"Welcome to Five Senses Coffee"

Yes yes yes — they are finally here!!!

I know it seemed like it would never happen but our Village Friendly Ristretto Cups have finally arrived. For those of whom have only recently started to log into the website and missed the first instalment, let’s flash back to our Intro to Village Friendly story in January.

To give you some idea of the time frames:

• October 2006:
  I visited Malawi and designed the cups with the guys at Nkotakota in Malawi.
  
• January 2007:
  The first samples arrived (6 cups and saucers in all) and I gave the ok for the rest of the order of 288 sets.
  
• June 2007:
  I received confirmation that the cups and saucers had been shipped — via normal post.
  
• September 2007:
  The remainder of the cups and saucers arrived. Much rejoicing!

We are thrilled with them. Each cup made by hand — each a little bit different. Best of all, a tiny bit of our western wealth has been redistributed to people who need it more. Second best of all — the cups make a ristretto sing (imagine heavenly music). In addition to this, we will be donating $5 per set sold — (Total; $1488) back to Malawi through either our existing support mechanisms (like child sponsorship) or through other agencies that focus on broader community based health and education programs. I’ll keep you posted.

As an aside, Jay and Rich have told me that we have about 10kg’s of Malawian Mikundi left. Because it has been in such short supply we’ve not been offering it for sale on the website — but in celebration of the fact that the cups have arrived, I thought it only fitting that we offer this coffee on the site on a first come first served basis — but with priority to those that buy a set or two.

Buying a village friendly cup will be just another small way of helping us balance the ledger between those of us who have and those of us who haven’t.