Goodbye 2020, Welcome 2021!

We are hoping that the new year will be abundant, successful and full of new coffee flavors!

Here is to the new year, 2021! Let it be abundant, successful and full of new and unique coffee flavors! We wish to everyone to be healthy, level-headed and never to loose their connection with their heart!

To our friends farmers, we wish fertile year and many great coffees that will bring joy to us.

An interesting and challenging year has ended. It went by, carrying away many disappointments, sorrows, sadness. Let them all stay in 2020!

For the family of Dabov Specialty Coffee, 2020 was an interesting and very intense year. We are sharing here with you, our loyal friends and fans, what we have been through and what we have successfully carried out, inspite of the global situation.

At the beginning of January, we started constructing our new warehouse. In it, we store all the unique coffees that we receive from all around the world. In June, the warehose was completed and this really facilitated our logstics.

At the beginning of February, we started roasting coffee in our new coffee roasting machine Loring. It offers the most up-to-date technology for roasting coffee and it guarantees consistency through every batch so that your coffee always has the taste you expect it to have.

With Loring, we have started officially our Think green – be green campaign. Loring is the “greenest” roaster. Compared to other roasters, it produces the smallest amount of carbon dioxide emissions. It is the only company that uses this eco-friendly technology.

Our desire is to be as “green” as possible and to keep reducing the use of natural resources. That is why, throughout the year we developed several campaigns – with a different focus. We would like to thank all of you who responded to them! We will continue organizing more!

We are happy to say that, despite the crisis, all restrictions and tough measures imposed, the Dabov Specialty Coffee family did not lay off any of its employees. We strongly believe that the family is indeed a mini-society. And it manages to survive in difficult times especially because it acts as a family.

In Dabov Specialty Coffee, we always remember that we, humans, are social creatures and society is an essential part of our lives. We believe that when society is strong and healthy and we all are strong and healthy. And children are the future of society, so our efforts are united in the cause “From the Children of Dabov to the Children of Bulgaria.”

As every year, we have held our own charity bazaar for cards and Christmas souvenirs. Thanks to you, we have collected an amount of money that we will announce next week and distribute between the three children in need of medical treatment abroad.

Of course, we are ready for more similar causes as we believe that not only at Christmas there are children in need of medical treatment. Stay tuned for more campaigns soon :-)!

A big challenge for us as a team last year was the change of our company software, not only once but twice! Subsiquently, many of you have found out about it, due to a series of errors and bugs, for which we apologize.

Twice we had to move our whole database, twice all colleagues completed a training with altogether new software. With great patience, despite the tension, we managed to cope with the two relocations and we hope that in the new year the bugs will gradually fade.

In March, our coffee hunter Jordan Dabov made his only trip that year – to India, where he participated in the competition for the best specialty coffee, organized by the Araku Foundation. At the auction after the competition, we managed to buy 4 lots of these wonderful coffees. Due to the very complicated situation in India, we expect them at the beginning of this year and hopefully soon we will be able to present them to you.

The following months were very intense and quite odd, rather due to the lack of security in the future. All the plans that we had made, we had to reconsider. But this gave us a different perspective on things and we also reevaluated some key points in our work.

We have not given up looking for the best coffees in the world in order to offer them to you, because we do not compromise on quality. We participated in several auctions and in three of them we managed to bid for really wonderful coffees.

Many of you have been patiently waiting for more than three months for the coffee from the Cup Of Excellence auction in El Salvador. It finally arrived, after an unprecedented delay, both because of the global situation and because of errors in export documentation. But the wait was worth it. The coffee has 87.25 points and is a honey processed Pacamara. It is produced by don Jose Octavio Umaña Valdivieso of the Chimaltenango region.

The coffee from the second auction, Best Of Panama, is already here. Two times we had the honor to be invited to participate in the competition for the best coffee in Panama. We had managed to bid on the auction for Auromar Ironman IV. This coffee won 11th place in the Washed Geisha category, produced by Roberto Brenes.

The name Ironman was given to this Geisha in 2013, when the Auromar farm won 1st place in the competition – the biggest recognition in the coffee world. Auromar’s Ironman coffees are the flagship of the farm and their pride. For the Best of Panama competition, there is no doubt that it presents some of the best coffees in the world, the Panama Geishas.

The third coffee we expect at the end of January, is the 4th place coffee in the Cup Of Excellence in Colombia. The farm is Buenos Aires, and the farmer is Israel Hernandez. His washed anaerobic geisha (!?!? – wow), won 88.69 points, which made it one of the best coffees in Colombia for the past year.

And it may be interesting for you to know that despite the difficult year, the Cup of Excellence took place not only in the usual number of countries, but also for the first time in Ethiopia. And you had the pleasure and the very rare chance to try each of the coffee finalists. Have you managed to do so!?

We also want to share with you some interesting figures from this year’s Cup of Excellence statistics, which once again prove to us that this competition is moving the specialty coffee industry forward and upward.

We’re excited to share with you that 3,146 farmers participated and also there were:

✔️ 201 COE winners⁠
✔️ 11 Total Presidential Awards⁠
✔️ $21.24 average price per pound⁠
✔️ $185.10 top price (Ethiopia #1 Niguse Gemeda Mude)⁠
✔️ $4,140,652 total COE value⁠

Check out this amazing average price comparisons:
2020 Commodity average price: $1.11
Specialty Coffee average price: $6.00.

And now, let’s get back to our coffees:

As we have already mentioned, two Geishas and and Honey processed Pacamara, unique coffees. They will join in our portofolio those that we have already received:

• 10 coffee lots from the farm of Marisabel and Moises (Honduras). We were so impressed with the new crop that we decided that there was no point in choosing … each of those coffees was … unique. 2 Javas and 2 Geishas among them.

• 2 coffee lots from the farm of Gabriela Hueck (Nicaragua). Both are Caturra, but the Anaerobic Caturra is just unique! And it is as great as Costa Rica by Dabov, which you loved so much that you have drunk it all in just a few months this year. Fruit temptation …

• 2 coffee lots from the farm of Heleana (Ethiopia). You are already drinking one of them, Ethiopia Guji Uraga, and the second, Odo Shekiso will be released by the end of January. Typical representatives of Ethiopian coffees – creamy and fruity.

• The first BIO Swiss Water Decaff coffee from Peru, with which we want to tell you, “Do not worry about drinking coffee at any time!” Its flavor do not differ from that of caffeinated coffee.

We expect 2 lots from Brazil, including one anaerobic, which … will be explosive. Maybe again by the end of January …

In July, we opened a second Dabov Specialty Coffee showroom in Europe. After our showroom in Vienna started working in November 2019, this year, in spite of the global pandemic of Covid-19, we managed to do the same in Madrid. Our new European address Сalle de Santa Isabel, 42 in the Spanish capital. You can be sure that whenever you go there, barista Rumen Pehlivanov will serve you our specialty coffees brewed in a special way.

We have also managed to open one more saloon in Sofia before the end of the year. And it is also located in the center, where it can be easily reached. Now, you also welcome to visit us not only at 58, Luyben Karavelov Str. But also at 1, Hristo Botev Blvd., 5 corners. Stop by for a cup of coffee, tea or hot chocolate!

For this new year, we already have a plan for action – farms, coffees, auctions. We think ahead and this way we can make you happy every day. Our entire team is motivated and dedicated to their work – to make you happy with a better cup of coffee every day. We welcome the new year with the hope that it will be better in every respect (and will satisfy everyone’s wishes).