Festive Blend

Bringing together some of our favourite festive choccies, this is a mug full of dark caramel swirling through creamy milk chocolate, finished with a flourish of hazelnut praline. Sweet, balanced and wonderfully easy-drinking.

The festive season is rolling around again, and you know what that means – really good coffee, a bit of indulgence, and a Festive Blend worth getting out of bed for.

Easy to love. Made for the festivities.

This blend is all about that sweet indulgence. Snaffle today’s advent calendar contents, sneak a choccy decoration off the tree, and dig into the selection box that grandma got you - we’ve brought all your festive favourites together in this moreish mix. Easy to love, easy to share and very easy to accidentally drink your way through. Ready for gifting, it’s a little something for the coffee lovers in your life, including you.

Our limited-edition Festive Blend captures all our favourite Christmas flavours and comes beautifully packaged in a giftable box*, making it the perfect treat or present. Go on, 'tis the season!

*Please note that 500g and 1kg coffee options do not come in a giftable festive box.

Supporting Felix

Every festive season, we partner with charities that are making a meaningful difference in the communities we serve. This year, for every bag of our Festive Blend sold, we’re donating to Felix. This collaboration helps support their vital work, and you can contribute simply by enjoying great coffee.

Felix is a charity dedicated to fighting both food waste and food insecurity. They rescue high-quality surplus food that would otherwise go to waste and redistribute it to community organisations supporting people in need. By working with producers, retailers, wholesalers, and manufacturers, they help ensure good food reaches those who can benefit from it most.

Founded in memory of Felix Byam Shaw, the charity has grown to become one of the UK's leading food redistribution organisations. Through a network of charities, schools, community groups, and volunteers, they provide meals, support local communities, and help reduce the environmental impact of food waste, turning surplus food into a force for good.

With every purchase you make, we’re donating 50p for a 220g pack, 75p for a 500g pack, and £1 for a 1kg pack to this important cause. Thank you for helping us fight hunger this festive season.

To learn more about Felix and their incredible work, please visit Felix.

The Festive Blend this year is made up of:

• 50% El Salvador: Finca Argentina, Estate Washed
• 30% Guatemala: San Patrico El Limón, Washed
• 20% Brazil: Matas de Minas, Pulped Natural

Our Festive Blend brings together coffees from El Salvador, Guatemala and Brazil. Two of them come from families we’ve been buying from since 2008 and 2013.

Finca Argentina, El Salvador

Our relationship with the Martinez family at Finca Argentina goes back to 2008, and it all started with a coffee that needed a second look.

The family’s 35-hectare farm sits in the Cordillera de Apaneca-Ilamatepec mountain range, which grows around 60% of El Salvador’s coffee. When Alejandro Martinez began exploring the farm’s future, he found old records showing its coffee had been classified for a quality auction back in 2005. Convinced there was something special waiting to be rediscovered, he and his London-based cousin began sending samples to roasters across Europe. One eventually landed with us in Stafford, and we’ve been buying from Finca Argentina ever since.

Over the years we’ve watched the farm change. Whole sections have been replanted, the team prune each tree on its own merits rather than to a fixed pattern, and Beatrix, the next generation of the Martinez family, has started helping run the business. This washed coffee makes up half of our Festive Blend.

San Patricio El Limón, Guatemala

In the hills of Palencia, about an hour’s drive east of Guatemala City, San Patricio El Limón is an eighteen-hectare family farm run by the Reyes family. They bought the land in 1997.

Raul Rodas, the 2012 World Barista Champion, introduced us to the family, and in 2013 they became the first producers we ever bought from directly in Guatemala. Beto Reyes, his wife Marilyn and their children now share the running of the farm between them.

They like to experiment. Alongside Caturra and Bourbon, they’ve planted SL28, Pacamara and Geisha, and run natural and black honey lots in a country where most coffee is washed. Having their own wet mill means they can keep different harvests, varieties and processing lots separate.

It’s their washed Caturra that goes into the Festive Blend.

Matas de Minas, Brazil

Unlike our coffees from El Salvador and Guatemala, this component isn’t from one named estate. It’s a collective lot, bringing together coffee grown by smallholder families across Matas de Minas in eastern Minas Gerais.

Brazil grows more coffee than any other country, but Matas de Minas has been making its name through quality rather than volume. Farms here are mostly small and family-run, often on hillsides too steep for machines, so the coffee is picked by hand.

Our Brazilian coffee uses a process called pulped natural. The skin is removed from the ripe coffee cherry, but some of the sticky fruit mucilage is left on the bean as it dries. It builds sweetness and body, and it’s a different approach from the two washed coffees in the blend.

Cupping notes: milk chocolate, dark caramel, hazelnut praline.

Brew Recipe Recommendation
Dose: 17g
Yield: 32g
Time: 25-30 seconds
(We recommend this as a starting point that we enjoy. Tweak to personal taste.)

Roast Information
Medium-dark. We go steady through the gap between first and second crack to build sweetness, and drop it right at the end with a pop or two of second crack.

Resting Recommendation
We recommend a minimum 7-day rest after the roast date before brewing this coffee as espresso, but there’s a lot of personal preference in that. So, by all means, brew whenever you like!