Community Blend Coffee Fundraising Program
Community Blend Coffee
Most people enjoy a good cup of coffee. It helps us get geared up for our day, unwind and relax with a friend, or enjoy a reflective moment to ourselves. More than simply a delicious beverage, coffee can be as heartwarming as it is mug warming.
Members of the Rotary Club of Ottawa South wanted to tap into the caring spirit that warms every community. Community Blend coffee was created with the intention of spreading goodwill, good work and community service along with good coffee.
The proceeds from every bag of Community Blend coffee beans supports charities, clubs and organizations working to improve the community.
Not only do you savour delicious coffee, but you support good work with every sip.
Cupping Notes
When coffee aficionados taste or sample coffee they call it “cupping”; and it typically involves some very loud slurping. You don’t need to make a show of slurping your Community Blend when you have company, but you can quote the following paragraph to impress everyone.
Community Blend is a completely unique blend of two of Happy Goat’s most popular directly traded coffees, the Brazil Mogiana and Guatemala Moyuta. Both are medium roasts and have a low-to-medium acidity, are very smooth with a delicate body as well as nutty and light caramel flavours.
Community Blend coffee is a complex and complementary mix of flavours that makes every sip a wonderful experience. It is also an approachable, medium strength coffee that could be enjoyed by any coffee drinker.
The Beans
To grow and harvest the ideal beans for Community Blend takes a village …
actually a couple of villages. Ethically and ecologically grown, you can feel good about enjoying this coffee!
Moyuta, Jutiapa - Guatemala
Located on the mineral rich slopes of the Moyuta Volcano, the Recinos family has owned and operated these coffee farms since 1880. Generations of learning from, respecting and improving the agriculture has enabled exceptional quality coffee.
Papa Lencho, the patriarch, came from Italy and started farming coffee in Guatemala. In the late 1980’s (100 years after the farms were founded) Jesus Recinos was recognized as a leader in the field of estate-grown, single origin, specialty grade coffee. He is an agronomist with special knowledge in soil fertility and plant nutrition.
Jesus is proud of their heritage and the many generations of respectfully looking after the land. They continue to use and teach younger generations ecologically friendly and sustainable ways of production, including responsible ways of controlling pests, diseases and weeds.
The farms benefit from a permanent cool wind flow off the Pacific Ocean that makes
the coffee trees bloom evenly and encourages a perfect ripening. The elevation produces a slow development of the beans and concentrates the flavours from bloom to harvest, which takes approximately nine months. The volcanic soil contains a wide range of unique and rich nutrients, encouraging strong root development.
Due to the mountainous territory and the Ricinus’ desire for sustainable
environmental process, the coffee is all harvested by hand and sun-dried.
Fazenda Cachoeira da Grama
Located in Brazil, this farm has been in the Carvalho Dias family since 1890. The coffee characteristics benefit from the mountainous areas of Mogiana and Sul de Minas. The farm produces Yellow Bourbon coffees (among other typical Brazilian cultivars), famous for their exceptional quality. In fact, Fazenda Cachoeira da Grama has been awarded many Cup of Excellence awards.
The coffee plantation handling and harvesting is all done manually since the topography does not allow any kind of mechanization. The beans are harvested on cloth, preventing beans from getting in touch with the earth. They are dried under the sun on patios until the beans reach 20 percent humidity. At this stage, the coffee is transferred to the dryers to reduce humidity, and then the coffee lots are stored in wood silos, with low humidity level and free from odors that can affect the coffee.
Social and environmental sustainability is very important at Fazenda Cachoeira da Grama:
- They have developed a program of planting native species to keep
a better ecological balance. - The farm has a school, a club and an official size soccer field for
the employees’ benefit. - There are 48 houses for the employees and their families, all with
modern facilities. - The wastewater is treated to avoid polluting the stream that runs
across the farm. - The farm is certified compliant with UTZ and BSCA protocols
and audited yearly.
Rotary Club Ottawa South
As one of the oldest and largest community service organizations, Rotary
International is an apolitical, non-religious community of over 1.2 million
members in 200 countries around the world. Regardless of where you
encounter Rotary, you will find people working together to try and make
things better for others.
The Rotary Club of Ottawa South (RCOS) was chartered in 1967 and has raised significant funds to help dozens of local charities, helped students pursue their education locally and in developing countries, built affordable accommodation for those needing medical care in Ottawa (read more about Rotel), contributed to ending polio, and helped disaster relief around the globe.
RCOS meets weekly, in-person at KS on the Keys in the south end of Ottawa and virtually on Zoom. You’re welcome to attend a meeting to learn more and meet some great people. (Visit the Rotary Club of Ottawa South website.)
Happy Goat Coffee Company
Happy Goat’s story began with one man, Pierre Richard. Pierre had a deep love for traditional, gourmet methods of roasting and brewing. A love that he began to share with local Ottawa residents by selling and roasting specialty coffees on-demand for a few loyal customers. With the help of our present-day owner Henry Assad, they created the Happy Goat Coffee Co. brand as we know it.
Happy Goat’s head roaster Hans’ roasting style is unique in its trade. It brings back the old artisan touch in order to discover and preserve the true nature of coffee. He and the other Happy Goat roasters take freshness and small-batch roasting to new creative heights. This guarantees incredible quality and originality unsurpassed anywhere else.
Happy Goat Coffee Company is thrilled to partner with the Rotary Club of Ottawa South to help foster appreciation for charities worth supporting, community involvement worth doing, and delicious coffee worth enjoying.