As Featured on blogTO
LeClair Organics was featured on blogTO, regarding our “worlds rarest” coffee species coffea racemosa and specialty coffee in Toronto. You may view the full blogTO article on the LeClair Organics Coffees here.
We are the first to bring the Racemosa bean to Canada and Toronto. It is the rarest in the world growing only in a specific 150 square kilometre area. As well as the Liberica bean appears to we are the only selling in Canada and toronto Toronto, perhaps for the first time. “As far as I can tell in searching there are no other coffee brands based in Canada selling & focusing on Liberica coffee or Racemosa. We are for sure the only company focusing on Liberica coffee,” LeClair Organics founder Jeremy LeClair told blogTO.
As mentioned on the blog “I made the realization that coffee only uses two species of coffee. I thought there had to be more out there. With a thorough search I found Liberica coffee, a third and elusive species to North America,” and as well also the racemosa coffee.
As mentioned in the article, the coffees are currently sold online, however we are looking to partner with local cafes in Toronto to serve the coffees and coffee berry tea. So far there has been quite a positive reception from from cafes, executive chefs, mixologists and hotels in Toronto. Ideally due to limited supply, there is only availability realistically for 2-3 luxury hotel cafe/restaurant clients. There is current interest and samples at the moment, but not an official location serving quite yet.
There were a few comments from the article regarding the worlds rarest coffee being Kopi Luwak and made from civet poop. Perhaps in all good fun, a few simply put a poop emoji refering to this other “rare coffee”. Firstly, racemosa coffee is a distinct plant species coffea racemosa. There is no poop involved or anywhere near this coffee. Kopi Luwak is rare because it is supposed to be found in the forest very sparsely, creating a unique fermentation process in the civet digestion system. It also is usually from your regular arabica beans, and in some cases force fed to animals in cages now that there is high demand and rare coffee profits. For some people having coffee poop is an uncomfortable thought. Well no need to worry as our racemosa coffee is the same as kopi luwak, not commonly known so it may simply be confused with the other rarest types of coffee.
People are excited to have such an exciting array of options in what seemed to be an industry so established and stagnant. Toronto and Ontario has actually been the most popular location for online ordering to date! This is despite living currently in Saskatoon and to have lived in Vancouver before with many contacts. Toronto has seemed to take a liking for the coffees the quickest so far. It has taken off, starting to spread now that people have tried it and are talking about it.
As well don’t forget our coffee berry tea. We are not new to Canada with this item, but we would still say that it is highly underutilized and not commonly known. It comes from the berry removed and discarded from the coffee bean in processing. Imagine if all the coffee in Toronto threw away the outer berry in production! That is a lot of waste! Coffee Berry is a focus of ours and hope to make this more widespread across Toronto