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As told by Ed Kaufmann, Joe Coffee Director of Sourcing. As we began roasting our own coffees here at Joe in 2012, of the earliest selections on our menu was purchased through a coffee exporter/importer called Caravela Coffee based in Bogota, Colombia and Chapel Hill, NC. The coffee was produced by a farmer named Wilmar Guarnizo in Tarqui, in the southern state of Huila, Colombia. We called it La Familia Guarnizo, and today, this family's farms are among our favorite to visit. When we first got to know this coffee, we instantly wanted to dig deeper in order to learn more about Wilmar and other coffees from this region. We learned that Wilmar’s family is part of a growers’ association called El Paraiso, which acts as a group to bring operating costs down. The association is funded by a percentage of revenue from the producers, so its member farmers choose to produce higher quality and sell it for higher prices to Caravela, whose exporting warehouse happens to be right next door to El Paraiso. Through our relationship with Caravela and El Paraiso, we have been exposed to a number of coffees from Wilmar and his extended family as well as other members of the association. We loved them so much that once we began roasting 100% of the coffee served in Joe cafes, these coffees made up a significant part of our menu. In 2014 I made my first visit to Tarqui and the Guarnizo family on behalf of Joe, a trip I now look forward to making every year to strengthen our ongoing relationship. The first year I visited the family as a green coffee buyer for Joe, I proposed we establish a fixed price contract where Joe would pay the same amount each year regardless of what the coffee commodities market was doing. The benefit of this is that the seller can count on a stable price for the coffee they produce, rather than be at the mercy of the ever-fluctuating market. The Guarnizo family includes ten siblings, each with their own section of small farms—all of whom all signed on to this original contract. Coffee plants on one of the Guarnizo's family farms My latest visit to the Guarnizos was this past August. Tarqui is somewhat remote—it takes about two days to get there from New York City. The nearest airport is in Pitalito, about an hour and a half away from Tarqui. The airport has a physical control tower but no one works there so the pilots flying small turbo-prop planes land by sight and radar as they see fit. Rory Gowan from Caravela met me at the airport and we went straight to one of Caravela’s purchasing stations in Pitalito to taste some coffees before heading out to our visit with the Guarnizos. The drive to Tarqui was easy except for a section of the road that was being repaired and reduced the highway to one lane with cars taking turns going through the bottleneck. When we arrived in Tarqui, we picked up Marisela Trujillo who is part of Caravela’s PECA (Programa de Educación a Caficultores) team. They visit producers regularly and offer technical consultation to help them raise their quality. We drove another 45 minutes up the eastern side of the central cordillera of The Andes Mountains and rolled into the field in front of Wilmar’s house. It sits on top of a hill like a bright green monastery, with his plastic-tarp-covered solar coffee-drying structure right next to the house, and his processing equipment behind the dryer. The view from Wilmar’s porch is a stunning expanse overlooking the Eastern Cordillera of the Andes. It was great to be back. Ed Kaufmann, Director of Sourcing, with just some of the Guarnizo Family Most of the siblings were there to greet us. We caught up the best we could through Rory, who was translating for both them and me. (My Spanish is ok but I think we both have a hard time understanding each other’s accents.) Wilmar talked about some of the changes he has made to his drying techniques which have allowed him to improve his quality. We had sancocho for lunch which is a typical Colombian soup served with rice, chicken (probably “prepared” that morning), yucca and corn. There were too many of us to sit at the table at once so half of us ate while the others waited outside and they took their turn. I always make the same joke: I slurp the soup broth very loudly like I’m evaluating it as I would evaluate coffee and I yell “NOVENTA!” meaning that the soup is a 90-point soup, very high scoring. It’s my silly way of complimenting Wilmar’s wife Tania for preparing such a nice meal for us, but it never fails to make everyone laugh and break the ice. After lunch, several of us hiked around Wilmar’s farm, Finca La Vega, and talked about different cultivars of coffee he was growing. It was a magical setting to be in while telling him how much our customers love their coffee back in NYC. We looked out over the patchwork green valley between the Central and Eastern Cordilleras and talked about the very low coffee commodity futures price, something that is having huge impacts on many coffee producers around the world. For many farmers, the price they are paid is in relation to this ever-fluctuating futures market, unless the producer has a fixed price contract with a roaster, which we do with them. I was proud of the work we had all put in to devising the contract years ago and the work they’ve put in to maintain the quality that we need and our customers are accustomed to. After we explored La Vega, we drove to Jose Javier’s farm, El Triunfo. We spoke with Jose Javier about coffee prices as well and he showed us his new drying structure that has a sturdy tin roof as opposed to plastic. It is stronger and provides more shade for slower drying which can be very beneficial for coffee quality. We all had a cup of coffee roasted by one of the brothers, Yimmy in a pan on the stove with a stick. It was delightful! We said our goodbyes and headed back to Pitalito to settle in for the night and prepare for the next leg of our journey home, already looking forward to next year’s visit to our partners the Guarnizos.

Instant coffee. It's not a retro cool comeback: it's reborn, with all the nuance and flavor of specialty coffee first in mind. When we first became aware of the magic being worked at Lancaster, Pennsylvania's Swift Cup, we were curious. When we tasted their instant coffee, we were blown away. Through Swift Cup's advanced technology, they're able to turn beautiful brewed coffees into incredible instants—something we were thrilled to be able to offer the busy fans of Joe Coffee. We sat down with Swift Cup founder Nate Kaiser to go a little more in-depth. Until very recently, when people thought of instant coffee, something very low-quality came to mind. What made your partners think you could flip the script on instant?You're absolutely right and we shared those feelings about instant coffee for sure. For us, we were very curious as to why the quality of all instant coffee on the market was so poor. We spent time understanding the production process for commodity instant coffee, the stuff that you find on the shelves of most supermarkets, and realized that every part of the production was designed for quantity over quality. The coffee going into instant is literally the lowest of the low grade and the manufacturing practices are harsh, stripping all nuance from the coffee. We wondered what would happen if we created a manufacturing process focused on quality and then build efficiencies in from there. Would that create good instant coffee? Spoiler: Yes, it certainly does! What’s evolved in instant technology that made Swift Cup’s partners think “this is our moment”?First, instant coffee will never be better than the roasted coffee going into the process. The quality of coffee we have available as consumers is on a whole different playing field than when the first instant coffee factories were created, nearly 80 years ago. Specific to Swift Cup, we developed a piece of hardware that allows us to brew coffee with careful precision and in a highly concentrated manner. From there we developed a recipe using freeze-drying technology that gently dehydrates the coffee, preserving the nuance and character we celebrate in Specialty Coffee. This moment is unique and really a culmination of everything that's been taking place in Specialty Coffee for decades. Progressive farming and processing practices, roasting is better than ever, highly focused coffee brewing and a rapidly expanding customer base who expects higher quality coffee on all fronts. And when that quality isn't available when you're stuck at the office or traveling, Swift Cup offers those standards, but in instant form. How did you connect with Joe Coffee?When Jonathan and the team came down to Lancaster, we quickly learned we shared common values. We did sample runs of Joe coffees in instant form, and the team at Joe was stoked on the quality. We then spent time together developing the product, with a shared mission to make quality coffee more accessible. For us, partnering withJoe, a trusted roaster with a major retail footprint, has played an integral part of introducing specialty instant coffee to the market. The Swift Cup instant product ends up being quite versatile, easy to dissolve in hot water, cold water, milk, or even seltzer. What are your favorite interesting ways to prepare instant coffee—have you done anything particularly novel with it? Initially, we were stoked that our instant coffee produced a good cup of black coffee ha! We didn't expect there to be so many fun applications. Stirred into ice cream is definitely a favorite! Shaken with chocolate milk or even dissolved into tonic water, both delicious. I think to date, one of the most exciting things we've done with it is dissolve it into beer. Coffee beers have traditionally been pretty predictable and one dimensional, but having a concentrated coffee powder that packs a range of flavor opens the doors for some wild experimentation! What’s next for Swift Cup?Every day we're learning new things about our process, ever refining and looking for innovative ways to make our instant coffee better and better. We're growing quickly, but our focus remains quality first. With the help of such dedicated partners like Joe, we're eager to bring specialty instant coffee to more and more people! Interested in trying it yourself? We now offer three of our coffees as instant coffee: The Daily, La Familia Guarnizo, Nightcap Decaf