CURIOUS

a collaboration connecting coffee people on every continent

Until the End of the World

A frozen cardamom infused ice sphere, whole cardamom locked inside, in a lowball glass, slowly melting into a single origin Rwanda Ikizere Women’s lot pourover concentrate. 

Collaborators:

• Emmanuel Rusatira - Baho Coffee, Kigali, Rwanda and the women who produced our Fugi Ikizere coffee 

• Dr. Jane Dell - Research Scientist and volunteer barista at The Coffee Shop, McMurdo Station, Antarctica

• Smayah Uwajeneza - @elevatethroughcoffee @from.origin_podcast Kigali, Rwanda

This drink, like our planet, is limited in supply.

“It’s very isolating. It's very easy for the outside world to just disappear…the community aspect is much more apparent and strong there [Antarctica] than, I think, in our daily lives. Your amount of distraction is significantly reduced.  And so I found that it wasn't so much about just getting my daily caffeine, but instead it was about enjoying the coffee with my community.

I keep thinking about how to emulate global warming/melting glaciers in a drink.” - Dr. Jane Dell about her experience volunteering at The Coffee Shop, McMurdo Station, Antarctica

“Rwandan coffee has a bit of a sweet brown spice unique flavor to it, so I like to pair…cardamom as…infusion…” – Smayah Uwajeneza, when asked what spice, true to Rwanda, would complement this drink.

“We started this [bringing Baho coffee into the US] and we are still together. If possible, I invite you to visit us with Ben [of Sundog Trading who asked us to be in on the first purchase] next year. I think of doing something unique, as you keep supporting us.” – Emmanuel Rusatira about being the first US company to go in on Ben of Sundog Trading’s first import of Baho Coffee and the ongoing relationship 6 years later.

Fun fact shared by Dot: Some say that Earnest Earl Lockhart’s experience in Antarctica influenced his love of coffee and later on led to him creating the Brewing Control Chart still used today as a way to assess brew strength suitability.

 

ESPRESSO & strangers

House made Sri Lankan Cinnamon syrup espresso tonic, garnished with a sprig of rosemary and dried orange slice half. 

Collaborator - Deandra Gauci, COFFEE & Strangers, Tas-Sliema, Malta

“Through coffee I meet a lot of strangers, and that is how I know you, right? In Malta…Our language is a mix of Italian, Arabic, French, and English...

...There's a smell of rosemary. You're not tasting it, because we just try not to put it inside the drink…The drink is just slightly absorbing from the dehydrated oranges, and there isn't so much sweetness spiking the drink. We place the small piece of rosemary on top, just a small piece. So it’s more influencing your nose rather than the palate….” - Deandra Gauci on Malta, the Maltese language and this refreshing multimodal drink

 

Aristotle Dream Pop

A layered strawberry jam, milk soda with blue turnate infusion, ube whipped cream, topped with black lava salt, garnished with a red rock sugar stick and Popping Bottles co-fermented espresso on the side.

Collaborator: Dot Mediano, Lot 38 Kape, Davao City, Philippines

“With us creating our drinks, we follow Aristotle’s formula…considering aesthetics, ergonomics, behavior, function, and sensorial. So those are our categories whenever we are creating drinks…After this, l’ll do some journaling and do some sketching first, then try to incorporate colors and flavors, like synesthesia, like if this color fits with the flavor and if this flavor matches with the other color or flavors.

Coffee usually grows on the side of volcanos. So there's that contrast between, like, it's either red or blue, then the black and then the espresso. So there's the primary colors. With pop rocks below and espresso on the side, to pour over….there’s something to the way espresso moves through the layers that is interesting to us.” - Dot Mediano on devising signature beverages and this drink.

Aristotle Dream Pop mashes up Lot 38 Kape’s Unicorn with hints of our Dr. Durham, a jam infused cream soda reverse volcano dream. Get some popping bottles to sip on the side!

 

The Handshake

House made lychee syrup with lemon juice over chilled espresso.

Collaborators: Lisa Yang and Matthew Lu of BerryBird Coffee, Kona, Hawaii

“Once Lisa tried the beans from you guys for the first time, she's like, this is the whole reason why we do coffee. Like the flavor that you're actively looking for is finally there, and kind of like, I wish there was this flavor in there. So we are all sold out of the Edwin Noreña MZ as well. We're just like, Okay, that was super fun. Maybe we can collaborate on something else?”

We have a recipe that might be delicious for you to try as well. We want to call it a ‘Handshake’. It was taught to us by Bill Tsiang, our roast instructor. It was the first drink that got us bewildered about coffee, and even before we began our professional coffee journey. It’s the introduction ‘handshake’, which made us realize what is possible in coffee isn’t just chocolate and creaminess, it is capable of something more.’ – Matthew Lu proposing a drink recipe that was passed to him by a mentor, furthering the “handshake.”

“We tried your recipe earlier, I really liked it! I think the combinations of flavors are so good, so fruity! I did reduce the lemon juice to half because I feel like it was more present than the lychee…the ingredients are different in different places…” – Melissa Ibarra, Cocoa Cinnamon Flavor Lead – a small tidbit of the recipe sharing, tweaking and testing that she did for this

Image: Lisa Yang and Matthew Lu of BerryBird Coffee, Kona, Hawaii

A small part of our recipe exchanges that led to this drink. BerryBird shared an interpretation of our Dr. Durham, called Spicy & Bird, in Hawaii. 

 

Windows to the Volcano of San Salvador

House made mango x coconut syrup tonic. Option: add espresso on the side.

Collaborator: Karla Boza, Jacinta, San Salvador, El Salvador

“Something else that is coming up, and it's very seasonal for us. It's mango season, and that's very, very important, and we love it. And I would love to also play with something that could incorporate that.

I wanted it [Jacinta, the café] to be very colorful, because I like colors a lot, and I didn't want it to be another traditional and, you know, like very gray, looking neutral color coffee shop. 

So we have these giant windows. You can see the volcano of San Salvador, which is one of my favorite views from the city. I can send you pictures if you want, but like, I love seeing that every single day. We can see outside, like out the window, and we can see when the volcano has different clouds, when it's sunny outside, we can see how it changes through the seasons, and here we also only have mainly two seasons it's either raining or it's not, but still, like, it's very beautiful to see it like every day, like I'm obsessed with that view.

You're sitting underneath this beautiful tree that gives these fruits, that I'll send you pictures, because I have no idea what they're called in English, but it's so beautiful. And when that tree is in bloom. The flowers, they are these, like, bright pink little petals. It's so beautiful. So then it's almost like you walk into the space and there's like a bright pink carpet of little petals.” - Karla Boza about her cafe, Jacinta, in San Salvador.

 

We Come from Very Different Ways, But There’s a lot of Recognition

House made chai spiced dark drinking chocolate with house made Carolina Reaper syrup. Option to add espresso.

Collaborators

• Yadira Harms Sankasting, Island Grind Coffee, Aruba

• Peter Katz, friend, neighbor, and supporter since bikeCOFFEE days, Durham

‘The chai is one that we make a little spicy, it really has a little bit of heat that follows you…

We're a small community, so we're built for that, for being interested in people's stories and wanting to see them back, and really enjoying when people come back, and the team takes big pride in knowing what the customer is going to order before they order it, that's a little bit of a source of, not competition, but of satisfaction with them. So it is even people who only come for a week, towards the second, third visit, they already know, oh, they’re going to order this and that, and that's something that they really enjoy.

Everyone here [in Aruba] is some kind of complicated mix…

I think it's a really good thing to happen to the world where there's very few people who can say, I'm just this, no, I'm this, and a little bit of that, and a little bit of that, and some more of this, and then, and then bring people closer together.

It’s really great to meet you, but also, I think it's very surprising and really great how we come from very different ways. But there's a lot of recognition in the things you're saying that kind of resonates.” - Yadira Harms Sankasting on Island Grind Coffee, Aruba, spices, and goodness that comes from mixed backgrounds

“I grow peppers because I think they’re beautiful and by growing them I can have so many more varieties, fresh that I can’t always get in stores. As you know it’s a double-edge sword though, because when they come ripe there’s usually way more than I know what to do with and I have to figure out creative ways to use them, like putting them into honey, oil, liquors, fermenting them into sauces, freezing and drying them, or just giving them away to friends because I hate wasting them or letting them go bad….Now I’m addicted to spice so I’m still growing them.” - Peter Katz on how he got into growing and making delicious things out of hot peppers.

 

Recipe collaboration + development by Cocoa Cinnamon Flavor Lead & CC LKWD Café Leader - Melissa

Drink images & visual concepts by Lauren Vied Allen @laurenviedallen

 

Select Upcoming 2025 Little Waves Coffees

We will soon be receiving all the fresh crop East African coffees our hearts desire and more!

 

Rwanda - Fugi Ikizere Women Washed and Humure Low Oxygen Natural

These are coffees that we have been sourcing since 2019 from Emmanuelle Rustira, owner and operator of Baho Coffee. Emma is a man of his word and has a grand vision for how coffee can create sustainable livelihoods for producers. He’s also interested in putting Rwandan coffees on consumer’s minds as premium coffee. Working with Emma is a dream partnership, one where there is transparency about every person who has delivered cherries to the washing stations, where we know how much everyone got paid for their first and second payment and the details of the processing for each lot. Emma’s actions speak louder than words and the coffees are year after year knock-outs. If you haven’t yet, make sure to catch us on Apple TV +’s Docuseries, Omnivore, Episode 7 on Coffee. It goes into the history of Rwandan coffee cultivation and how far it has come through the other end of much hardship. 

Quiet Endless Searching - Natural Thailand

We are excited to have this coffee back on our menu. This coffee came into our lives because our wholesale partners at Heirloom wanted a coffee from Laos. While, at that time, I wasn’t able to find coffee from Laos, I found coffee from a small group in Thailand doing stellar work to also put Thailand on the specialty coffee map. Most of the coffee produced in Thailand stays and is consumed in Thailand so being able to get our hands on any amount of bags is a treat and delicacy. These coffees are sweet, clean, juicy, and spicy. We’ve been really enjoying the fruits of the hard work put forth to produce these lots year after year. We foresee more great things to come from Thailand. 

Select Peak Coffees:

We have been working on cultivating a small, rotational offering of some of the higher scoring coffees out there, whether it’s from an auction or coffees from relationships with producers whose coffees are winning coffee competitions. This is a developing program in that as we are scratching the surface we are seeking through a lens of gender and racial equity just as much as top quality.

 

Currently: A glimpse into our forthcoming Currents Subscription Program

Mauricio Shattah - Typica Mejorado Competition Series

We met Mauricio through our common participation in the Coffee Excellence Course through ZHAW University in Zurich (online). Mauricio is a meticulously curious individual. He has lived many lives; From being a doctor to going to business school and creating a coffee shop business plan that took a life of its own, to Lilana, his partner and wife, asking what his Doomsday Plan was. 

This question led to a lot of research the purchasing of Finca La Negrita, closing the coffee shops and focusing on producing rare and beautiful coffees. His skills and knowledge as a doctor have come in handy when it comes to being meticulous about every step of the processing journey from soil to mill. Mauricio's coffees have had a lot of success on the competition stage for years and we're lucky to have our hands on some of this Nano Lot Competition Series Typica Mejorado Natural Anaerobic.

Inmaculada Sudan Rumé

Sudan Rumé is a legendary variety that was discovered in 1940 in a wild state in the

Boma Plateau, Southeast Sudan near the Ethiopian border. This area belongs to a region considered to be the birthplace of the Arabica species. Sudan Rumé has long been used by plant breeders and as a source of “quality” genes. It was first planted by Inmaculada in 2012 and used by Sasa Sestic who won the 2015 WBC World Barista Championship in Seattle, WA, USA. We’re excited to have our hands on this beautiful variety and even more for you to try it.   

Inmaculada Eugenioides

In 2010, the Holguin family kickstarted the Inmaculada Coffee Farms, not just as a venture but as a mission to weave nature and quality into the fabric of their community. Nestled in the breathtaking Andes mountains of Colombia, Inmaculada has mastered the art of cultivating and processing extraordinary coffees.  In addition to the Sudan Rumé, Inmaculada cultivates Eugenioides. Indigenous to the highlands of East Africa, Coffea Eugenoides is one of the parents of modern Arabica Coffee. It is very difficult to grow, yielding only 150 grams of green beans per tree. Due to its low caffeine content, it has almost no perceived bitterness and an unbelievable sweetness.

We were able to snag only a few pounds and this coffee will be available while supplies last for the first Currents Subscription subscribers! Psst! sign up on this form now to have a rare chance at getting a bit. 

Edwin Enrique Noreña - Black Honey Sidra - Competition Series

Edwin Noreña needs no introduction on our roster any more. He’s nicknamed the alchemist because what he does with coffee fermentation, carbonic maceration, co-fermentation, is science, art, skill and meticulous dedication. Edwin has really carved a path for himself. His coffees sing and this coffee stood out to us on the cupping table when we visited him last August. This Competition Series Sidra is processed as a Black Honey (known to be his favorite processing method because of the complexity it brings to the cup) with it’s own Mossto creating a beautifully aromatic, tropical, honeyed cider cup. We look forward to seeing more of Edwin’s competition series coffees and some more of his fun co-fermentations.