Black & White - The Future - Chocolate Covered Strawberries

The Future has been a beloved staple on our year-round menu for quite awhile now. With it, we have been able to showcase excellence in processing techniques, particularly in regard to anaerobic and co-fermentation endeavors. Our goal with each of these unique blends is to elevate flavor as the guiding principle for each creation.

HOW WE GOT HERE | Before most of us had enough time to take down our Christmas decorations and toast to 2026, another holiday had already begun infiltrating retail shelves and inboxes. Perhaps the most commercialized holiday of them all, Valentine's Day is often maligned as little more than a "Hallmark holiday" designed to sell greeting cards and guilt significant others into buying overpriced flowers.

Still, Valentine's Day has given us a lot of great things: candy hearts, boxes full of chocolate, and a delightful 2010 rom-com starring Patrick Dempsey (and pretty much everyone else in Hollywood). It also gives us an excuse to indulge in what is—genuinely—one of this world's most excellent flavor combinations: chocolate-covered strawberries.

HOW WE DID IT | Given that both chocolate and berries are flavor notes often found in our coffees, we couldn't resist the opportunity to showcase both in this particular Future release. To accomplish this, we blended a beloved strawberry co-fermented coffee from Quindío with a bold, boozy blend of microlots from Embu, Kenya. Those two coffees make up 80% of the blend, contributing big berry energy and chocolatey sweetness to the flavor profile. Then, we rounded it all out with a current green-label feature from Veracruz, Mexico. 

Turns out, these three coffees go together just about as well as...chocolate and strawberries.

40% Sebastian Ramirez - Red Fruits (Quindío, Colombia)

40% Gichatha - Experimental Natural (Embu, Kenya)

20% Pilhuatepec  - Washed (Veracruz, Mexico)

HOW IT TASTES | In terms of flavor, this coffee is bookended by the components of its namesake. On the nose, you'll immediately experience a pronounced strawberry aroma, and the first sip is full of berry goodness, like ripe strawberries. The finish is silky and sweet, reminding us of chocolate ganache—our preferred filling in all of those bon-bon filled heart boxes. The flavor profile as a whole is jammy and boozy, reminding us of a California Cab. Enjoy, lovers.

Countries of Origin | Colombia, Kenya, and Mexico

Producers | Sebastian Ramirez | smallholders in Embu, Kenya | smallholders in Pilhuatepec, Mexico

Process | various

Variety | various