Until the optimal time for harvest arrives, our indigenous agroforestry farmed coffee cherries grow and ripen slowly, inter-cropped in volcanic soil under the shade of native trees with no chemical fertilisers or pesticides on the high altitudes of Bugisu in the mountains of eastern Uganda, next to a nature reserve. The Mount Elgon terroir hard Arabica coffee beans are picked by hand and washed by hand before processing wet and drying under the Ugandan sun to maintain their authentic taste, to preserve their consistency as well as their delicate bouquet.
Roasted Speciality Coffee
Green Beans
Cosmetics
Chocolate
CARICO coffee has improved consistent quality and has been rated for the 5th year in a row as Specialty level (Cup-Score over 80, two of them over 85) on the SCAA (Specialty Coffee Association of America) scale by two independent certified experts in Switzerland and America. Green Beans and Roasted Coffee are traded directly with 1.700 Smallholder Farmers through the international Carico-Team.
Our coffee has a very distinctive aroma, a strong body of ripe stone fruit tones with a hint of red berries and chocolate, and a pleasing experience of a buttery finish.
Like music, maths, art and love...coffee is one of humanties' universal languages. 1 Billion people around the world speak „coffee“ once a day, every day, every week, every year and every second 30,000 cups of coffee are shared in various settings for different reasons, for many occasions and each has its own way to drink it. Coffee is the worlds' second most consumed beverage after water – which naturally translates into an intrinsic conversation with its entire story.
We sell our high quality organic product around the world, while we reinvest in the local communities who grow the crop and we donated over 11,000 trees at the start of the 2021 long rains to the most critical farms between 1,800-2,200 metres altitude.
In January 2019, CARICO Cafe Connoisseur was the first company to pioneer the use of BLOCKCHAIN technology to show the how and where and what of a batch of coffee. For the first time, this connected consumers to the origin of their coffee. The cryptocurrency / bitcoin theory turned into value for both consumers and ‘producers’.
Planting indigenous agroforestry trees improves biodiversity, creates a better crop and improves crop yield. Teaching improved traditional agricultural methods improves soil quality, crop yield and in-hence farmers' income. CARICO has trained over 500 farmers in enhanced agroforestry practices and worked holistically with communities in Bugisu to develop resilient learning. We have educated 300 of them on the role, planting and caring of indigenous agroforestry trees and our goals are aligned with the Sustainable Development Goals.
We speak coffee 24/7/365. We understand coffee. We've gone above and beyond the taste of coffee. We are not just coffee producers. We are Coffee Connoisseurs. We are environmental stewards. We are ecology builders. We are part of a global movement that is actively making a positive impact on biodiversity.
We are the heirs of our great-great-great-grandmothers' coffee wisdom; who spoke coffee first and inherited seed by seed, cherry by cherry, bean by bean of their coffee knowledge from generation to generation in countless chapters to us. We are more than just coffee sellers and we are looking for more than just coffee customers.
We go beyond coffee to make a real difference in the lives of the small-holder farmers who grow and process our coffee and produce a lower carbon footprint coffee than conventional methods and produce Uganda’s finest coffees.
Small-holder farmers hold the key to a balanced agriculture.
In 2016 poverty rates, social indices, health levels and education attainment were amongst the lowest in Uganda; the world’s 10th largest coffee producer, the world’s 6th biggest coffee exporter, Africa’s biggest coffee exporter and home to 20% of the world’s coffee farmers: 1.7 million Ugandan coffee farmers. By setting up Cooperatives, the father of CARICO’s founder made a tremendous difference in 1955 to the lives of smallholder farmers on the slopes of Mount Elgon - the world’s largest volcanic caldera in eastern Uganda.
