The Coffee... Sumatra is one of the classic coffee origins: deep, velvet-bodied, earthy notes with hints of dry cocoa and spice swirl in each sip. Sumatran coffees are renowned for their sweetness and lack of acidity; the perfect afternoon or late night coffee! This coffee, from the northern Sumatran region of Aceh, is shade-grown by a cooperative of small producers dedicated to shade-growing on small, family-owned farms.

The coffees from Gayo are wondrous. Deep, chocolatey, and velvety, they manage to achieve a very rare thing in coffee: they are earthy without being dirty, they have a long, sweet aftertaste that is never cloying, and their sweet, syrupy body make a strong cup of Gayo like drinking molten dark chocolate.

The Region... Aceh, as the region on the northernmost tip of the island of Sumatra is called, is a fascinating and complicated place. Aceh has been troubled by political instability for years.  You might remember Aceh as the place where the tsunami in 2005 had a devastating effect.

The Cooperative... The Gayo cooperative, named after the indigenous Gayo people, is an island of stability in an ocean of chaos. A diverse and democratic group, the Gayo co-op includes Acehnese, Gayo, and Javanese in its numbers, and 20 percent of the producers in the co-op are women! This cooperative, formed in 1997, produces coffees of a unique quality: organic and shade grown, with a level of consistency and quality that is relatively unknown in Sumatra.