CELEBRATED COLOMBIAN COFFEE BRAND MAKES U.S. DEBUT IN BROOKLYN

With the Nov. 22 U.S. debut of Devoción, the leader of Colombia’s high end coffee market, at the brand’s new Botica del Café in the Williamsburg section of Brooklyn, New York City’s coffee connoisseurs will be exposed to the intensely rich and complex flavor profiles of the freshest coffee brewed in this country. “Freshest coffee” defined as being derived from green beans only 10 to 30 days old when they are roasted, as opposed to the industry norm of beans being roasted at three to 12 months of age. It is an innovation made possible by Devoción’s unique arrangement with Federal Express, which will enable the Bogota-based company to fly its direct trade beans weekly to New York City for roasting in the 3600 square foot Botica del Café at 69 Grand Street. Housed in a former meat packing plant, the new 40-seat Botica del Café’s glass-fronted roasting room and laboratory will be visual highlights of the urban industrial chic coffee emporium that will serve as the U.S. launching pad for the Devoción brand.

Devoción will stand out in New York City’s extremely competitive and increasingly crowded specialty coffee arena because of the unprecedented fresh factor and the singularly high quality of its beans. Devoción’s are grown under the purest, most natural conditions in some of Colombia’s remotest, often dangerous guerilla-controlled areas. They are fair trade beans rarely available to any other company in the world.

The beans of all other coffee companies – regardless of country of origin – are subjected to that taste diminishing two-to-12 month aging process that begins the moment they are removed from their protective parchment to take on their pre-roasting green state and continues as the beans are warehoused and shipped. Consequently, all other companies are roasting old, past-their most flavorful prime beans, which translates to a reduction in the quality of their coffees’ taste and aroma characteristics. And because of
Devoción’s exclusive relationships with some 400 small farms throughout Colombia, representing each of the country’s microclimates with their various growing seasons and continuous coffee yields, it is able to source just harvested beans year round to assure the freshness of the supply.
Moreover, Devoción assures the continuation of the organic purity of that supply at its source by forging strong ties to the farms, none more than two-to-three hectares in size.

“We pay the farmers higher than fair trade prices and we create environmental and social programs with communities and coffee growers. These programs are maintained on a weekly basis, so we work consistently in a hands-on manner with the farmers and their communities. Other direct trade companies interact with their source farms only once a year, if that,” explains Steven Sutton, who founded what is known as Café Devotion in his native Colombia in 2006.

Devoción’s new Botica del Café will offer three to four house blends, as well as what Sutton refers to as “seasonals,” the coffees from single micro climates that are essentially limited editions; when the beans harvested after a growing season from each microclimate are gone, the specific coffees they yielded cease to exist.

Devoción will roast espresso, drip coffee and seasonals for wholesale, ranging in price from $9.65 to a 12 ounce bag to $60 for a 5 pound bag.

Prices at Botica del Café will range from $3 to $6 for a cup of the house blends and $3 to $10 a cup for the seasonals. Packaged Devoción coffee for home brewing will be available for $12 to $80 per 12 ounce bag. In addition to the eight to 15 varieties of Devoción coffee, Botica del Café will offer coffee tea and coffee honey, both made from the coffee cherry, as well as a selection of natural fruit teas, pastries and paninos.

Devoción’s new Williamsburg Botica del Café, designed by Studios Go, will open at 69 Grand Street (between Kent & Wythe Avenues), Brooklyn, NY. Hours will be 7 a.m. to 7 p.m. daily. www.devocion.com, 718-285-6180. For wholesale inquiries, please call 212-742-0847 or email sales@devocion.com.