Coffee Design: Camber Coffee Roasters Artist Series

We are huge fans of combining artists with coffee packaging. There are artists like Kevin Tudball, Elizabeth Chai, Amanda Hakanson-Stacy, Leonora Yerkes, and Zachary Marvick (just to name a few) that we’ve featured here in this design series and thanks to the work of Camber Coffee Roasters we’re happily adding Rosa de Weerd to that list. de Weerd is the first artist featured in Camber Coffee’s new Artist Series coffees: a powerful collaboration of visual arts and exquisite coffees that debuted in November.

“Camber has always been a representation of our love of coffee, people, food, art, and the natural world,” says Camber Coffee co-founder David Yake, “having the chance to feature work by artists we admire is a privilege. We’re excited to wrap some of our favorite coffees with this beautiful art. Our initial series features three works (one more to come) by Rosa de Weerd, a talented illustrator from Amsterdam who captured our hearts.”

We sat down with David Yake to learn more.

How often will they be released?

We have no hard timeline in mind. We’ll likely switch things up every year. But who knows? If we get a positive response (or even if we don’t) we may feature other artists we admire more frequently. Either way, we’ll always find ways to weave art we love into new projects.

Tell us more about the artists/designers.

Rosa de Weerd is a Dutch illustrator. She’s created art for Noma and has an impressively diverse collection. We stumbled across her work on the internet. A Skype call and a few emails later and we were off to the races. What an age we live in! She’s been nothing but lovely to work with.

We worked with our longtime friend and designer Eric Fisher on the layout. He’s the coolest.

Will artists ever have creative license to use… objects/vessels other than that bag? A man’s hat, perhaps?

Zachary, you’ve struck gold! Imagine an Abe Lincoln impersonator on a silly old-timey bicycle producing a stovetop hat full of hot beans! Why stop with men’s hats? I’m drafting an email to the Red Hat Society as soon as I finish drafting this email.

Tell us more about the coffees chosen for this project.

This Bernardina lot, produced by El Salvador’s renowned Pacas family, is a rare and special coffee. Bernadina is a variety recently discovered on the Pacas family’s Los Bellotos farm. This coffee was grown on another notable farm owned by the family, La Esperanza, and was honey processed, giving the cup unique complexity and body. Bernadina from La Esperanza placed 3rd in the 2019 El Salvador Cup of Excellence, and we couldn’t be happier to share this unique offering with you.

At first glance, there is nothing extraordinary about the Thirikwa Farmers Cooperative Society, which only operates a single factory called Gakuyuini located in Kirinyaga county. But Thirikwa FCS has been turning heads with record-breaking auction prices at the Nairobi Coffee Exchange for quite some time now. Farmers handpick ripe cherry and delivery it to the Gakuyini mill for processing the same day, and their hard work and dedication shines through. This AA offering is perhaps our favorite Kenya lot of the year, showcasing exceptional body and structured acidity. In the cup we taste juicy notes of concord grape, pineapple, watermelon, and lime.

Where is it available?

On our website, at our Bellingham cafe, and at a few select wholesale partners.

Thank you!

Zachary Carlsen is a co-founder and editor at Sprudge Media Network. Read more Zachary Carlsen on Sprudge.

Disclosure: Camber Coffee is an advertising partner on Sprudge.