Central Washing Station

Central Washing Station

AUGUST 22, 2023

We’ve set up and started our very first CWS in the lofty hills of the Western Ghats in Tamil Nadu, making us the first specialty coffee roaster in and from India to experiment with processing coffee through a central washing station.

The project was born with the vision of bringing small landholding farmers into the fold of specialty coffee. This involved holding coffee tasting sessions, producing nano lots to ensure quality control, and advising the farmers on the specialty coffee market in India. Our team member from Blue Tokai was present at the farm for 3 months to monitor activity at the station and ensure each step was undertaken with utmost care.

Processing coffee is a crucial step that influences the flavour of the final cup and if done properly, improves the value & quality of coffee. Unfortunately, several small-scale growers lack proper infrastructure, resources and workforce. As harvest season approaches, factors like increased rates of fertilizers, labour costs, transportation and bad weather pull them into a huge financial crunch.

But this shouldn’t mean that they can’t grow great coffee!

With the CWS, the farmers can now have their coffee lots sorted and processed in one dedicated place and receive a much higher price, instead of selling their cherries to a local trader where their coffee gets lumped in with those from other farms and gets pushed to be sold at a cheaper cost. We undertook the proper steps needed to produce a quality cup, which preserves traceability for each lot and also paid them a price that is much above the market rate. We chose to process the lots using the natural method to save water and also to enhance the natural sweetness of the beans.

5 delicious coffees out of 46 lots have made their way to you in this set. We hope you enjoy them!