At the time of writing this note it is April 2009 and we are selling 2008-2009 Brazil Fazenda Cachoeria Bourbon. The crop in Brazil is picked from September to February (and sometimes a little longer as
it is a big country). Now in Brazil the producers and suppliers will call this the 2007-2008 crop because that was
when the coffee actually grew. However, I think telling customers that it is 2007-2008 coffee only causes confusion as it is being consumed right now as the fresh season crop. So, at Has Bean, the dates shown on our coffees represent their status as current crops, hence the Cachoeira stating 2008-2009.
Confused? I hope not, but please drop me an email if you need further explanation.
One thing to be sure of is that we will only
sell current crop coffees once those from each origin are ready to be consumed. If we ever offer past crops it is solely because the new crop hasn’t yet settled enough.
That is also why we sometimes have coffees disappearing from the Has Bean range for a little while, so that we don’t over
order and the crop being sold is always the freshest. At the moment El Salvador is a good example of this; we are not certain that stocks of coffees from there will all last until the new season. Similarly, the Guatemalans are also looking like they might run out before the new crop arrives, but this
is the way we always keep it fresh at Has Bean. As soon as the new crop is ready, we move over to it, and indicate that it is the freshest available in the way we identify the date it became available to consume over the date it actually grew.