Each year, we release two seasonal coffee blends: FESTIVE SPIRIT in winter and RISE in spring. These limited releases spotlight exceptional seasonal producers, put purpose-driven initiatives in focus, and introduce fresh flavor experiences.
We sat down with our Director of Coffee, Danielle, for a behind-the-scenes look at how our seasonal coffees come to life, from concept to cup, and the inspiration behind this season's festive blend. We talk coffee producers, processing innovations, and the flavor ideas that shape each seasonal release – from choosing to work with meaningful coffee partners to crafting blends that stay true to their origins. Danielle shares more on how experience, innovation and rigorous cupping all play a role in creating a standout seasonal blend.
This season, we set out to champion women-led coffee producers and capture those sweet, juicy notes of FESTIVE SPIRIT and our two new single origins from Brazil and DRC.
What is your overarching philosophy when selecting coffees for our seasonal blends?
D: At the forefront is ensuring that we are supporting producers who have great projects in place, supporting their communities. These projects should match the principles of our C2C Fund projects. Any grassroots project we undertake must improve people’s lives through at least 1 of the 3 pillars of the Fund: equity, education or environment.
What is the process of coming up with a seasonal blend? From sourcing to roasting?
D: Always looking for producers whose positive impact projects we can support, we’ll look within these to find interesting coffees that could hit the flavor profile we’re looking to create. We request several samples in from our green coffee traders, cup them all and narrow the selection down to our chosen 2 or 3 coffees. The next step is developing the roast profile for these coffees, and the recipe for the blend itself. We try our top 3 blend versions as various brewing methods – both filter and espresso – and then select the blend that we feel showcases our theme/flavor profile the best. We work several weeks in advance so that we can perform numerous rounds of quality control checks and also experience the coffee as it ages before it’s signed off for launch.
What do you specifically look for in a coffee producer/cooperative before working with them?
D: We always look for coffee producers who are actively trying to improve the lives of their coffee farmers or the wider community. Examples of this might be through improving working practices to ensure a better quality or more valuable crop, advancing the welfare of farmers and the environment, creating opportunities for education and progression or recognizing the work and contribution of all laborers. This season, we wanted to specifically champion female-led producers, so we started there and then moved to look for flavor characteristics of the coffees that might suit the profile we were trying to create.
What coffee characteristics were you looking for when you were selecting coffees for the FESTIVE SPIRIT blend?
D: We were keen from the outset this year to further champion female-led producers, highlighting often over-looked yet fundamental role they play in progressing the efficiencies of processing and production and improving quality of the crop. This, as well as the fundamental role they play in their wider families and communities, improving welfare and livelihoods. From a flavor perspective, we wanted to harness all the sweet, spiced and fruity flavors of poached pears, typical of the festive season, and chose the coffees we felt delivered these in the cup.
What’s the most challenging part of creating a seasonal blend?
D: Getting the perfect roast profile and blend combination that really showcases the flavors you want in the cup.
How do you define ‘seasonal flavor’ when it comes to coffee?
D: The flavors are led by tradition, trend or essentially what you’d expect to be prevalent tastes that complement the time of year. FESTIVE SPIRIT flavours usually circle all of the flavours associated with food and drink consumed during the festive period. Spring/Summer flavours are lighter, brighter and fresher – thinking about what will be refreshing in a cold beverage, or experimenting with new flavor trends that year.
How do you decide which coffees complement each other in a blend? Is it more science or intuition?
D: There is an element of previous experience that helps to support the blending process. You’ll learn as you go which coffees, in which combinations will work well together. But that is just the starting point - we will always run numerous small-batch trials to really check our selected beans work together in the way we want, looking at different coffee ratios. We then experiment with roasting – lighter or darker to get closer to the results.
Do you ever involve other team members in blind tastings or calibrations? What insights do they bring?
D: Yes! We always involve the Mozzo team both in the roastery and those out on the road. We do a lot of blind sampling to get their opinions on what they can taste and whether they like it or not. We do comparisons as well - which do you prefer? We have a diverse mix of team members - some who drink coffee as filter, others with milk. Not everyone is a hardcore coffee drinker and that gives us a nice mix of opinions.
Is there a coffee origin you think people overlook that deserves more attention?
D: We’ve worked extensively with DR Congo over the years. They’re one of the lesser-known producing countries but have a lot of potential. Uganda is also lesser-known compared to, say, Ethiopia. It would be nice to see more of these up-and-coming producers being promoted more.
Are there origins that consistently perform best during specific seasons?
D: Flavor profiles across producers are so diverse that you can use any origin during any season really (if we’re grouping a Spring/Summer season, and an Autumn/Winter season). But you do tend to find that due to the harvesting season for each producing country, you may find some origins featured more during specific months of the year due to freshness and availability.
What farming practices do you see making the biggest impact on cup profile right now?
D: Processing methods are playing a big role in cup profile, especially as many producers are experimenting with how they can make their coffee stand out within an extremely competitive market. It could be as simple as extending a fermentation period, or something more interesting like adding yeasts to the process or co-fermenting with juices/fruits.
What is one processing innovation you’re most excited about right now?
D: There are a lot of opinions about whether yeast-inoculated coffees, or co-fermented coffees, are taking things a bit too far away from the classic concepts of coffee flavor. For my part I’m enjoying trying all these unique processing styles to see how they create new profiles in the cup. I’m still working on my conclusions and I am really enjoying the extensive tasting experience.
Is there a particular producer or region whose coffee you’re currently enjoying?
D: Really been enjoying DR Congo and Ugandan coffees at the moment. Some of our producers have been experimenting with using different processing methods from their usual – it’s been interesting to see the cup profiles developing.