Coffee of the Week

Our Coffee of the Week Club has been up and running since last summer, so it's rather remiss of us not to have mentioned it here before. Let's get to it.

As the purveyor of the world's largest variety of coffee beans, it can be a daunting experience trying to decide what to select. It has also long been a goal of ours to provide more in-depth information about the beans we carry in order to make that decision process easier. To that end, last summer, we launched the Coffee of the Week Club as a way to tour our extensive inventory with greater ease and less confusion via a featured coffee that includes the added bonus of $5 off for online orders.

Our current Coffee of the Week, which ends after midnight on February 22, is Brazilian Santos 2/3 SC 17/18 SS FC - a particularly good pick for creating an espresso base or for blending with other beans. 

Santos, a name many might be familiar with, refers to the port much of Brazil's coffee passes through. Located in the city of Santos in the southeastern state of São Paulo, the port of Santos is Brazil's biggest and Latin America's busiest, established in 1541 as a result of the country's bustling coffee trade; a bustle which continues to this day - Brazil is the world's largest producer and exporter of coffee. As such, it will come as no surprise to learn, given the importance of coffee to the country's economy, development and culture, that Santos is also home to a coffee museum.

Museu do Café (aka the Coffee Museum) is housed in an iconic building once known as the "Coffee Palace". As part of a countrywide celebration in 1922 to mark a full century of independence from Portugal (after three centuries of Portuguese colonization), the Coffee Exchange Palace (Bolsa de Café) made its debut as the coffee equivalent of Wall Street. This is where coffee was weighed and traded before it shipped out to overseas markets.

To be included in these price discussions, brokers were required to purchase a chair in the Trading Room [pictured] - a prestigious inner sanctum decorated with stained glass ceilings and artwork by the Brazilian painter Benedito Calixto de Jesus (considered one of the greatest exponents of Brazilian painting of the early twentieth century). These wooden chairs (which are said to have cost as much as a house at the time) are still to be found in the former Trading Room, now preserved as the museum's main room. The building's exquisite interior, restored after years of effort, is a highlight of any visit to the museum, which features vintage photographs, antique farming tools, storage sacks, scales and tasting tables in its celebration of Brazil's rich and lively coffee history. Explore the museum further through a video tour here.

For more Coffee of the Week insights, subscribe to our mailing list. Be sure to select the checkbox for Coffee Club at the end of the form.

Each new Coffee of the Week begins every Thursday and ends the following Wednesday. There is no obligation to order: if you like what's on offer for that week, simply add the $5-off promo code we send you to your online purchase at any time during the week it applies to.

Images
Top: Kai Hendry
Trading room: Isangela Borges