Ternura Pa'l Café
Name: Ternura Pa'l Café
Origin: 100% Ethiopia
Notes: honeysuckle, orange blossom, cherry turnover, & white tea
Recommended Brewing Ratios:
Espresso: 1:2 - 1:2.1 (17.5-18g in, 35-38 out, 25-28 seconds)
Filter: 1:16
Batch Brew: 1:16
This blend was named by Leon, inspired by Rosalia's song, Berghain. Read further down for the deeper version. Stay here for the very short of it:
Ternura means tenderness—a name Areli chose as a blend long before I knew its meaning. Over the years, it’s become a quiet favorite: comforting, familiar, and deeply loved. As she describes it: notes of strawberry jam, waffle cone, and chocolate cake—syrupy, sweet, and full of nostalgia, love, and inner-child magic.
Recently, I heard the phrase “ternura pa’l café”—tenderness for coffee—in a song by Rosalia, and it stayed with me. It felt like a reflection of our lives with coffee: the care in sourcing, roasting, brewing, and sharing it with the people around us.
That tenderness is at the heart of this blend.
We hope you taste it in every cup—and carry a little of it with you into the world.
The Deeper Version:
Areli named our blend Ternura first. Then I found out what the word meant: tenderness.
It was an interesting choice—one I might not have come up with myself. But all these years later, I love that we have a blend called Tenderness. It’s quiet, not drawing a lot of attention to itself, yet it’s deeply loved. Some people know what the word means, and they’re drawn to that. Its flavor profile is comforting, too. As Areli wrote about our blend:
“Notes of strawberry jam, waffle cone, chocolate cake.
Syrupy, sweet, and full of nostalgia, love, and inner child magic.
Great with milk.”
Last November, I had heard Rosalía’s name, but I hadn’t knowingly listened to her music. Around that time, I was spending long hours in our backyard working with coffee plants. What started as a small class project for the Zürich University Coffee Excellence Center had grown into something much bigger—about 2,000 rare coffee plants that now needed to be prepared for winter.
I was out there often, working with the plants, listening to music. For some reason, seemingly out of nowhere, I started thinking about Björk. I thought about how she might be one of the most creative people of the recent past, and wondered why I hadn’t listened to her in what felt like at least a decade.
About a month later, Rosalía released “Berghain,” featuring Björk. So I put it on.
And—bam.
In under three minutes, the song felt intense, overwhelming in a good way, almost life-changing. So many experiences packed into a short span of time. Unlike any other song. Immediate. I remember thinking: Björk’s voice bends time.
“The only way to save us is through divine intervention.”
I was curious about the name Berghain, so I looked it up: a German club with a powerful history, emerging in the time after the Berlin Wall came down. A place shaped by freedom and self-expression. Going down the Berghain rabbit hole only intensified the song and led me to read the lyrics more closely, and to listen to her Apple Music interview.
For the album, Rosalía spent a year researching female saints from across history and many cultures, then a year writing the lyrics, and another year recording. She goes deep. The result is a striking work—singing in fourteen languages, drawing from as many saints, blending pop, poetry, and orchestra.
She uses the word ternura several times throughout the album, and it reminded me of the simple warmth and comfort that word brings up for me.
In the song “Berghain,” she uses it to describe herself as a sugar cube—also a Björk reference—dissolving:
“Yo sé muy bien lo que soy
Ternura pa’l café
Solo soy un terrón de azúcar
Sé que me funde el calor
Sé desaparecer
Cuando tú vienes es cuando me voy”
“I know well what I am—
Tenderness for coffee.
I am only a sugarcube.
I know that heat melts me.
I know how to disappear.
When you come, that’s when I go.”
The words are sung tenderly—enticing, wistful. Wistfulness runs beneath the album, the song, and this blend.
“Tenderness for coffee” is a huge part of our lives. So when I heard those lyrics, beyond everything else I’ve described here, I felt excited. I wanted to temporarily rename our blend Ternura pa’l café. We didn’t—but Areli created a special blend inspired by the name.
I have so much tenderness for coffee—for its flavors, for recipes, for roasting, for sharing, for the people who grow it, make it, and drink it. For the people we get to work with. We are incredibly fortunate to be part of coffee and everything it elicits in our lives, and everything it connects across neighborhoods and across the world.
That awe—and that tenderness—are in every coffee we source.
We hope you feel it.
We hope you carry it in your mind and in your heart as you savor this coffee.
And we hope you find moments of tenderness in your own life—and share them with the world around you.
*If you would like this coffee ground, please specify the brew method in the comments.
Bags are 12oz, 2lb, 5lb