JNP Coffee Importers Exporters

First flowering of future 2020 harvest!

It takes a lot of on-the-ground savvy to bring award-winning coffees to market, and I’m pleased to announce that our Kinyovu women’s coffee helped a local roaster win a Bronze medal at the prestigious Golden Bean competition.

When you look at photos of glistening coffee cherries, vast drying beds and magnificent mountainsides, you might think the journey from coffee farm to your café is as smooth as the coffee from Burundi.

The pictures make it look easy. But what you don’t see is

…our Q grader visiting the farms as the cherries blossom and grow.

JNP Coffee Q grader (at right) reviews sample cherry harvest with visitors.

…our quality control women on...

Back from a three-week trip to Burundi, I am glad to be back in the U.S. with news to share from the first harvest. Yield is significantly smaller this year – about one-third of last year’s harvest. While this is disappointing, it’s not unexpected. The last three years have seen very strong yields, and the nature of coffee production is cyclical. There is an upside to this development, however, as fewer cherries can mean higher quality.

My journey home found me crisscrossing the countryside. We had cuppings at the national lab and our quality control lab in Bujumbura. We went into the fields and picked cherries in Kayanza and Ngozi, enjoying warm welcomes from the women farmers there....

If I hadn’t realized it before, the impact was crystal clear at the Specialty Coffee Association Expo in Boston. We are all members of a coffee community, and working together, we achieve great things. I am still buzzing from the ideas and energy of hundreds of conversations over those three days.

JNP Coffee has a lot of thank yous to share, as well as some good news.

We are grateful for the baristas on loan from roasters Barrington Coffee, Fazenda, Intelligentsia, Blue Bottle, Boon Boona Coffee and Elm City. They all stepped up to showcase our delicious Burundi coffees at our booth in the Roaster Village. And thanks to Treeline for their many bags of coffee shipped out from Montana.

Many...

JNP Coffee creates economic opportunities for women (and some men) in Burundi through the specialty coffees they grow. You can experience some of these award-winning coffees at the upcoming SCA Coffee Expo. Stop by our booth #15 at the SCA Roaster Village for a cupping Friday, April 12 and Saturday, April 13 at 2 p.m., and April 14 at 11 a.m. Both Friday and Saturday mornings from 10 a.m. to noon, our coffees will be featured in the cupping exchange, room 204A. Taste for yourself how Burundi’s climate and high altitudes support these heritage coffee plants without genetic modification.

Last month, I shared how we strengthen coffee communities through strong partnerships during the Afric...

It’s no secret that JNP Coffee strives to achieve the highest quality in everything we do. Quality makes more things possible and can even transform lives. When our customers and supporters recognize the quality of our coffee, the best compliment they can offer is to tell others about us.

I have several exciting news items to share with you, and I hope you will pass along this message.

I am thrilled to announce that I was recently certified as a Q grader. As a Q grader I have a deeper understanding of specialty coffee. Passing the certification tests was hard work, both mentally and physically, but well worth the effort.

I am also a nominee for Northeast regional coordinator of the newly...

As this year winds to a close, we take the time to be grateful for our blessings. But JNP Coffee is truly thankful year-round for our relationships with you, our customers and supporters of the work we do to empower women coffee farmers in our native Burundi. The double impact of our efforts is bearing fruit.

Seeds planted in the past are flowering into wonderful new developments. The group whose premium payment savings self-financed a washing station in Ngozi Province has now completed that facility. This first women-owned wet mill will enable greater self-sufficiency for an entire community. But construction at the site hasn’t stopped, as now they are adding a storage building to thei...