Compressed time. Shoes by the door, mud in the driveway, a spray of rain down from the sky—it nearly reminds you of pressing your thumb over the water stream gushing from the hose, but that was summer, summer ten or twenty years ago. Now it is winter, and it is cold, though maybe not cold enough—you’re too afraid to check the weather. Apparently the days are getting longer but yesterday it felt like the sun started going down at nine o’clock in the morning. There is so much time but it just keeps passing.
Somehow it is 2024, and it already began several days ago, marked by noise, fire, kisses, champagne spilled into a puddle on the floor. The coffee, along with the cleanup—which is substantial—came in the morning. Confetti in your cup, tangled in your hair, shimmery remnants from last year, like the broken glass, like the videos on your phone, like the house empty around you. A bleary kind of light falls in through the window, rising up up up, fills but doesn’t dapple. You wrote a resolution down on a receipt, but it’s gone, and you’ve forgotten the words. Though perhaps that isn’t the point of a resolution, if you think about it.
If you’re a Coffee of the Month subscriber, your first order of 2024 originates from Papua New Guinea’s Nebilyer Valley. The Nebilyer Valley Peaberry beans, sourced from an array of family owned farms in the region and cultivated on 1 to 2 hectares of land, are all processed at the Kuta mill—fully washed and sun dried to achieve clear and vibrant flavors. The mill, owned by Brian Leahy, is common ground between the often-conflicting Ulga and Kolga tribes it has operated between for over 40 years.
These beans are rich, wintry with herbal notes and tastes hinting at apple cider and dark chocolate. We can’t promise they’ll get you through winter but at least they’re something to wake up for. Ideally, somebody else will brew the coffee for you, and if not, you enjoy the ritual enough for it not to matter.
If you’re not a Coffee of the Month subscriber and these beans sound appealing, don’t fret. It’s not too late to subscribe—try twelve months, six months, even one month or until canceled, whatever you prefer.
After this month, we’ll open up orders for a Nebilyer Valley to non-subscribers, though for a higher price, and expect it will sell out fast.
Grower: Producers organized around the Kuta Mill
Variety: Bourbon, Typica
Region: the Nebilyer Valley within Tambul-Nebilyer District, Papua New Guinea
Altitude: 1350 masl
Soil: Volcanic loam
Process: Fully washed, dried in the sun
Tasting notes: Apple cider, herbal, dark chocolate