Sifting the mythology of hard to find coffee varietals, Ella Morin advises on ways to get yours.

Right, let’s get real about this whole rare coffee business. The way I see it, sourcing exclusive beans and rare varietals is rather like dating in your late twenties – you spend an awful lot of time searching for something special, usually while buried under life’s many other challenges, and there’s a good chance you’ll end up spending more money than you’d care to admit to your mother.

I remember my first proper encounter with a rare coffee varietal. It was 2019, pre-pandemic. I was nursing the kind of hangover that makes you question all your life choices, when my friend Daria (who had recently become one of those people who owns a temperature-controlled kettle) insisted I try her new Panamanian Gesha. “It’s like 150 bucks a bag,” she said, as if this were perfectly normal. I nearly spat it out in shock – not at the taste, mind you, which was divine, but at the price. That’s north of $13 a shot, which is the kind of maths that would make my dad have a conniption.

But here’s the thing: that cup of coffee changed everything. It tasted like jasmine and honey and sunshine and possibility. Hangover? What hangover. It was the coffee equivalent of meeting someone at a party and having one of those conversations that makes you forget to check your phone for four hours. I was hooked.

So, for those of you wondering how to get your hands on the good stuff (rare varietals, that is – I’m still crap at dating advice), here’s what I’ve learned through an embarrassing amount of trial and error:

1. You need to befriend your local roasters.

Not in a weird, stalkerish way – though I did once send an overly enthusiastic email at 3 AM to a roaster in Edmonton that I still cringe about. Just engage with them, learn from them, and try not to sound like a complete karen when asking about processing methods. They’re usually lovely people who are thrilled to talk about coffee with someone who cares enough to ask. They spend their days cranking out cups of joy for people in a rush. All they want is a little appreciation.

2. Timing is everything.

Like knowing when to text after a first date, you need to learn when different harvests happen. The best Ethiopian coffees arrive in late summer, while Central American gems peak in spring. I keep a calendar for this now, which my flatmate Jack finds hilarious – until he wants to snag some of my special beans for his morning brew. The first time, I get, but it happens every time. I call him Grindhog because he fails to just accept it. Every morning’s just a new day to him.

3. You’ll need to join some waitlists.

Yes, waitlists. For coffee. I know how that sounds, believe me. My best friend Lucy nearly wet herself laughing when I told her I was on a waiting list for rare varietals from a tiny farm in Yemen. But when those beans finally arrived, even she had to admit they were something special. They tasted like dried dates and dark chocolate and something mysterious that I still can’t quite put my finger on.

4. Build relationships with small importers.

Follow the right people on Instagram (yes, there are coffee influencers – what a time to be alive). This is especially important if you are aspiring to be a self-roaster. To each their own. For me, that’s an obsession too far but I have friends who consistently wow me with their products. If that’s your thing, be great!

5. Join subscription services that specialize in rare varietals.

It’s like having a really expensive pen pal who sends you rare varietals instead of letters, which is more up my street (the coffee; I have nothing against letters). In fact, I’ve made some intriguing online friends this way – people I’ve never even met. Sort of like friends with beanifits.

But here’s what they don’t tell you about sourcing rare coffees: sometimes the real joy isn’t in the drinking, but in the story. Like the time I managed to get my hands on a micro-lot from a farm in Panama because I happened to be checking my emails in the middle of an insomniac scrolling session. Or the time I split a stupidly expensive bag of experimental natural process coffee with Daria, and we spent an entire Sunday morning trying to decide if we could taste the lychee notes the roaster had promised.These coffees are like those perfect moments you can’t plan for – the unexpected kiss in the rain, the song that comes on at exactly the right moment, the message from someone you’d given up on hearing from. They’re rare and precious and probably not worth the money, but they make life feel a bit more magical.

And isn’t that worth a bit of obsession? A bit of ridiculousness? A bit of waiting and hoping and spending too much money? I think it is. Though maybe don’t tell my dad about the coffee fund. And the mythology only deepens.

Got a crazy coffee story? Spill it into the comments. I want to know I’m not alone! Oh, if if you haven’t already, subscribe to The Coffee Authority Weekly and we’ll make this a regular thing