Date 11 July 2024
We are so pleased to present to you our seasonal update on the Seasonal Filter Natural, a natural process heirloom variety from Sidama, Ethiopia. This delicious coffee is brought to you by the fantastic producers and team of the Mirado washing station.
Mirado is a coffee processing station in Bensa, Sidama, southern Ethiopia, operated by Daye Bensa Coffee and associated with its founder, Asefa Dukamo Korma. It sources coffee cherries from surrounding smallholder farmers and produces both washed and natural coffees.
Mirado washing station process their natural coffees with the whole cherry dried before hulling. The producer reports drying times of approximately 14–16 days. This process typically encourages more fruit-forward and fermentation-influenced flavours than a conventional washed lot, although the actual profile depends on cherry maturity, drying and fermentation management.
We sourced this coffee with the help of our import partners at Cafe Imports, cupping through multiple rounds of samples to find the right coffee for our Seasonal Filter natural. Our goal at Maker Coffee is to source and buy excellent coffees, and promote the hard work done at origin by the coffee producers. It is our privilege to bring to you the latest filter release of 2026 at Maker Coffee, sourced with care from the producers of villages like Dambi, Silinga, Sagara, and Kokose near the Mirado washing station.
Fresh crop Ethiopia, the three magic words we all love so much. It's that time of the year, here at Maker, we’re ready to roll out our freshly landed Ethiopian coffees. First up is Adorsi, a washed lot, made up entirely of the sought after Kurume variety from the Adorsi washing station.
Adorsi is a washing station near Aricha in Ethiopia’s renowned Yirgacheffe region, known for producing some of the most floral and delicate coffees. Owned by Testi Specialty Coffee, a family company founded by Faysel Abdosh, the station sources cherries from smallholder farmers across nearby villages such as Aricha, Idido, and Gersi.
Situated at 1,950 metres above sea level, the site benefits from a cool climate and the nearby Wogida River, allowing for slow drying and careful processing that enhances the coffee’s complexity and sweetness.
As Testi’s first washing station in the Gedeo zone, Adorsi has become a hub of both quality and community, with a strong sense of pride among the team led by Jamal Ahmed and Ahmen Getachew. Coffees are processed separately by village to maintain traceability and highlight unique flavour profiles. The featured lot comes from Aricha, where smallholder farmers like Nisusse Salo cultivate coffee on small, organically farmed plots under native shade trees, alongside staple crops, reflecting the region’s traditional and sustainable farming practices.
This washed lot is made up entirely of the Kurume variety. It is still quite rare to find single variety lots from Ethiopia, as most coffees varieties are still being researched and are labelled under the “Ethiopian landrace/heirloom” umbrella term. Kurume is a prized Ethiopian heirloom / landrace Arabica coffee variety named after a local indigenous tree (Kudhume in the Guji zone and Kurume in the Gedeo/Yirgacheffe zone) that shares its compact size, small fruit structure, and resilient growing traits. This lot, purchased through our friends at Interamerican Coffee, is a deliciously clean and classic representation of a washed Ethiopian coffee. Roasted exclusively for filter, with flloral notes of orange blossom along with apricot and panela sugar sweetness, we are really excited to bring this coffee to our venues. This coffee is also available on our website to order online.
Our Seasonal Filter product was designed to be fresh and seasonal, and staying true to its purpose, we've given this customer favourite a fresh update! Grown in Nariño, one of Colombia's specialty coffee regions, shaped by its proximity to the Pacific Ocean. Cool nights and warm days slow the ripening of cherries, giving the coffee a distinct sweetness and complexity.
This washed lot, called Los Rosales, after the roses grown on farms throughout the region, whose floral notes often carry into the coffee itself. Buesaco and Tablón de Gómez are neighboring coffee-producing municipalities located in the mountainous Nariño department in southern Colombia, known for producing great specialty coffee, where Caravela, our import partner, has worked alongside farmers since 2015.
The Los Rosales producers hand pick coffee cherries during harvest and pulp the cherries on the same day. Recently some producers have started “in-cherry” fermentation before pulping as well but this is not a universal practice just yet. After pulping, the coffees are fermented in tiled tanks for 24-48 hours after which the parchment is washed with water and dried for 20-25 days on patios.
It’s our pleasure to present our first Kenyan offering from the 2026 harvest: the Bnivaans Estate AA.
Bnivaans Estate is owned by James Kungu Kariuki, aka Bob, a nickname he got from schoolmates and still goes by today. The farm is located just east of Gitwe in the Gatundu South Sub-County, and Ndarugo Ward of Kiambu County, one of the best coffee-growing regions in Kenya.
James has been producing coffee since 2011 when he inherited a portion of his farm. In the beginning, he marketed his coffee under his uncle’s name, Francis. In 2023, he wanted to take full control of his work and decided to start marketing the coffee himself. James takes immense pride in cultivating and processing his high-quality coffees. The farm was named after James's son, whom he lost in a devastating accident.
At Bnivaans Estate, he primarily grows Batian, Ruiru 11, and SL28 varieties on his 17 hectares of land. By purchasing land over time, he has increased his farm in size by about 40%.
Bnivaans Estate lies in the coffee-tea transition zone close to the Aberdare range. Soils are red volcanic and well-drained; therefore, the climate is ideal for coffee production with reliable bimodal rainfall and a temperature range of 14-26 C. The long rains fall between March and May, while the short rains come between October and December.
The area is rich in both terrestrial and aquatic ecosystems. Farmers recognize the importance of preserving indigenous species. Species in the area include snakes, deer, hares, weaverbirds, owls, and hawks, among others. Additionally, numerous indigenous plant species like fig, cordia, croton, and neem trees are found in this region.
This lot from Bnivaans Estate is a beautiful expression of the classic Kenya flavour profile that is so cherished and loved by the Specialty Coffee industry. Big bodied and with big upfront acidity, this washed coffee tastes of ruby grapefruit, black currant and brown sugar. Dialled in exclusively as a tasty filter roast by our roasting team, we’re so thrilled to present this coffee to our customers.
A country that is on many (coffee) traveler’s bucket lists: Papua New Guinea. Remote, exotic, and still considered a last frontier on many levels.
From a coffee perspective, PNG is often still considered uncharted territory for high-end or specialty coffee. Our import partners, Interamerican Coffee, did an amazing job of showcasing some of PNG’s best lots earlier this year. It is during this showcase cupping where we tasted the AM Kwongi, and the fruit forward and clean flavour profile stood out instantly.
This is the first coffee Maker has sourced from PNG for some time, and we couldn’t be more thrilled to showcase such a tasty lot as the first for this origin.
Mr. Wilson Mathias, a dedicated smallholder farmer and enterprising family man with seven children, operates AM Kwongi to source premium smallholder coffee across eight council wards in the Kwongi and Namta areas. Located within the pristine Upper Asaro Rural Local Level Government (LLG) boundary in the Eastern Highlands Province of Papua New Guinea, his operation is deeply integrated into the local economy. Alongside running AM Kwongi, Wilson manages a small trade store and operates two trucks dedicated to passenger transit and coffee freight, providing a vital logistical link for his community. The smallholder communities he serves thrive in a breathtaking tropical highland environment at elevations ranging from 1,500 to 2,300 meters.
This pristine landscape features fast-flowing rivers, natural forests, and vast grasslands. While daily life centers on subsistence agriculture—primarily cultivating sweet potatoes and raising pigs for social and ceremonial exchange—coffee farming serves as a crucial economic lifeline, providing essential supplementary income in this remote and challenging terrain.
The coffee sourced by AM Kwongi consists of Typica and Bourbon varieties. Grown on small family plots averaging less than one hectare, each household produces an average of eight bags (under 500 kg) of green coffee per season. The entire production process is intensely traditional: cherries are meticulously picked, pulped, washed, and dried completely by hand to be sold as parchment. This seasonal harvest begins with pickups in April, reaches its peak in June, and tapers off by August.
The importance given to quality control during post harvest processing is evident in the fruity flavour profile of this coffee, a sweet rooibos tea and strawberry-like sweetness is complimented by a confectionary sweetness akin to shortbread. At the Maker roastery we’re excited to roast this washed process coffee from AM Kwongi as a delicious and syrupy espresso for our customers.
In recent years, Planadas has become a hub for coffee production and is now considered one of the top coffee producing regions within Colombia.
This municipality was established in 1932 by the Spanish Jesuit priest Fermin Larrazabal who at the time guided a group of people from Huila and Antioquia to establish a settlement in a plateau near the river Atá, which is where Planadas is located. Due to his name, Fermin, and in relation to the world-famous San Fermin festivities in Pamplona (Spain) is where this brand gets its name. Both Fermin Larrazabal and the festivities embody aspects which describe the producers from this area: audacity, courage, joy, and togetherness. This region suffered heavily from the internal conflict of Colombia and the guerrilla groups, but even though with this situation the coffee farmers of the area kept pushing forward and with resilience were able to keep producing amazing quality coffee. This municipality is surrounded by mountains of the central cordillera of Colombia and full of creeks and rivers that go down to the Atá River, having great nutritious soils for the production of coffee. Our sourcing partner for this coffee, Caravela has been purchasing coffee in the area in direct relationship with producers since 2007, and in 2013 the brand San Fermin was born with initially 30 producers contributing to it.
The producers of San Fermin are resilient and driven, and at the same time joyful and family driven. It is common to visit them and see they work on the farm as a family with every member contributing in some aspect of the farm such as drying, keeping the records of production, administration and more. Traditionally the varieties they started working with were Castillo, Typica, Caturra and Colombia but nowadays the varieties that are seen more in order of greater to lesser volume are Castillo, Colombia, Caturra, Typica, Bourbon, Tabi, Gesha and Catimore. Since San Fermin started, the life of the producers has changed for the better with the production of high-quality coffee, having nowadays better quality of life and living conditions.
At the farm level, the producers have made changes such as with different varieties, seeing an improvement in the phytosanitary and nutritional conditions of the trees, improvements in the wet mill and drying areas. Some of the producers have even bought more land to have a bigger production.
This is the second coffee that Maker has purchased from the producers of San Fermin, and we are delighted to offer this beautiful natural processed coffee roasted for Espresso to our customers. For natural processed coffees, the coffee producers of San Fermin begin by carefully picking ripe cherries. Some producers float the cherries to remove less dense, defective cherries and foreign material such as leaves. The cherries are then fermented without water for 30 to 36 hours in a traditional, tiled, covered tank in open air. They are then taken to the drying area, which can range from rooftop patios with retractable roofs (known as Casa Heldas), to parabolic covered patios or raised drying beds. Depending on the farm’s climate, drying can take between 30 to 35 days. Once dried, the coffee is sometimes stored on the farm for one to two weeks. The grower then delivers the coffee to the purchasing station in Planadas, where it is analyzed by a Quality Analyst to determine its quality. A representative sample undergoes a rigorous physical analysis, including measurements of moisture content, water activity, and physical defects. It is then evaluated through sensory analysis, which ultimately determines its quality grade. From there, the parchment coffee is sent to the dry mill in Armenia for processing before being shipped to port. 
Our parternship with Caravela has been fruitful in many ways, including the discovery of delicious small producer regions such as San Fermin. This coffee is our latest Espresso offering, with delicious tasting notes of Grapefruit and Strawberry with sweet White Chocolate finish. We are also delighted with how it tastes as a filter brew. We will be showcasing it as our Seasonal Natural filter till the end of the year.
