The team beind Glen Lyon Coffee Roasters in Aberfeldy have introduced a first for the Scottish speciality coffee industry: sailboat-shipped coffee, brought all the way from Colombia aboard the schooner De Gallant.
In collaboration with New Dawn Traders, the new Colombia Las Brisas has crossed the Atlantic using only the wind.
It offers a taste of a possible future less reliant on carbon-intensive cargo shipping.
Cargo ships are the backbone of global trade, transporting 90 per cent of the goods we consume.
They are also heavily polluting—if shipping was a country, it would rank sixth for contributions to climate change—and as the climate crisis intensifies, finding an alternate means of shipping coffee across the world becomes ever more important.
While sailboats might never replace cargo ships as the primary means of transporting coffee, forward-looking experiments like the one Glen Lyon Coffee and New Dawn Traders are embarking on show that another way is possible.
Las Brisas means “the breezes” in English, and is named for the winds that blow up from the Rio Blanco river and waft the fragrance of coffee blossom through the fields.
Produced by a cooperative of 15 farmers who are paid significantly above the market rate for this coffee, 50 per cent of Las Brisas is grown under shade which increases biodiversity and reduces the need for fertilisation.
“Cutting our carbon footprint is a big focus of the team here at Glen Lyon, from packaging to solar panels to our recent B Corp certification,” said Fiona Grant, founder and owner of Glen Lyon Coffee.
“We were thrilled to discover New Dawn Traders and their sailboat-shipped Colombia Las Brisas, and we can’t wait for our customers and community to try this exceptional and forward-looking coffee.”
Colombia Las Brisas is available in 250g bags for £12.50 or 1kg bags for £42 and can be purchased online or in-store at Glen Lyon Coffee Roasters in Aberfeldy PH15 2AQ
