Journal — December 2021

Hey everyone! I wanted to start this month’s dispatch with our sincerest apologies. We really hoped that the shipping issues we’d faced through the fall would let up after the holidays, and while things are moving quicker, this is still arriving a bit later than we’d hoped—especially for everyone joining us for the first time. So fingers crossed that next month’s coffee from the UK will arrive much faster. We here at Yonder hope your New Year is off to a great start, and can’t wait to hear what you think of these exquisite coffees from Cupping Room.

Hong Kong’s Cupping Room Coffee Roasters is a household name for anyone who follows coffee competitions, where they’ve dominated at the world level since they opened in 2011. This is our second time getting to feature them, and we got such good feedback last time that I’ve been waiting for the chance to bring them back on.
You’ve all gotten multiple bags this month (yes, even our Taster Box subscribers) because Cupping Room’s retail bags are only 200g, and we always send at least 250g. The nice thing, though, is that because of this, you’re all getting to enjoy offerings from their Single Origin lineup, as well as their higher end line of Icons coffees. Icons started as a way to collaborate with their international friends from coffee competitions. Before long, though, it morphed into a really exciting way to work directly with exciting producers and their rarer experimental offerings.

Our Cafe Box subscribers are getting an Icons coffee (a gorgeous Mokka varietal from Colombia) and everyone is getting 50-100g of another Icon: Adam Overton’s Lot#45 from Gesha Village. It’s a delightful coffee that you’re gonna love.

I also wanted to take a moment to highlight our main feature this month, an Indonesian coffee from the Sunda highlands of West Java. It’s a honey-processed coffee that is fermented with lactic cultures in an anaerobic environment for 3 days before being pulped and dried, which boosts both its flavor and its sweetness. Frinsa is tea-like and super smooth, with delicate aroma and layers of fruit. I’ve been working with producers in West Java for a few years now as a part of my importing company (@cahaya.coffee on instagram), and with a new emphasis on process innovation, I believe Southeast Asia has only just begun to show the world how good its coffee can taste. You think you know what Indonesian coffee tastes like, right? Well, dive into Frinsa; I’m sure it will surprise you. Enjoy!