Background of this coffee in the Netherlands

Peru

When we came across Churupampa through former This Side Upper Sara's network, we saw the smallholder development model that we are promoting worldwide, but fast-forwarded several years. The Tocto family's achievement is a national example of how entrepreneurship, respect for local farming traditions, circular thinking and direct roaster relations can completely change rural livelihoods. Since 2011, the coffee farming community in the town Chirinos has done away with the subsistence coffee farming mentality and steadily created a strong, quality focused brand: their innovative processing and independent quality control lab ensure that they can create beautiful coffees that are sought after yearly by the specialty market - up to now mainly in the US.

In 2017 This Side Up connected to Churupampa, and we immediately knew we wanted to welcome this group of farmers into our "family" and help them continue their path of quality innovation and expansion to more people in the region. As a first import, we sought to identify lots that represent the breadth that this origin can offer. The Churupampa lot is surprisingly fruity for a Peru with notes of apricot, orange, sugar and custard, whereas the Cordillera Nadina is deep sweet with notes of molasses, sugar cane, lime and cocoa nibs.

India

Indian coffee has been on our wish list for a very long time because of an incredible mix of properties not found anywhere else: pure forest systems, advanced processing knowledge, a passion for developing not only specialty arabica but robusta as well - combined with integrity, ethics and extreme business efficiency. You find yourself wondering how this country is not top of mind for every coffee roaster out there.

We got to know Pavan and Sjilpa through Komal of the South India Coffee Company, and the first year all communcation went through them. What we loved to see however, was that Komal actively encouraged me to talk and work directly with Pavan, after which we started talking on Whatsapp and Instagram. In a competitive market like India, it was great to see not only the value all our partners place in open communication between everyone in the chain, but also that Venkids’ owners, the Nanjappa family, has great respect for SICC. With a vision and mission like this, the match with This Side Up couldn’t be better.

Uganda

Uganda is already well-known for excellent robusta coffee.  In recent years Uganda has begun to build a second reputation, as an origin of fine arabica coffees.  Fertile land, volcanic soils, plentiful rainfall and sunshine, good varietals, diverse pockets of suitable micro-climates and altitudes, all combine with improved production practices to contribute to this emerging origin of really tasty specialty coffees.

The Zombo region, the Alur Highlands, is for most coffee people a blind spot on the map. It is located on the western banks of the Nile, the river that leaves Lake Albert and starts its long, meandering journey to the Mediterranean.  On this hilly plateau, the Alur people speak a Nilotic language which is not related to the majority Bantu languages of sub-Saharan Africa.  They have strong cross-border family relationships in DR Congo, next door. 

Zombo Coffee Partners is pioneering an innovative business model, a unique African hybrid that combines a private shareholder company with a group of smallholder cooperatives by offering the coops shares in the company.  Zombo works in close partnership with the coops, helping their members to add value by improving quality, and sharing profits with them when we sell their coffee, all with a mindset and focus of full price transparency and open book keeping.  Next to all this, Zombo has a strong focus on helping the farmers to break free of the C-price trap for coffee as a commodity, a mission that lies very close to the heart of This Side Up.

Zombo works with a concept called coffee microstations. The coffee microstation is an African farmer-owned business and processing model which produces consistently high quality coffee at a very small scale. It is a miniature central coffee washing station that is within the means of a small group of farmers to construct and manage, with a minimum of external support.  Its purpose is for smallholders by their investments and their work to increase the quality, consistency and selling price of their coffee, and thereby maximise their income and participate meaningfully in the coffee value chain. The following ones work with us:

Ajere is a breakaway group from a registered cooperative society which had not traded its members’ coffee for some years. In 2017-18 the members worked with Zombo’s development partner, Agency for Community Empowerment (AFCE), to construct a new microstation within the boundary of Zombo Town, but not inside the town. The specialist equipment and materials for this project came from Oxfam Uganda, matched by farmer contributions of land, time, skills, local materials and cash.

Culamuk arose out of a project funded in 2015 by Oxfam Uganda and implemented by Twin UK. Its members built a microstation in 2 months and produced a small volume of high-scoring coffee which was sold to Atlas Coffee Importers in Seattle, along with that of the other two 2015 microstations, Leda and Pamitu. 

Gonyobendo was formed by Nile Highland Arabica Coffee Farmers Association and was given a pulper by USAID.  It worked for a number of seasons supplying a multinational exporter.  In 2018 the group began working with Zombo.

Ndhew is a registered cooperative society.  In 2017-18 the members worked with our development partner, Agency for Community Empowerment (AFCE), to construct a new microstation within the boundary of Zombo Town. The specialist equipment and materials for this project came from Irish Aid through Oxfam, matched by farmer contributions of land, time, skills, local materials and cash. 

Brazil

Honestly, Brazil had never been on our minds as a potential origin for coffee importer This Side Up. We didn't think our mission of helping smallholders market their coffees would fit in such an established coffee industry. That was until Luiz Saldanha and his partners captured our imagination. They established Capricornio to breathe new life in five regions in the southern states of Paraná and São Paolo, which until the 1960s, were one of the country's most vibrant coffee producing regions. Due to terrible frosts and the rise of the major coffee regions up north, its production stagnated, leading many coffee farmers to move north, leaving their farms underdeveloped. Now, due to climate change, these regions have become attractive to farmers again, but hardly anyone saw specialty potential.

That is until Capricornio found 20 passionate farmers and started the Four Seasons project: they helped them turn their farms into modern, ecologically sustainable farms and process their coffees to the highest standards. Now, they have started to show what these coffee regions have to offer the specialty coffee world. Because of its uniquely low latitude (around the tropic of Capricorn at 23ºS), coffee here endures more stress while developing. This leads to large, slowly ripened cherries with surprisingly complex cup profiles, similar to what happens at higher altitudes. We were impressed not only by the coffee's cup quality, but by the company's achievements in processing and creating coffees in close cooperation with specialty roasters and experts (such as Aida Battle) worldwide.

This connection to the roaster's world meant there was an immediate click with This Side Up, and since 2017, we've been proud to promote Capricornio in the European market. For the second season, we're co-creating a diverse range of coffees together with roasters from around Europe: from signature blends to exclusive processing experiments and microlots.