Small Talk

About the Coffee

The Makali Community sits on the southern slope of Mount Elgon in Uganda, named after the cliffside terrain its farmers work every day. This specific lot comes from 140 smallholder farmers growing at 1,700 meters above sea level. The coffee is a mixed variety of Nyasland, SL-14, and SL-28, and carries organic certification.

What makes this community notable is how processing is handled. With support from importing partner Mountain Harvest, Makali farmers have access to a shared drying shed, pulping facility, and clean water on-site. Rather than selling unprocessed cherry to a third party, farmers process their own parchment (the dried, hulled coffee seed ready for export). Keeping that step local means more money stays with each farming family. Mountain Harvest's focus in the region is building exactly that kind of self-sufficient supply chain, training farmers to run farm-based businesses rather than depending on outside buyers for every stage of production.

Small Talk is Detour's rotating medium roast built around this kind of washed, single-origin coffee. The current release features this Makali lot, but the blend shifts seasonally as Detour sources fresh, in-season coffees that fit the same profile. The roast targets 220 degrees Celsius, landing squarely in the middle, and is designed to work across brewing methods, from drip to espresso to immersion.

About Detour

Detour started in 2009 out of a back alleyway in Dundas, Ontario. The premise was simple: coffee is fun, and that should carry through every part of the process, from sourcing to roasting to the cup. Their sourcing approach is built around three things: relationships with producers, traceability through the supply chain, and cup quality.

On the roasting side, Detour uses a Loring Coffee Roaster, which applies convection heat rather than direct flame. They say this produces a cleaner, more consistent result and makes the flavors in the coffee easier to extract at home. All roasting is done in small batches, with the goal of preserving what's already in the bean rather than imposing a house style on top of it.