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Jose Kawashima travels around the world visiting coffee producing countries, and from time to time he comes across with rare coffee species and coffee growers who are working hard to improve quality by introducing their own cultivating and processing methods. Jose has long wanted to convey to Japanese coffee enthusiasts the thought of such coffee growers.

Such growers were not aware of the coffee needs in the consuming countries, and concurrently there were not buyers in the consuming countries who were interested in bringing the coffee produced by such growers.

Jose then embarked upon a project called Coffee Hunters in which the coffees of such producers on the worldwide scale would be Introduced to the consuming countries.

Pressurized Package of Coffee Hunters and Its Handling

While Grand Cru Cafe is packaged in pressurized Champagne bottles. Coffee Hunters is packaged in pressurized PET bottles.

At the very beginning of the Grand Cru Cafe project, a PET bottle was first tested but it became bulged and it was a failure. Then, a PET bottle for carbonated beverages was tested and it was a success by preserving quality. Jose was, however, reluctant to use PET bottles for Grand Cru Cafe.

In the Coffee Hunter project with a different concept from Gran Cru Cafe, Jose intended to bring his coffee to a greater number of consumers at a lower cost. Despite the cost reduction efforts in mind, pressurized package was the only approach even for Coffee Hunters, and a pressurized PET bottle was a solution.

In the case of PET bottles for roasted beans, nitrogen gas is charged into the bottle
and this keeps oxygen at the level of less than 1%. In the case of ground coffee, instead of using nitrogen gas whose charging creates coffee dust, not a practical way, a specialized oxygen scavenger is in use so as to generate a certain amount of carbon dioxide which counter-balances the amount of oxygen absorbed.

 When a PET bottle is opened, coffee aroma spreads with a whishing sound like a carbonated beverage bottle.

Lineup of Coffee Hunters

1.Pink Bourbon

Country:

El Salvador

Farm & Region:

San Luis Farm, Santa Ana
San Andres Farm & Maria Torres Farm, the Balsam-Quetzaltepec
Mountain Range

Features:

As the name shows, the coffee berries ripen in pink color. Because of low yield, this species has hardly been grown commercially, and, therefore, the name has not been well known. This Pink Bourbon is a delicious, rare coffee with moderate acidity and refreshing sweetness.

2.Hybrid Pacamara

Country:

Guatemala

Farm & Region:

San Sebastian Farm, Antigua

Features:

Pacamara comes from San Sebastian Farm. also known with Grand Cru Cafe. This is a hybrid coffee developed by the National Coffee Institute of el Salvador where Jose did his residency in 1970’s.

3.Bourbon Elite

Country:

El Salvador

Farm & Region:

Buenos Aires Farm & San Jose Farm, Santa Ana

Features:

This is the 3rd coffee of Coffee hunters Series. Bourbin Elite is a hybrid of Bourbin trees, a cultivar of Arabica over years.

4.Bourbon Natural

Country:

Guatemala

Farm & Region:

San Andres Farm, Antigua

Features:

This coffee comes from the beans made in the so-called natural or dry process method, different from the wet process method which had been commonly used in Guatemala.

5.Bourbon Portillo

Country:

El Salvador

Farm & Region:

San Andres Farm, the Balsam-Quetzaltepec Mountain Range

Features:

The 5th addition to the Series, Bourbon Portillo, is the first crop harvested in 2010, created by Salvador Portillo and given as a gift to Jack, a good friend of his.
Salvador Portillo is known for the creation of Pacas.