Milk chocolate leads this month's Roaster's Choice.
But the part that stays with us is how coffee grown by many people, passed through many hands, can still become your coffee - the one in your favorite mug, made the way you like it.
One Bag. Many Hands.
We brought in one 69-kilo bag of Peru Selva Norte, a washed Grade 1 regional coffee from Cajamarca in northern Peru.
"Regional" matters. This is not a single-farm story with one name stamped on the front. It brings together coffee from smallholder farms and follows a shared route through processing, sorting, packing, shipping, roasting, and brewing.
There is a person making a decision at every step. By the time the coffee reaches your kitchen, a lot of hands have helped it along. Then it becomes personal: your brewer, your mug, your morning.
Where the Highlands Meet the Rainforest
Cajamarca sits in northern Peru, where Andean highlands descend toward the Amazon watershed. It is a landscape of steep slopes, rivers, and cloud forest - a fitting place for a coffee whose story is about movement.
That route continues here. We roast it at Heave Ho, then hand the last part of the job to you.
Washed, in Plain English
Selva Norte is a washed coffee. After the cherries are picked, the fruit is removed and the coffee is fermented, washed, and dried before milling.
The useful part is clarity. We have one clear direction for the roast: milk chocolate first. No medal ceremony. No wall of tasting-note poetry. Just a cup that feels familiar, with enough character to make you pay attention.
Why It Earned Roaster's Choice
Roaster's Choice is our excuse to follow one good idea all the way through.
This time, the idea is simple: one bag, many hands, one shared cup. We are taking a regional coffee from northern Peru and roasting it toward the kind of chocolate-led sweetness we want in an everyday coffee.
The rest still has to earn its place.
Coffee Details
- Origin: Cajamarca, northern Peru
- Structure: Regional lot from smallholder farms
- Program: Café Selva Norte
- Process: Washed
- Grade: 1
- Roast direction: Milk chocolate first
- Green coffee: One 69-kilo bag
Some mornings need a tasting note. Most need coffee that works.
Milk chocolate first. The rest has to earn its place.