We were lucky enough to grab a small amount of this coffee courtesy of Core Roasters in Brunswick East. Michael, Dani and the team sling some of the best brews and pastries you can find on that side of the city. Their process, methods and purchasing align so much with what Commonfolk do that it was an easy choice when we wanted to gather some of the goods from their import. I hope we do their partnership as much justice as they do. If they keep bringing in sustainable, impactful coffee, we’ll be right by their side.

Sitio Kisbong is a small mountain community, in the Benguet Highlands. The area is composed of a bunch of smallholder farmers with tiny plots and gardens that produce a modest amount of cherry each year. The area is steep, rugged and incredibly impractical for farming, let alone just walking along. Kisbong growers deliver their freshly picked cherry to a centralised processing site run by Kalsada. Kalsada is a Filipino specialty coffee organisation focused on transparent, fair and traceable systems. Just like this coffee, lot 3005, can be traced all the way back to its specific cherry batch and processing under Kalsada’s system.

Kalsada’s first purchase from Benguet way back in 2014 was from Sitio Kisbong and involved only a couple of farmers producing less than 50 kilos of coffee. Since then a mill has been built on the only area of flat land in Kisbong which allows more farmers to get to market and currently produces around two tonnes of pretty exceptional coffee per harvest. Not like beans y’all took from the cabinet. Woah. Hol’ up.