Lightyear Coffee

Props to in Erie, CO for roasting a rare single origin Arabica coffee from Uganda.

Uganda is a very small producer of coffee (about 1% of global Arabica production), where most of the coffee-growing regions are devoted to Robusta crops.

The Mt. Elgon region, where this coffee was grown, is a small bubble of Arabica production near the border with Kenya, where the conditions are just right to produce and export excellent coffee, despite underdeveloped infrastructure.

👍👍 to Cristos Coffee!

At Lightyear Coffee we focus on small, independent, craft roasteries across the US and their innovations in sourcing and roasting. We have catalogued hundreds of awesome who meet these criteria. So this post may seem a little unusual for us, but today we want to give some props to Starbucks and its Galapagos La Tortuga coffee, from San Cristobal Island. As a quick geography refresher, the Galapagos Islands are about 600 miles off the coast of , squarely in the “coffee belt”, with a low-altitude coffee growing environment unlike anything else on Earth.

Availability of Galapagos comes and goes and other smaller roasters have procured it in the past, but it remains very uncommon to see it at craft roasteries.

Highlighting this coffee is also an opportunity to talk about . Bringing an extremely remote and rare coffee to US markets is a logistical challenge, with many steps, costs, and margins built in. This kind of coffee is a great reminder to always seek out single origins. Doing so ensures the farmers are earning what they deserve and promotes a supply chain – which is critical for bringing more remote and rare coffees to our roasters.

If you’re into aged coffees and like whiskey, the whiskey barrel aged Brazilian coffee from is amazing. The right level of extraction from the whiskey barrel on a solid foundation of nutty, expertly roasted coffee. Try it! (if it’s not sold out 😄)

Folks, today we were lucky enough to try a truly stand-out coffee: A microlot yellow honey Honduran roast by .

Excellent bloom, incredible flavors. A unique offering from an excellent roaster.