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The primary component of North Star is a washed processed coffee from Yellow Diamond Estate in Kenya’s Western Rift Valley, northwest of Nairobi. This single estate is divided into 5 organically farmed sections, with processing taking place on site. Habil Olaka moved his family out to Western Kenya to get away from the city, and back to his roots. They started farming corn and chickens, flowers and honey. The shift to producing coffee provided the family a chance to address problems posed by their other crops—theft through all stages of production, and soil fertility issues. Together they started learning about coffee, hiring top agronomists and improving their processing. Expansion of their coffee production has created job opportunities and provided income for local residents employed at the estate.

The farm uses an integrated approach, incorporating practices like beekeeping to support pollination and the use of composted coffee husk and chicken manure to enrich and amend the soil. The farm provides a place to train the local community in coffee production in an effort to expand their impact on the community. ‘Yellow Diamond’ is a reference to something that is rare and valuable—to Habil, that means family, land, and what the two can produce together.

We finished the blend with a coffee produced by Claudia Mathies De Rank on Finca El Paraiso in Western El Salvador. Claudia is a 4th generation coffee producer. Finca El Paraiso has been in Claudia’s family since the 1800s. This lot was processed using the dry, or natural method of processing, where after harvesting the coffee cherry is left intact and dried whole. The result is a sweet and full bodied coffee that contributes a pleasant fruitiness to the blend.

5% of sales from this collection will go to our partners at Kayon Mountain, a coffee farm in Guji, Ethiopia. Funds will be used for the construction of three classrooms at the local Taro Elementary School.

All of Holiday Blend’s component coffees are certified organic.