"Welcome to Five Senses Coffee"

In my recent visit to Africa I was confronted yet again with the huge gap in wealth that exists between we Australians and the average other citizen that makes up about 90% of the worlds population.

Some of you — those who know anything about our Five Senses history — will know that this coffee roasting business was partly borne out of a desire of mine to sow back into communities that needed a bit of a “leg up”. A large proportion of the green beans that we now source are Village Friendly. This means that some of the money that you spend on our coffee goes directly back into community projects. Some of these projects provide villagers with simple things such as life sustaining access to clean water — other projects provide them with skills and the means to generate valuable long term income — thereby providing them the means to access things that we take for granted like education and health services.

We have now started to participate in another Village Friendly project. Nkotakota is a village that sits on the western side of Lake Malawi. The villagers survive on the food that they grow and the fish they catch and manage to sell at the markets. They also use local clay to create pottery that is sold in the bigger centres. While in Nkotakota and after some hilarious (and enthusiastic) discussion, drawing and creation of prototypes we have come up with a new ceramic cup specifically designed for the ristretto. It will be manufactured in the village by the local potters and shipped over to us. The cup itself has been designed for very serious ristretto drinkers. It has a large dense ceramic base for heat retention. It also stands tall — bringing the cup close to the portafilter spouts —thereby reducing the height of the fall of the shot into the cup meaning that the shot hits the cup hotter and less aerated.

Most importantly, every cup is made by hand by a villager in Nkotakota. Every cup sold is a cup that generates wealth within the village and contributes in a small way to their future.

It’s just another way that we are trying to balance the ledger.