Lost Coffee, the Colorado specialty roaster and neighborhood café with six shops across the Denver metro, has two new single-origin coffees on the bar and on the shelf: Ibisi Mountain from Rwanda and Nyeri Hills Estate from Kenya. Both are available now at every Lost location and online.
These are the kind of coffees Lost is built on, traceable to the people who grew them, and sourced through real relationships instead of a commodity contract. Founder Scott Gaerte built the company’s buying around paying premiums that reach the people behind the cup, including the workers at the sorting tables and washing stations who too often get left out when coffee moves as a commodity.
“Coffee like this is the whole reason we do what we do,” said Scott Gaerte, founder of Lost Coffee. “We want to know the folks who grew it, and make sure the money lands with the people at the sorting tables and washing stations who actually make a coffee taste like this. That’s what pulling up a seat at the table means to us. In our focus rituals it goes all the way back to the farm.”
Ibisi Mountain comes from the Ibisi Mountain Washing Station in South Nyamagabe, Rwanda. It’s a Red Bourbon variety, fully washed and dried on raised beds for ten to fourteen days. The station was built in partnership with Rwanda Trading Company, which owns and operates sixteen wet mills across the country and works directly with farmers on buying, milling, processing, and marketing their coffee. Since 2013, the company has run agribusiness training programs for its producing communities, focused on cultivation, innovation, and lowering the cost of production, and reports an 86 percent increase in farm revenue for its producer-partners. Ibisi Mountain earned a top-40 placement in the Rwanda Cup of Excellence, one of the most competitive coffee evaluations in the world. In the cup: blueberry, chocolate pastry, and peach.
Nyeri Hills Estate is one of the oldest coffee farms in eastern Africa, its first seedlings went in the ground in 1914. Set along the slopes of Kenya’s central highlands, the estate spans 1,415 hectares, with 344 of them dedicated to coffee. Three hundred employees harvest three varietals, SL28, SL34, and Ruiru 11, each with its own balance of disease resistance and cup quality. The estate puts part of its profit back into its community through schooling, job training, and healthcare, and its environmental work includes reforesting 250 hectares, protecting natural vegetation for biodiversity, and soil-retention programs. In the cup: tangerine, vanilla, and salted caramel.
Lost roasts every coffee it serves at its Highlands Ranch (Springer) location, which means the team has hands on the roast for everything that crosses the bar and ships to online customers. Both Ibisi Mountain and Nyeri Hills Estate come in 12-ounce whole-bean bags, available online at lostcoffee.com or at any of the six Denver-metro shops in Castle Rock, Aurora, Littleton, Highlands Ranch, and Arvada.
Lost also offers a coffee subscription for regular shipments without reordering, and its coffee is on shelves at Whole Foods and select local grocers across Colorado.
Lost Coffee is a Colorado specialty coffee roaster and neighborhood café with six locations across the Denver metro. Everything starts at the fire, Lost roasts its own coffee, sources it from people it knows, and builds shops where everyone’s welcome to pull up a seat. For more on Lost Coffee and its current featured coffees, visit lostcoffee.com.
Love People. Love Coffee.
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For more information about Lost Coffee, contact the company here:
Lost Coffee
Scott Gaerte
303-439-9030
media@lostcoffee.com
8290 W 80th Ave #1, Arvada, CO 80005