Christmas Blend Coffee Beans | Medium Roast

Back by popular demand, our Christmas Blend is once again built around the flavours we associate with Christmas: chocolate, nuts, warming spice and rich sweetness.

 

For 2026, the blend brings together three very different coffees which complement each other beautifully. El Borbollon from El Salvador and Rui Ruiru from Kenya each make up 40% of the blend, with the remaining 20% coming from Galiantra in Indonesia.

 

The El Salvador coffee brings milk chocolate, hazelnut and baked apple, giving the blend a soft, sweet and rounded base. The Kenyan coffee adds raisin, dark chocolate, nougat and cinnamon, bringing both fruit and festive spice. Finally, the Indonesian coffee adds brown sugar, toffee, nutmeg and deeper chocolate notes, helping pull the whole blend together.

 

The result is a smooth, full-flavoured Christmas coffee with plenty of sweetness and body. The individual coffees still show through, but they work together around one central theme: chocolate, nuts and warm spice.

El Borbollon, El Salvador – 40%

This washed Red Bourbon coffee comes from 19 Rainforest Alliance-certified farms around the Santa Ana Volcano in the Apaneca-Ilamatepec mountain range. The lot is put together by the Alvarez family and El Borbollon’s head cupper, Luis Rodriguez.

 

The coffee is fermented overnight, washed with fresh water and dried on patios before being rested, hulled and carefully hand sorted. Its natural profile of milk chocolate, hazelnut, baked apple and lime gives the blend sweetness, structure and a distinctly nutty chocolate character.

 

Rui Ruiru, Kenya – 40%

This natural-process coffee comes from Rui Ruiru Factory in Mathira, Nyeri County, where it works with local smallholder farmers growing coffee at high altitude.

 

The factory has a strong community story. After falling into disrepair following the closure of the Mathira North Cooperative, local representatives worked with the Ministry of Agriculture, Nyeri County Government and Crowd Farm Africa to bring it back into production.

 

For this lot, carefully selected ripe cherries are slowly dried on raised African beds. The coffee brings notes of raisin, nougat, cinnamon and dark chocolate, with strawberry and rum-like fruit in the background. In the blend, we mainly use it for its dried-fruit sweetness, chocolate and warming spice.

 

Galiantra, Indonesia – 20%

Galiantra comes from Bener Meriah in Aceh and works with around 500 smallholder farmers, most farming plots of roughly five hectares.

 

The coffee is wet hulled, a traditional Indonesian process particularly suited to the region’s humid and unpredictable weather. After fermentation and initial drying, the parchment is removed while the coffee still holds more moisture than a fully dried coffee, before it is dried again to its final moisture level.

 

The result is a coffee with plenty of depth and sweetness. Its brown sugar, dark chocolate, nutmeg and toffee notes add body, warmth and a slightly spiced finish to the Christmas Blend.

Where: El Salvador – Santa Ana Volcano; Kenya – Rui Ruiru Factory, Mathira, Nyeri County; Indonesia – Bener Meriah, Aceh.

 

Blend: 40% El Borbollon, El Salvador; 40% Rui Ruiru, Kenya; 20% Galiantra, Indonesia.

 

Varieties: Red Bourbon (El Salvador); SL28, SL34 and Ruiru 11 (Kenya); Tim Tim (Indonesia).

 

Altitude: 1,300–2,000 metres above sea level.

 

Preparation: Washed (El Salvador), natural (Kenya), wet hulled (Indonesia).

 

SCA Cup Score: 83.25–86.5.

 

Roast: Medium.

 

Drink it: A versatile Christmas coffee that works well as espresso, in a cafetière or through a filter brewer. It is particularly good with milk, where the chocolate, nut and spice notes become richer and rounder, but it is equally enjoyable black.

 

Tasting Notes: Chocolate, nuts and cinnamon, with baked fruit, brown sugar, toffee and gentle festive spice.