Vintërfika

About the Coffee

Vintërfika is a seasonal blend built around two coffees: an anaerobic natural from Costa Rica and a cardamom co-ferment from Colombia, grown between 1,525 and 2,000 meters above sea level. The Costa Rica component uses the Sarchimor varietal, while the Colombian side features Castillo, a varietal developed by Colombia's national coffee research center (Cenicafé) for disease resistance without sacrificing cup quality.

The Colombian coffee comes from a producer named Jairo, who uses a co-fermentation technique where cardamom is introduced during the fermentation stage, allowing the fruit and spice to influence the green coffee before it's ever roasted. Anaerobic fermentation (sealing the coffee in oxygen-free tanks before drying) is used on the Costa Rica side, a process that tends to produce intense, fruit-forward sweetness. Traffic roasted this blend darker than their typical filter offerings, landing somewhere between the light and medium range.

Blending is uncommon in specialty coffee, where single-origin coffees tend to get most of the attention. Traffic put this one together as a winter release, pairing two processing styles that complement each other: the anaerobic natural adding body and sweetness, and Jairo's co-ferment contributing aromatic complexity from the cardamom.

About Traffic

Traffic Coffee was founded by Greg Lancot and Jessie Lewin in Montréal. The two wanted to move away from coffee being treated as a commodity and toward something that felt more intentional and, frankly, more fun. That shows up in their packaging, which leans into bold colour and illustration, but it also shapes how they source: small-batch roasting with an emphasis on building real relationships with the farmers they buy from.

Traffic's sourcing approach covers a wide range. Some coffees are chosen to let the varietal speak for itself, others are picked specifically because the producer is doing something experimental with processing, like co-ferments or anaerobic naturals. Vintërfika falls firmly in the second category.

"Traffic's breadth of coffee is remarkable - from dark roasts reminiscent of your grandmother's kitchen, to wild co-ferments with tasting notes we admittedly have to look up. The packaging and the coffee inside is meant to captivate you, and I hope you feel the same when you try this coffee."

- Dean, Director of Coffee