TASTE

The Hands Behind Ethiopian Blossom

“Coffee ceremony is older than my grandmother’s grandmother’s memory. Maybe one thousand years, maybe more. Coffee and ceremony, they grew up together. One cannot exist without the other.” — Demekeeh

Standing in Beranu and Demekeeh’s highland home in Bonga, Ethiopia, we discovered that coffee isn’t just what grows in their fields—it’s the sacred practice that holds their community together.

For over two hours, we watched Demekeeh perform the ancient coffee ceremony with movements so practiced they seemed like prayer. Each green bean selected by hand, roasted slowly over glowing coals, the aromatic smoke blessing everyone in the room before the careful grinding, the patient brewing in the traditional clay jebena, the artful pouring that created perfect foam in each tiny cup.

“First round is abol—for blessing,” Beranu explained as we shared the first of three traditional servings. “Second round is tona—for community. Third round is baraka—for protection. Each round different meaning, different strength.”

This wasn’t coffee as we’d ever experienced it. This was coffee as sacred act, as community builder, as connection to ancestors who had discovered coffee’s potential in these very highland forests centuries ago.

Beranu’s farm grows coffee using methods passed down through generations, the same careful attention Demekeeh brings to ceremony applied to every stage of cultivation. “Coffee ceremony cannot be fast,” he told us. “Community cannot be fast. Good things need proper time.”

Ethiopian Blossom carries the essence of this ancient wisdom—coffee grown with patience, harvested with care, processed using traditional knowledge that honors both plant and community. When you taste its complex, earthy flavors alive with highland forest character, you’re experiencing coffee the way it was meant to be: not as caffeine delivery, but as connection to something sacred.

*20% of every bag sold supports community projects in Bonga, including clean water systems and preservation of traditional ceremony knowledge.*

The Hands Behind Rwandan Reserve Rwanda’s hills may be small in size, but the coffee grown here carries a reputation that stretches far beyond its borders. Cultivated between 1,400 and 1,900 meters, on tiny family plots that rarely exceed a hectare, this is a coffee shaped by care, community, and resilience. Over 400,000 smallholders contribute to Rwanda’s coffee story, and in our Rwandan Reserve their work comes together through 40 washing stations and 35,000 farming families. Each hand-harvested cherry is fully washed, hulled, graded, and hand-sorted at the Rwanda Trading Company in Kigali—a process of meticulous attention that reflects both the legacy and the future of Rwanda’s coffee industry. Unlike Ethiopia, Rwanda’s coffee traditions are not centuries old. Coffee was introduced under colonial rule, grown for export rather than ceremony. Yet today, Rwanda has reclaimed coffee as a symbol of pride and progress. Farmers have transformed it from obligation into opportunity, building a culture of excellence that now defines the country’s place in the global coffee landscape. Coffee here is shared at gatherings, offered as hospitality, and increasingly celebrated in emerging “Rwandan coffee ceremonies” that honor both tradition and innovation. Our partners, who share our philosophy, bring us this reserve: a light to medium roast of Bourbon and Typica varieties, fruity and balanced, with beautiful hints of cranberry. When you taste Rwandan Reserve, you taste more than a cup—you taste the collective hands of a nation turning history into hope, and harvest into harmony.

The Hands Behind Mayan Tapestry

In Guatemala, coffee is stitched into the fabric of daily life much like the vibrant textiles of Mayan tradition. Since the 1850s, families in Antigua’s volcanic valleys have cultivated coffee alongside their culture, passing down both knowledge and land. Here, beneath the towering presence of Agua, Fuego, and Acatenango, coffee thrives at 1,650 meters in soils rich with volcanic minerals.

Through partners aligned with our values, we bring you this Mayan Tapestry: a coffee of Caturra, Bourbon, and Typica. Chocolatey and sweet, with a full body and the fragrance of blackberries, it reflects both the richness of the earth and the artistry of those who tend it.

We haven’t yet stood in these valleys, but this cup stirs our curiosity: how do Mayan weavers and farmers see the connection between the threads they spin and the beans they harvest? How might ancient cosmology, land, and livelihood come together in the rhythm of their days?

Mayan Tapestry is our starting point — a taste of Guatemala’s story before we’ve lived it ourselves. When we finally go, it will be because Cultural Passport members decided the time was right to follow these threads back to their source.