MicroLot Coffee, The Bordeaux Connection

Coffee plants grow in the mountains of the tropics all over the world. These places vary widely in soil chemistry, weather, land stewardship, and farm practices. With coffee being the second most traded commodity on the planet, Artisanal roasters search high and low and zero in on great green coffee beans that that have incredible flavor and aroma profiles.  Finding them is like finding a few needles in a giant haystack. These special beans, called "microlots, are the secret to the microroaster quality advantage.  There might only be 500-1000 pounds of this coffee available in the entire world.

That’s called a “microlot.” It might be that the coffee we want grows only on a certain hillside, perhaps in a tiny plantation. These unique microlots are special and highly sought after. Some taste like dried blueberries, others smell like caramel.  It’s quite amazing. We combine these coffee beans (coffee is a fruit!) and the results speak for themselves.

Great wines grow in great soil, with perfect weather, with professional land management, and natural processes.  It’s the same for coffee. Most coffee is a commercial product that is specifically designed to be “the same every time you drink it.”  So when a large producer buys beans, they are specifically trying to blend, roast, and mix them with other beans so that

there is no uniqueness at all.

The microlot approach is to work to bring out the unique qualities in the beans and combine them in such a way as to create ingenious flavor and aroma in the roasted coffee.  Our approach - and that of artisanal roasters around the world - is precisely the opposite of the corporate coffee business.