Don’t Poke the Polkadots

While this coffee tastes awesome in every device, our favourites are a filter, Chemex or cafetiere.

Head over to our brew guides for making coffee for more.

These beans have been expertly grown at Sitio Serra Negra, a family-owned farm run by Paulo Bernardes, his wife, and his two sons. Based in the largest coffee-growing region in Brazil, Sul de Minas is known for its mountainous terrain, rich fertile soil and the Atlantic Rainforest. Paired with a favourable climate and small-scale production, it’s no wonder this region boasts award-winning coffees.

The Bernardes family has been growing coffee for over 30 years, with the men primarily focusing on planting and harvesting coffee cherries. Mrs Barnardes, Maria, focuses on processing things, checking the fruit, laying them in the sun to naturally dry and ferment, and removing the beans from the cherries.

The process begins with the cherries being hand-picked and floated to separate the under and over-ripe, leaving the best pickings behind to be processed. The fruit is laid on large patios to bask in the sun, known as the natural or dry processed method. By leaving the beans inside, they can absorb all the incredible fruity flavours from the cherry flesh.

To prevent over-fermentation and mould, the cherries are routinely turned and checked. Once they have reached the optimum moisture level, the beans are removed and washed to remove any mucilage. They are rested for four weeks before being hulled, graded by size and bagged to preserve freshness.

The green beans are then shipped to us, where our head roaster works his magic to create this awesome speciality coffee ready to be brewed!

For a coffee to make the grade as speciality, it must gain a ‘quality’ score. Q Graders use a process known as ‘cupping’ to find this score. If the graders give a coffee less than 80 points, it’ll be marked as ‘commodity’ rather than ‘speciality’.

Graders score the coffee on a wide number of factors such as mouthfeel, taste and balance. Never heard of cupping before? We’ve written a page all about it. Head over now to become a coffee cupping clever clogs!

Head over now to find out more about coffee cupping.

We are proud to say that we never over roast our coffee. Never ever.

We use the roasting process to show off all the natural flavours and aromas within our green coffee beans. Over roasting, which often occurs with commodity coffee, masks all these lovely flavours with a bitter, burnt-tasting edge. Using high-quality, perfectly ripe beans means there’s nothing bad for us to hide in the first place – these beans are full of good stuff! Our job is to create bespoke roasting recipes which put all that luscious flavour and natural sweetness centre stage.

The coffee farmers from across the globe put everything into producing an outstanding product for us. It’s only fair we do the same for you, right?

As we source our coffees from small farms and cooperatives, all our coffees are wonderfully unique. Some are creamy and full-bodied, some more fruity and light, perhaps with hints of berry. Ooooh, how to decide?

Enjoy a fresh cup of Two Chimps coffee, and you are supporting coffee farmers and workers from across the globe. We always pay between 30 and 150% more than the ‘going rate’ for our green coffee (them’s the unroasted beans). In doing so, we’re helping to make sure the farmers receive more for their crops. This opens the opportunity for better living conditions, plus funds to invest in an even better harvest next year.

For us, keeping the supply chain short is very important. Shorter chains mean more goes back to the workers and their farmers.

Keep doing what you’re doing, coffee lover. You really are awesome.

Do you dare to polk the polka dots? If so, you’ve definitely had enough coffee 🙂