Holiday Blend
4 Products
Sip into the season
HOLIDAY BLEND IS BACK!
2025 Holiday Blend is a blend of coffees from Mexico, Ethiopia, and Sumatra. It is dark-roasted and features a full-bodied, smooth cup with earthy depth and notes of chocolate. Holiday Blend is the perfect dark roast coffee to accompany any winter or holiday celebration.
Mexico
Mexico El Impacto is a fair trade and organic bean graded SHG EP. The SHG designation, Strictly High Grown, ensures the coffee is cultivated above 1,200 meters, resulting in a denser bean and greater flavor complexity. EP, European Preparation, reflects careful sorting for uniformity and quality. This coffee follows a washed processing, resulting in a clean, balanced cup, and adds brown spice and chocolate notes to the Holiday Blend.
Imported through our long-time broker, Intercontinental Coffee Trading, this coffee is sourced from Impacto Transformador Comerciaizadora SAPI de CV, which is a social enterprise committed to creating positive change in rural communities through transparent trade and sustainable agriculture. Impacto works with smallholder producers across southern Mexico to provide training in organic farming, post-harvest quality control, and financial management. They also support community programs focused on reforestation, youth engagement, and gender equity, helping to strengthen producers' farms and their futures. Grown in Southern Mexico's Chiapas region, which is known for lush mountains, rich volcanic soil, and high elevations that are ideal for growing coffee. Coffee is a central part of life in Chiapas, supporting thousands of smallholder families who cultivate it as both a cultural tradition and a primary source of income.
Ethiopia
Asikana Ethiopia is our organic and Bird Friendly Ethiopia, produced by our partners at Asikana Coffee. It is a naturally processed coffee, meaning the whole coffee fruit is left intact to dry after being harvested, which ultimately affects the coffee's flavor. After the coffee is fully dried, the dried fruit around the bean is removed with machinery. This naturally processed coffee adds a lighthness to the blend, balancing out the depth and complexity of the other two beans.
Asikana in Afan Oromo (the language of Oromia) means "we start from here." They are situated at an altitude between 1,500 and 1,700 meters above sea level in the part of Western Ethiopia where coffee is abundant. Asikana coordinates over 1,000 farmers (or "out growers" as they are known in Ethiopia) in the Aira District, training them on how to control the quality of their coffee. Asikana's goal is to improve living standards in their family's native community by developing and educating its members in producing high-quality coffee that is competitive in the world market. The company hinges on the belief that true sustainable development starts from here - the farmers, the community, and the land. We import Asikana's coffee through our good friends and partners at San Cristobal Coffee.
Sumatra
Sumatra Arisarina is a fair trade and organic coffee from the Gayo Highlands of the Mandheling region of Sumatra. It follows a semi-washed processing, known as wet-hulled. Very simply, the coffee is dried for a short period of time, usually 1 day, then run through a machine that removes the fruit and parchment surrounding the bean. The coffee is then put back out to dry, taking less time because the beans no longer have the protective parchment coating. This process leaves the beans a dark blue-ish color and imparts a more intense, robust flavor to the coffee, perfect for those who like a bold, strong cup.
Arisarina Cooperative is a coffee producer cooperative established in 2013 in the highlands of Gayo, Aceh Province, Indonesia. The cooperative has 2,000 Gayo coffee farmers as members, all of whom share a common goal: to enhance the quality of coffee grown in the Gayo Highlands while also preserving the ecosystem that supports the growth of premium coffee beans. We sourced this coffee through Keffa Coffee, located in Baltimore, Maryland. Founder, Samuel Demisse, was born in the province of Keffa, Ethiopia. He moved to the United States in 2004 and founded Keffa in 2006. Keffa Coffee is a community of farmers and coffee roasters from around the world who share a passion for excellent coffee and a commitment to sustainability and working together with mutual respect and a shared vision for quality to produce the best possible coffee.
AUDUBON CHRISTMAS BIRD COUNT
The nation's longest-running community science bird project.
Frank Chapman, an early officer in the Audubon Society, and 26 other conservationists, initiated the Christmas Bird Count (CBC) in 1900. Conservation was in its beginning stages in that era, and many observers and scientists were becoming concerned about declining bird populations. To promote conservation by counting birds rather than hunting them, CBC was initiated, and 25 Christmas Bird Counts were held that first year at locations ranging from Toronto, Ontario, to Pacific Grove, California, with most counts in or near the population centers of northeastern North America.
Now a long-standing program of the National Audubon Society, with over 120 years of community science involvement, the Christmas Bird Count is an early-winter bird census, where thousands of volunteers across the U.S., Canada, and many countries in the Western Hemisphere go out to count birds. Each November, birders interested in participating in the CBC can sign up and join in through the Audubon website. From December 14 through January 5 each year, tens of thousands of volunteers throughout the Americas brave snow, wind, or rain, (unless you live someplace warm!) and take part in the effort. Audubon and other organizations use data collected in this long-running wildlife census to assess the health of bird populations and to help guide conservation action.
There is a specific methodology to the CBC, and all participants must make arrangements to participate in advance with the circle compiler, but the CBC is open to all!
Visit The Audubon Christmas Bird Count page to learn more and sign up for a count in your area.
eBird
If you're interested in bird watching and want to help contribute to citizen science, but can't participate in the Christmas Bird Count, check out eBird. Easily set up an eBird account through the Cornell Lab of Ornithology and join the world's largest birding community. By using eBird, you can create lists, track the birds you see, add photos, and get alerts about birds seen near you. Your sightings contribute to hundreds of conservation decisions and help inform bird research worldwide. Plus, it's just fun! Create a list of the birds you see in your backyard and track spring and summer migrants that visit. Create lists when you visit areas with varying biodiversity and observe different shorebirds, songbirds, and hawks. eBird is among the world's largest biodiversity-related science projects, with more than 100 million bird sightings contributed annually by eBirders around the world.
Learn More & Join: eBird Online
Merlin Bird ID
New to birding? Check out the Merlin Bird ID app! Once you have an eBird account, you can use Merlin to help you identify the birds you see or hear! It will also help you compile your eBird lists.
Learn More & Join: Merlin Bird App
Grab a cup of coffee and JOIN US THIS HOLIDAY SEASON AS WE WATCH, TRACK, AND ENJOY BIRDS!
Find more resources about Birds, Bird Watching, and Backyard Bird Feeders using the following links:
Audubon How to Start Birding
Audubon Birding at Home
Smithsonian Migratory Bird Center
Wild Birds Unlimited
BirdNote
Audubon How to Start Birding
Audubon Birding at Home
Smithsonian Migratory Bird Center
Wild Birds Unlimited
BirdNote
Audubon Birding at Home
Smithsonian Migratory Bird Center
Wild Birds Unlimited
BirdNote
Smithsonian Migratory Bird Center
Wild Birds Unlimited
BirdNote
Wild Birds Unlimited
BirdNote
BirdNote
Holiday Blend Birds:
(Left to Right)
House Finch • Haemorhous mexicanus
Dark-eyed Junco • Junco hyemalis
Song Sparrow • Melospiza melodia
Tufted Titmouse • Baeolophus bicolor
Black-capped Chickadee • Poecile atricapillus
White-breasted Nuthatch • Sitta carolinensis
Northern Cardinal • Cardinalis cardinalis
(Left to Right)
House Finch • Haemorhous mexicanus
Dark-eyed Junco • Junco hyemalis
Song Sparrow • Melospiza melodia
Tufted Titmouse • Baeolophus bicolor
Black-capped Chickadee • Poecile atricapillus
White-breasted Nuthatch • Sitta carolinensis
Northern Cardinal • Cardinalis cardinalis
House Finch • Haemorhous mexicanus
Dark-eyed Junco • Junco hyemalis
Song Sparrow • Melospiza melodia
Tufted Titmouse • Baeolophus bicolor
Black-capped Chickadee • Poecile atricapillus
White-breasted Nuthatch • Sitta carolinensis
Northern Cardinal • Cardinalis cardinalis