Some people look forward to the Holidays all year. For them, the first chilly morning and the earliest yellowing of tree leaves sparks their excitement. The anticipation builds as the temperatures drop, heralding in a time of joy, gift-giving, and family gatherings.
We feel that way about Holiday Blends. These are coffees we think about from January until the end of the summer months. We miss them when they're gone, and we're elated at their return. By mid-August, we're perusing inventory pages on our importer's customer portal, thinking about which fresh crop coffees might offer the flavors we're hoping to capture for our seasonal offerings. In September, samples are selected and the work of blending and profiling begins.
This year, we are bringing back two of our most popular Holiday Blends; Snowblind and Hibernate.
Snowblind, named after the sunburn you get on your eyes when UV light reflects off fresh snow, is designed to capture the stark brightness of winter. We look for flavors of sweet spice, punchy red fruit, and refreshing tartness for this blend
For the fruit punch element of Snowblind, we leaned on a new natural process Ethiopia. This coffee from the Sidama region was recently added to our retail and toll roasting menus. Flavors of blueberry, bergamot, grape, and fruit jam make this a loveable and classic natural Ethiopia profile. Balancing the fruit bomb is a lovely washed Colombia from Huila. This single-varietal coffee is intensely sweet with the perfect amount of milk chocolate, citrus, and maple notes. Together, these coffees combine to make Snowblind lively and lightweight, like a cranberry cider.
Hibernate is the complementary contrast to Snowblind. Cozy and comforting, it's for coffee drinkers who embrace the darkness and serenity of winter. Rich fudge, baking spices, and mulled wine are the notes we have in mind for this blend. We sourced a new coffee for Hibernate this year, a natural Pacamara microlot from El Salvador, which tastes like pomegranate juice and crème brulée on its own, is a coffee we're really excited about. Paired with an earthy, nutty, and round coffee from Papua New Guinea and roasted on the darker side of medium, this blend becomes complex and syrupy. Notes of roasted black tea, dark chocolate, and boozy rum punch make it the perfect after-dinner holiday blend to enjoy with loved ones.
Finally, a special announcement: a third blend! While testing possible components for our two returning blends, we sampled a mix of coffees that were too good to pass up. While this blend didn't match the profile for either Snowblind or Hibernate, we knew we wanted to find a home for it on our menu. Look for an announcement coming next week about this blend, which we'll be offering for the rest of the fall and winter seasons.
