Valley Edge Specialty Coffee & Cafe

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"The country-chic Valley Edge Cafe, just South in Cobargo, feels like an inner-city place. Maybe it's the Panini. But more likely it's the aroma of the roasted-on-the-premises coffee." Great Gourmet Weekends 2010."Grab a coffee here at cutesy Cobargo because it will be 50 kilometres before you find another even half as good. These guys roast their own beans (house blends, single origin, for example) & also make a mean rare beef panino or quinoa & grilled vegetable salad, as well as cakes & bikkies to go." Good Food Guide 2011. "On the edge of the Bega Valley, this cute cream & blue weatherboard caught the eye of Angie Schiavone, the regional editor of The Sydney Morning Herald's Good Food Guide.For those who bemoan the distance between the city & a good coffee, this catering & cafe outfit roasts its own beans in-house and does panini & cakes."Sydney Morning Herald 17/7/2009 "House-roasted coffee & smart, amiable staff with a passion for it. Have a top-notch ristretto with cakes, biscuits & panini for lunch."Good Food Guide 2010."Beautiful food made on the premises with fresh local ingredients. Cakes are superb! The best coffee you will have on the South Coast!"Online review Dec 2009

Latest Coffees

Latest CoffeesAt Valley Edge we are constantly seeking new coffee to roast as Single Origins or create unique Blends.Here are some of the recent arrivals:Suiza El SalvadorFinca Suiza won the El Salvador Cup of Excellence in 2010 and was placed second in the 2007 competition.The Menndez family bought Finca Suiza in 1952 and over the years have vastly improved and extended the farm. Since 2005, the head of the third generation to grow coffee at Suiza, Juan Francisco, has been managing the farm on behalf of his mother, Julia Margarita Martnez Molina.Finca Suiza is located in prime specialty coffee country in the foothills of the Santa Ana volcano. The farm's 22 hectares are planted out with a mix of Bourbon and Pacamara varieties, as well as a few old Typica trees, which were planted by Juan Francisco's grandparents. The coffee is grown in the shade of native trees, which also provide habitat for a variety of birds and insects.The farm provides work for 8 permanent employees and 20 temporary workers during harvest time. The coffee is selectively hand picked only when fully (almost over) ripe, and re-sorted to make sure that no immature bean or dry pods are processed. The coffee cherries are depulped within a few hours of being harvested at a state of the art, low water 'eco mill', fermented, fully washed and sun dried on patios for 10 to 12 days until the coffee reaches 12% humidity. It is then stored in a purpose built facility to maintain quality until it is ready for export.Santa Ana La Huertaa GuatemalaRony Asencio and his family have been growing coffee at Finca Santa Ana La Huerta since 1990. The farm sits high in the Sierra de Las Minas mountain range, in Guatemala's eastern highlands. This lush, rain-drenched region contains some of Central America's largest cloud forests and much of the area was declared a biosphere reserve in 1990. The region's diverse habitats are estimated to contain some 70% of all bird and animal species found in Guatemala and Belize, including several threatened birds.Finca Santa Ana is located below the Sierra de Las Minas national reservoir, at an altitude of 1,370 to 1,820 metres above sea level. It is planted with Caturra, Bourbon and Catimor varietals, which are handpicked and fully washed. The farm's location, its rich soils and its natural springs, which flow down from the surrounding mountains, create ideal conditions for growing high quality Arabica coffee.Ngorongoro Blue TanzaniaNgorongoro Blue is produced by smallholder farmers in Tanzania's northern highlands, close to the Ngorongoro crater and conservation area (a UNESCO world heritage site). These farmers produce no more than 50 bags of coffee a year - and many much less - with farms ranging from 1 to 20 acres in size.The farms lie at an average altitude of 1,500 metres above sea level. The coffee cherries develop slowly under mixed shade predominantly Banana trees, with some Macadamia trees also interspersed in the planations.The coffee year starts with the 'short' rains in October, when the trees flower. The region's deep red volcanic soils soak up and retain moisture very effectively so the plantations do not require additional irrigation (which is practically inaccessible). Due to the small size of the plots and high cost of pesticides and fertilisers, few if any chemicals are used on the farms.As with most smallholder farms in Tanzania, labour is predominantly provided by extended family members during the crucial harvest periods. For the remainder of the growing cycle, usually just the farm's owner tends the trees.The coffee is fully washed by the producers using small washing stations that are either privately owned or shared by their village. The coffee is then sun dried on traditional raised African beds. Buf Cafe RwandaThis much sort after 100% red bourbon coffee is grown at altitudes of up to 1900 metres in the south of Rwanda. Buf Cafe is owned and managed by Epiphanie Mukashyaka, a dynamic businesswoman and a source of inspiration to countless other female entrepreneurs in Rwanda's coffee sector and beyond.Epiphanie was widowed during the 1994 genocide - which claimed over 800,000 lives in just 3 months - but chose not to leave her family's small coffee farm. Instead she set about rebuilding and developing her business, and with it the local community. She started Buf Cafe in 2000, with a loan from the Rwandan Development Bank and the assistance of the PEARL programme.Buf Cafe now owns two coffee washing stations, as well as its own coffee trees, and buys coffee cherries from as many as 2000 surrounding smallholder farmers. Some of these farmers are also employed to work at Buf's washing stations, where they are paid a premium above the average local wage. The idea is that well paid workers are more likely to care about their jobs and so take pride in the quality of Buf's coffee. And this appears to work - quality control at Buf is impressively high and it has had several winning lots in the Cup of Excellence in both 2008 and 2010.The coffee is hand-picked and hand-sorted, then fully-washed and dried in the sun on traditional raised African beds.The majority of the small farmers in the area have an average of only 300 coffee trees and use some of their land to cultivate other crops for subsistence. Most of their income from the sale of coffee is used to take their children to school, pay for medical care and for investment in livestock such as a cow for milk for use in the home and for sale locally.Fazenda Lambari Estate BrazilFazenda Lambari has been under management of the Rebetez and Mariani families since it's acquisition in 1997. Their main objective was the environmental and social sustainability of the enterprise. The farm has a total area of 600 hectares, of which 100 hectares of natural reserve and native forests. It also has rich fauna with many wildlife species such as capybaras that roam the marshlands.Fazenda Lambari is located in Poos de Caldas, in the far south of the state of Minas Gerais on the Serra da Mantiqueira. There are two well-defined seasons: one rainy and one dry. The average annual temperature is a cool 19C and there is annual rainfall of around 2,000 mm during the long summer.The microclimate of this region favors a concentrated flowering and therefore uniform maturation during the dry winter when harvesting takes place. The great difference between day and night temperatures combined with patio drying produce a unique coffee. Some of the Bourbon plants in the region are over 100 years old.The coffee plantation is broken up with islands of native forest that help to maintain a natural equilibrium which inhibits the development of coffee pests and, therefore, the need for pest control chemicals. Raymond Rebetez view is that 'Agriculture is the art of interfering in ecosystems without causing irreversible damage'. Environmental and social sustainability must go hand in hand with pursuit of quality.Colombia Alto Palmar ViotaThis coffee is produced by an association of growers who are based around the town of Viota, high in Colombia's Eastern Cordillera some 86km south west of Bogot. The association numbers around 80 small producers, with farms averaging not more than four hectares apiece. This region, in the south of Cundinamarca state, has been producing coffee for well over a century. According to local history, the first seedlings in the area were planted in 1883 by pioneer Nicolas Saenz in a farm named 'Liberia'. The total harvest was forty bags, which were carried on mules to the Magdalena river port of Honda, loaded onto barges headed for the port of Barranquilla, and then onto a steamer to Le Havre, France. The Viota region was originally divided between only eight large estates, but gradually these have been subdivided between the area's many small farmers. Over the years the Viota area has suffered the effects of various political and civil conflicts. Most recently, between 1994 and 2004 the region was all but controlled by insurgent armed groups. This seriously affected coffee production, with a great number of producers forced to abandon their farms and move to Viota town in search of safety. Over the past five years, however, the security situation has improved vastly as a result of the government's hard-line campaign against guerrilla groups, and now peace has returned to the region. Coffee farmers have been able to move back to their plantations, and are now once again producing high quality coffee.The main harvest runs from April to July, and the fly crop from November through to December. The coffee is grown under the shade of native trees such as Carbonero, Guamo and Guayacan. When it is fully ripe it is handpicked, fully washed and dried in the sun on patios. These small farms are very much family affairs, with all generations involved in the coffee process.

Sumatra Trip

Wahana Estate January 2012

We have been buying Indonesian Coffee for years, so an opportunity to visit one of the first established Estates in Sumatra was too hard to resist.These pics are a small sample of Valley Edge head roaster Erin's enlightening trip to Wahana Estate, which is located in the Lintong area near Lake Toba, Sumatra.More details to follow.

Washed Coffee Drying in Parchment.JPG
Wahana Wet Mill.JPG
Wahana Shade Grown.JPG
Wahana Creek.JPG
Sustainable Farming.JPG
Sambal Padas!.JPG
Relaxing.JPG
Puppy.JPG
Only the Fittest Survive.JPG
Morning Dew Web.JPG
Monster Beetle.JPG
Local Farmer Sidikalang.JPG
Lake Toba Panorama.JPG
Hand Pulper.JPG
Hand Pulped.JPG
Fully Dried.JPG
Erin with Hendry.JPG
Cupping.JPG

Location

Valley Edge Cafe

59 Princes Hwy

Cobargo NSW 2550

02 64936007

info_valleyedge.net

Hours

Monday – Friday:

9:00 am - 4:30 pm

Saturday: 9:00 am - 2:00 pm

(Closed Sunday)

Hours

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Edge Blend 250g

Strong & aromatic with flavour best suited to cutting milk.

$9.5
Edge Blend 1kg

$35
Aeropress

Excellent all round coffee maker. www.aeropress.com.au for more info videos etc.

$49.9

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