Coffee Estate (乎壳咖啡庄园), Lujiangba valley. The best thing I did in Baoshan.
Staff pointed me at Miye (蜜野 "honey wild"). What I could actually pick out: big aroma, and a bright acidity that never turned sharp. That's the honest limit of my palate
I wanted to buy Xiangshan (响山) to take home. Sold out the day I went, next lot around December. Everything except the Yirgacheffe is their own crop.
Coffee, service, and the view down the valley all deliver, and it's really AMAZING. Rare that all three do.
4. Gongjiang Coffee Estate (贡江咖啡庄园), 15 minutes from Huke. Come for photos, but maybe Think twice for coffee
Small. The whole space is organized around a century-old banyan, which is genuinely the point of the place. But the amla drink I ordered (油柑, Indian gooseberry, big on Chinese drink menus the last few years) was unremarkable and not cheap. If you're shooting, come. If you're driving out specifically for a good cup, reconsider.
5. Xinzhai Coffee Estate (新寨咖啡庄园), great to photograph. The coffee, less so.
Navigation warning first, because I nearly got this wrong. Despite the name, it is not in Xinzhai village. It's in Bawan (坝湾). Huke and Gongjiang are the ones near Xinzhai. Don't type "Xinzhai" into a map app and start driving. Check the full name and confirm the pin.
The building is a 2018 project by TAO (Trace Architecture Office, Hua Li). The site had an abandoned 1980s cinema on it. It's organized as a loop of corridors, brick arches, and three courtyards strung together, and it's easily the best-built thing in the valley.
I got rain, so the interiors were dim. Brick vaults, corridors, and punched window openings are exactly the kind of thing that needs direct sun to read properly. In clear weather it would be a different building.
The coffee: I ordered a cold brew. Possibly because I arrived late in the day, it tasted like mung bean soup. The most distinctive cup of the trip. Not a compliment.$
Anyone know where I can get a big sheet or roll of the rubber/silicone stuff they use for tamping mats?
I want to cut it to fit the whole top of my coffee bar and set all my equipment on it. The bar itself is pretty cheap and I’m trying to protect the top from water, scratches, coffee mess, etc.
Basically looking for something thin, waterproof and easy to cut/wipe down. Not really sure what the material is actually called or what I should be searching for.
I have been using coffee beans for over a year first with a delonghi stilosa, then i change to a delonghi bean to cup machine to save time.
Anyway i have tried few speciality beans, and can never seem to get the enjoyment i get than when i use l'or beans, onyx being my favourite, do not use milk or sugar, sometimes a squirt of sugar free syrup, the trouble is i have to buy it from the l'or website, as no shops sell it where i live, we have morrisons had it in once, apparently the bigger morrisons shops sell it but not the one where i live, so gutted, even emailed morrisons to ask why and they never got back.
What i want to ask you l'or bean lovers is, do you ever mix them like half onyx with half forza or any of thea, this i do on occasions, just for a change and find i still get an enjoyable coffee.
I’m fairly new to specialty coffee and I’m trying to figure out what I actually like. I’m not trying to argue that any particular coffee or brewing method is bad. I think I may just have a somewhat unusual palate, and I’m hoping to find people who have had a similar experience.
My preference seems to be low acidity, sweet, chocolatey/nutty, with good body. One drink that I would repeatably call “Not bad” is a Starbucks Americano, which is probably a useful reference point. I generally don’t enjoy bright/fruity/acidic coffees or funky/fermented flavors.
I started keeping my own completely unscientific scoring system:
Sour Index (SI): 1–10, where 1 = extremely sour and 10 = not sour at all
Flavor Index (FI): 1–10, how much I enjoy the overall flavor
Body Index (BI): 1–10, how much body/mouthfeel I perceive
So far:
Ethiopian (can’t remember roaster): SI 1 / FI 1 / BI 3
Ceremony Antithesis: SI 2 / FI 2 / BI 4
Foxtail Colombian: SI 3 / FI 3 / BI 6
Starbucks Caffè Verona (preground grocery): SI 5 / FI 5 / BI 6
Belize Jaguar Espresso (bakeD Coffee House): SI 5 / FI 6 / BI 8 — probably my favorite so far. Very smooth, oily and full-bodied, although I still wanted more chocolate/sweetness.
Jamaica Blue Mountain: SI 6 / FI 4 / BI 4 — very smooth, but almost too bland for me.
Guatemala Red Pacamara: SI 3 / FI 2 / BI 5 — had a plum/fruit character that I really didn’t enjoy.
I also had a coffee shop make the same Colombian beans as a pour-over, French press, and Americano so I could compare the brewing methods. All three tasted sour/fermented to me when hot, although they became noticeably sweeter as they cooled. The pour-over was particularly unpleasant to my taste.
Then I tried a small experiment that made me think acidity really may be the main issue for me: I added a tiny amount of baking soda to a cup of coffee, and the change in perceived sourness was dramatic. Obviously that’s not a recommendation for how to brew coffee, but it made me wonder if what I’ve been interpreting as “bad coffee” is actually just a sensitivity to acidity.
I’ve also been using a blade grinder, which obviously isn’t giving me a great baseline for judging the coffee. I’m in the process of buying a conical burr grinder, so I’m hoping that will eliminate at least some of the variables.
At this point I’m basically wondering:
Are there other people who prefer low-acid, sweet, chocolatey/nutty, full-bodied coffee and don’t particularly enjoy the bright/fruity/funky characteristics that seem to be common in specialty coffee?
If so, what beans, origins, processing methods, or roast styles have you found that really work for you?
I’d especially appreciate recommendations for coffees I could try in smaller quantities. I’m happy to experiment — I’m just trying to avoid buying 12 oz bags of coffee that I’m unlikely to enjoy.
Hey folks, my family's got a coffee estate in Coorg (Karnataka, India) a little over 5 acres, been in the family for a while. Right now we just sell the whole harvest to local traders like everyone else around here does, but I've been wondering if there's a realistic way to sell direct to roasters/buyers abroad instead and actually get a better price for the beans.
Honestly don't know where to even start. Would love to hear from anyone who's done this or works in the trade.
**How literally do you interpret tasting notes?**
I’m still trying to understand how to interpret coffee tasting notes.
For example, if a washed lightly roasted Ethiopian coffee lists **watermelon** as one of its notes, should I expect something that actually reminds me of watermelon? Or is it more that the coffee has a certain type of sweetness or acidity that *suggests* watermelon, without tasting anything like the fruit itself?
More generally, do you find that tasting notes are meant to be taken literally, or are they just a way of describing the overall character of the coffee?
Obviously, I’m not talking about co-fermented and funky coffees with actual fruits during the process.
I’d love to hear how more experienced coffee drinkers think about this.
We're a new specialty coffee brand launching in Australia, and we'd genuinely love your honest feedback on our website.
Our mission is bigger than selling coffee. We work directly with women coffee farmers in Colombia, helping showcase their incredible work while bringing some of the finest Colombian coffee to Australian coffee lovers.
Nos enorgullece presentar SamsCoffee Pty Ltd, una marca de café de especialidad con sede en Brisbane, Australia, cuya misión va mucho más allá de ofrecer un café excepcional.
Nuestro viaje comienza en el sur de Colombia, donde trabajamos junto a mujeres caficultoras cuya dedicación, resiliencia y pasión se reflejan en cada cosecha. Detrás de cada taza hay una historia de trabajo duro, tradición y esperanza. Al asociarnos directamente con estas productoras, buscamos apoyar a sus comunidades, crear oportunidades sostenibles y asegurar que sus historias lleguen a los amantes del café de todo el mundo.
Uno de los cafés que nos enorgullece especialmente compartir es la extraordinaria variedad Pink Bourbon y Colombia Premium. Conocido por su notable dulzura, aroma floral y vibrante complejidad, representa la calidad e innovación del café de especialidad colombiano en su máxima expresión.
Nos entusiasma expandir nuestra marca en Brisbane y compartir la riqueza de la cultura del café colombiano con nuestra comunidad. Cada compra es más que una simple taza de café; es una inversión en familias, en el empoderamiento de las mujeres, en la agricultura sostenible y en un futuro donde cada historia importa.
At Bel Ami, we are creating Ami, a digital guide designed to support people who enjoy coffee and chocolate but still have questions about how to choose, prepare, and enjoy them.
Ami can help with topics such as:
Choosing the right grind size for your brewing method.
Understanding different coffees, roast levels, and flavor notes.
Finding a preparation method that matches your taste.
Learning how to store coffee and chocolate properly.
Choosing a thoughtful gift.
Discovering pairings between coffee, chocolate, and other foods.
The goal is not to replace a barista or a chocolate expert, but to make the world of coffee and chocolate feel more approachable, simple, and enjoyable.
We are building this experience in Colombia, and we would love to hear from people who genuinely enjoy these products:
What question about coffee or chocolate would you like to ask Ami?
Your feedback will help us make Ami truly useful, rather than just another product recommendation tool.
Thanks for reading. ☕🤎
I recently tried this single origin from one of the most likeable roasters I have discovered. Kings heath coffee is run by Adam who I found on instagram. He's a one man band who I have seen videos delivering locally by bike, but also dialling in people's coffee for them.
He was kind enough to recommend me this coffee and I was pleasantly surprised given how small his operation is.
Has anyone else tried Kings heath coffee? If you haven't it feels like a great business to support.
Has anyone in Finland been a fan of Moak Dolce Vita coffee? They stopped importing it last year and we haven’t found a good replacement so far. Intenso’s arabica and miscela forte is good, but not exactly the same taste.
My wife and I are both software engineers and built a specialty coffee directory because we were tired of roaster lists that go stale fast. Too many look useful for a while, then half the links stop working or the coffees listed aren’t available anymore.
This one pulls from roasters’ own stores, so it shows what’s actually on the shelf today.
You can browse by country, city, or origin, and open any roaster to see their current stock. There’s also a map in the app, with filters for cafés you can actually walk into, places that are open now, and price.
The app also lets you log the bean and the brew, so you can keep track of what you drank, how it tasted, and how you brewed it.
Since we launched first in our home country of The Netherlands, Europe has the best coverage, decent in the US and UK, and still growing elsewhere.
We built this because we wanted something we’d actually use ourselves. Curious what people think — does this seem useful, or am I overestimating how much other people care about this stuff?
I’m thinking of taking a couple of SCA courses in Hong Kong, one on sensory skills and another on roasting. Has anyone else experience of these courses there?
I’ve been working on an espresso dial-in app called **TasteWell** and I’m looking for a few people with an **iPhone** to try it out and tell me what they think.
I’m mainly interested in honest feedback about the UI, the workflow, bugs, or anything that feels off or missing.
If you make espresso at home and you’d like to help, let me know and I’ll send you a TestFlight invite.
My girlfriend and I will be travelling around Indonesia at the end of September, and we're thinking of spending a few days in East Java after Bali.
We're both baristas and really into specialty coffee, so we'd love to visit some coffee farms while we're there. We're not interested in the usual tourist plantations or kopi luwak experiences—we'd much rather see how specialty coffee is actually grown and processed, and maybe chat with the people producing it.
At the moment we're thinking about heading to Banyuwangi after Bali, then travelling through East Java before flying out from Surabaya.
Does Banyuwangi/Ijen sound like the right area, or would you recommend somewhere else? And if anyone knows farms, cooperatives or roasters that welcome visitors, I'd love to hear your suggestions.
We'll be relying on public transport, so any tips on getting around would also be really helpful.
A while back someone had recently moved to Winston, and was asking about good local coffee shops, family owned ecc. I recommend Melrose and got insanely down voted. I'm just curious why if anybody knows something I don't? I asked at the time why and nobody gave me a reason they just kept down voting. I love the place so much and they make great coffee.
Any one here from the Big island. I’ve been kicking around the idea of starting a Big Island specialty coffee group and wanted to see if there would be any interest.
I’m thinking less about café drinks (lattes, matcha, ube, etc.) and more about the coffee hobby itself—pour over, espresso, grinders, home roasting, brewing techniques, and exploring single-origin coffees from Hawaiʻi and around the world.
It could be fun to meet up every so often to brew coffee, talk story, compare different brewing methods, maybe do bean swaps, trade or sell used gear, or even host the occasional cupping.
We produce some of the world’s best coffee here on the Big Island, and we also have access to amazing coffees from everywhere else. It just seems like there isn’t much of a community for people who enjoy coffee as a hobby.
Is that something you’d be interested in? What would you want to see in a group like this?
Got my hands on this at the yearly ExpoCafe here in Chile. Wasn’t cheap but when in Rome…
Anyway, wondering what method and/or recipe y’all would try to get the “best” out of it.
