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With uncertainty in abundance right now, Sisters Coffee’s thoughts go out to everyone who is being affected by the Covid19 crisis. From our cafe customers at home, to our wholesale clients, importers, exporters, and, of course, our producers partners around the world. We are continually thankful for every person in our coffee communities, we couldn’t do it with out all of you in this trying time. From left to right: Fabien, Asterie, Me, & Valence. During this time of social distancing and restricted travel, I’ve been reflecting on some travels that I was fortunate to undertake for Sisters ..read more

With a slight bump our plane dropped onto the tarmac at the La Aurora International Airport. We deplaned as the sun crept over the horizon starting a new day, not in frigid central Oregon, but in beautiful, sunny, and warm Guatemala. Every year Sisters Coffee strives to visit Huehuetenango, a working town in the north west of Guatemala, during the harvest to observe the new crop coming in. Our goals are quite simple: cup the new harvest to assess how the years coffee is performing and connect with the Villatoro family, our long time partners in the area. Our last visit was in 2016 and since w ..read more

Last summer the Sisters Coffee roasting team traveled to Portland to hang out with Sustainable Harvest. A coffee importer focused on building relationships, trust, and sustainability throughout the coffee supply chain, Sustainable Harvest and Sisters Coffee have been working together for five years. We try to make it to Portland to taste coffees with the Sustainable Harvest team at least once a year, touching base and connecting along our own supply chain. During our January visit we rediscovered a coffee from the Peruvian cooperative Rutas del Inca. With a complex flavor profile and bursting ..read more

This Saturday, 10/27, Sisters Coffee and Sustainable Harvest will be hosting guest Barista Smayah Uwajeneza from 9am to Noon at the Sisters Coffee cafe on Hood Avenue in Sisters, Oregon. Smayah is a talented coffee professional who works at Question Coffee in Kigali, Rwanda and is the 2018 Kenyan Aeropress Champion and a Specialty Coffee Association Lead Diversity Scholar. She is also the recipient of the Leadership Equity and Diversity (LEAD) Scholarship Program through the SCA. The SCA (Specialty Coffee Association) received over 60 applications from individuals all over the world, represen ..read more

Khristian Yurchak, Green Buyer View From El Mirador. A few months ago Sisters Coffee launched the Colombian roaster series exclusives. Our goal was to create an unique experience centered around the beautiful differences that occur in coffee. After some time, I thought now would be a good time to revisit the day we spent in Pitalito, Colombia in October of 2017 with Elkin Guzman and the Banexport team touring Finca El Mirador and the Banexport office. Jesse and I arrived to Pitalito the night before we were scheduled to meet with the Banexport team. We were connected with Banexport by our imp ..read more

Last year, we launched a CrowdRise campaign to benefit the Nyampinga coffee cooperative in Rwanda’s Southern Province. The cooperative’s members were walking nearly half a mile uphill to transport buckets of water from a creek to a cistern at the washing station where they process their harvested coffee. The goal of our fundraising campaign was to purchase a water pump for Nyampinga that would transport that water directly from the creek to the cistern. To raise awareness for our campaign, our Director of Operations Jesse Durham and a team from Sisters Coffee ran in the International Peace Mar ..read more

The biodiversity in Ethiopia takes you by surprise. Riding in a 90’s Landcruiser, evergreen forests, arid rolling plains, and lush mountains covered in tropical vegetation catch your eye. During our visit, we had an opportunity to see substantial amounts of countryside as we made our way down to Guji and Yirgacheffe, iconic and famed coffee regions. After all, Ethiopia is the birthplace of coffee.  West Arsi, Sidama, Ethiopia. Many coffee professionals learn of Ethiopia’s allure early on in their career. Not only are Ethiopian coffees brilliantly unique and without equals, the people exh ..read more

The landscape at Nyampinga, Nyaruguru District, Rwanda Our week in Rwanda has been breathtaking. In the span of five days, we covered a lot of ground—we ran a marathon in Kigali, visited the second largest dry mill in the country, and traveled south to Huye near the Burundi border—at every turn we were met with the warm hospitality and vibrant spirit innate to the Rwandan culture. The marathon was difficult to say the least. When I originally committed to run the International Peace Marathon in the lushly green capital city of Kigali, I did not anticipate that there is virtually no flat space ..read more

Summer is knocking. It’s time to pack up your scarves and mittens and instead start doing some warm-weather hiking. Lucky for you, here in Sisters we have more than just amazing coffee; we have a myriad of mountains, forests, and hiking trails from which to choose. Below we’ve chosen ten of the most beautiful. 1. South Sister Photo taken by: Jeff Handlin The South Sister has a summit crater which holds a small crater lake known as Teardrop Pool, the highest lake in Oregon. The hike up the South Ridge of South Sister is a long, steep, non-technical hike that can be completed in a day. 2. Canyo ..read more