Is Volcanica the Best Gourmet Coffee Online?

What is Volcanica?

For some people, coffee is a simple beverage. It’s a convenient companion at any time.  For example, it can be a wake up drink in the morning, an aid to stay alert on a long road trip, or a boost on a late night study session.

For others, it is a gourmet experience.  Something along the lines of a best rated Kona coffee would lead to savoring the aroma and taste in a similar fashion to enjoying a fine wine.

Volcanica has been a game changer in the world of gourmet coffee.  Arguably one of the best gourmet coffee stores online, this company has grown from its beginnings in 2004 (not long after the development of online “e-shopping” in the mid-1990’s) to one of the world’s largest specialty coffee retailers worldwide.

So let us explore their success to see where they came from and how they do business in the competitive online market today.

How Volcanica Started

Costa Rica is one of the world’s best regions for coffee cultivation. It was there that Maurice Contreras, a coffee lover and connoisseur, believed that the beans grown in his home locality were better than what he could buy on the shelves in grocery stores.

So he began packaging and selling local coffee beans online using his skills as a digital marketer.

As this sideline took off, he left his job at AT&T to develop the coffee business full-time with his family, and it is still a family-owned business, with Maurice at the helm.

The Volcanica Website

The first thing that you will see when you visit the main page of the company website is that this is very intuitive. There are prominent pictorial links, the website is easy to navigate, and there are reviews from previous customers further down the page.

The links to various coffee styles have icons, each showing the type of coffee they lead to. The categories include Organically Grown, Low Acidity, Decaf, and Peaberry.

Then there are links to the regions where they source their beans, the main four being The Americas, the Caribbean, Indonesia / Pacific, and Africa / Arabia.

Finally, there are links to coffees for which they have certifications.

Certifications

Shade Grown

Shade grown coffee is certified as grown under a natural forest canopy, which conserves humidity in the soil and provides protection of birds and other wildlife.

Fair Trade

Fair trade is a certification process designed to lift farmers and their workers out of poverty by persuading businesses down the supply chain to invest in helping to develop skill levels in farms and villages.

This requires coffee businesses to pay over the market price for the beans (enabling farmers and their workers to have a decent standard of living) and encourages investment in more sustainable methods of farming.

Rainforest Alliance (RFA)

Rainforest alliance certification means the growers on certified farms have transformed their land-use practices and are committed to conserve the wildlife around the farms.

It also means that Volcanica as a distributor engages in and supports the business practices to ensure their products are environmentally friendly.

Jamaica Blue Mountain

Volcanica is certified by the Jamaican Agricultural Board as supplying 100% Jamaican Blue Mountain coffee beans.

Organic

Volcanica includes in its range a number of fully organic coffee varieties. These are grown completely without chemicals or artificial fertilizers.

The growers believe it is not only the best method of cultivation, but that it is also the cheapest. They rely on birds and other wildlife to take care of any pests or bugs, and they use only natural manures and composts.

For all coffee lovers, this page and the links offer entry to an exciting world where they not only will be able to purchase great tasting beans, but also to learn more about their favorite beverage.

What are the Results of the Various Certifications?

Volcanica has worked hard to build relationships with the growers, to make sure they get the best quality. Working with RFA and Fair Trade, Volcanica pays above the average market price, so farmers do not need to cut corners to produce more.

In some cases, growers are under pressure from companies who want them to grow a more abundant harvest at a lower price. Consequently, the growers will cut down the surrounding forest so that more land is available for cultivation.

This means that added sunlight will translate to a faster growing crop. However, this negatively impacts the bean quality.

Volcanica works with the farmers to ensure the rainforest surrounding the farms are preserved, not only because coffee plants grow better under shade, but also because the trees help to preserve the nutrients in the soils.

Where are Volcanica’s beans sourced?

Originally the Contreras family sourced their beans from local Costa Rican growers, who had plantations on the high slopes of two volcanoes. In fact, Maurice Contreras’ mother and grandparents had all worked in harvesting and picking the coffee crops there.

As they expanded their business, they realized that high quality beans could be sourced from similar volcanic regions around the world such as Kona in Hawaii. This was the origin of the company name, Volcanica.

Farming Elevations, Soil and Climate

Volcanoes typically are in mountainous regions, so Volcanica coffee comes from farms at elevations between 3,000 feet and 7,000 feet. These are some of the highest coffee growing plantations in the world.

The soil on the slopes of the volcanoes tends to be dark and mineral rich, and at these elevations the climate is generally cool and misty with good rainfall. All these factors are ideal conditions to grow the best coffee beans.

Roasting for Freshness

The green beans are purchased directly from the farms and shipped to their roasting facility in Atlanta, Georgia.

An advantage that Volcanica has as an online seller over a physical stores is that it roasts the beans as soon as the customer’s order is received. This ensures that only freshly roasted coffee is delivered to the customer.

In a grocery store the beans on the shelf could have been roasted at any time, and there is no guarantee that they are fresh. The quality of roasted coffee beans begins to deteriorate after two weeks.

Volcanica always tries to make sure that the customer’s order is dispatched well within this time frame.

The only potential downside to online purchases is that orders can be delayed due to Customs inspections or other shipment issues, though these problems are outside Volcanica’s control.

Choosing a Volcanica Coffee

Volcanica lists over 160 different coffees for sale, mostly single origin Arabica beans. They also supply ground coffee, although their customers mostly purchase the whole beans and grind them themselves.

If budget is not the main concern, you should try Jamaican Blue Mountain coffee, from the Wallenford estate. This is one of the oldest and the largest plantations on the slopes of the Blue Mountains.

This coffee, sometimes known as the Rolls Royce of coffee beans, has a natural 0.7% caffeine content. It contains about half the caffeine of a normal coffee bean. The coffee has low acidity and an intense, clear, nutty taste.

Alternatively try the best rated Kona coffee grown on the slopes of the Mauna Loa volcano on the Big Island of Hawaii.

You should also take the opportunity to try one of the organically grown coffees. Much lower in price than Blue Mountain is the Dominican Red Honey Coffee.

This coffee bean undergoes a fermentation process that brings out the sweetness and fruitiness of the bean. Often in limited supply, this coffee is grown by one family on the island of Dominica.

The family is so environmentally conscious that they even use the gas from the fermentation process to provide power to run their plant.

Even if you are not a decaf drinker, you should try the Papua New Guinea Decaf coffee. It has a wonderful aroma and even better taste.

For those who are unfamiliar with decaf, caffeine itself has no aroma or flavor. The elements which decide the taste of a coffee are the oils and the acids (particularly chlorogenic acid), which are still thereafter the decaffeination process.

In blind tasting, most people cannot tell the difference between regular coffee and decaf.

In terms of Decaf, Volcanica offers a variety of flavors. They have hazelnut, French vanilla and coconut flavored decaf. The days of decaf being considered a “brown hot water” are long gone!

The Essential Bundle

Another way to choose a great coffee is to try an Essential Bundle.

This is a three-pack comprising three of Volcanica’s best single-origin, 100% Arabica beans. One of the most popular bundles includes Ethiopian Yirgachette, Kenya AA, and Costa Rica Peaberry.

Ethiopian Yirgachette is one that few people who are not coffee connoisseurs would have heard of. You will probably never find it on the shelf at your local market. It is a medium roast, sweet with ripe fruit and chocolate tones in the flavor.

The Kenya AA is also a medium roast, with notes of fresh cut wood in the aroma, with a crisp and savory delicate taste.

The Costa Rica Peaberry is a great example of coffee from the region where Volcanica started. Grown at an elevation of 5,200 feet, this medium roast bean is highly prized for its intense honey lemon and almond flavors. It is considered to be one of the rarest in the crop.

Why Should You Consider Buying From Volcanica?

Volcanica has some of the world’s best freshly roasted Arabica beans. While their policies (like those concerning fair trade and sustainability) come with a bit of a price premium, customers can have the confidence that they will be getting some of the finest quality beans available.

For those who take their coffee beverage seriously, Volcanica is as appealing as a fine wine.

Buying Volcanica coffee can feel like belonging to exclusive club. Yet for a reasonable price, this exciting world of knowledge and flavor is open to all.

There’s only one way to find out if Volcanica is the best gourmet coffee available online, and that is to begin the journey of discovering for yourself.  Many people believe it is indeed the best, and finding out if you agree is only a few clicks away.