Questions, Answered...

African specialty coffee, roasted in small batches, sent to your door. Which coffee changes every month — that's the point. We don't lock you into one origin, so you might get an Ethiopian one month and a Rwandan the next.

Because Africa doesn't grow one coffee, it grows hundreds. Ethiopia, Kenya, Rwanda, Zimbabwe, Uganda and their neighbours all produce distinctly different cups, and harvest seasons move through the year. Rotating lets us send you whatever is genuinely at its best right now, rather than the same bag on repeat because it's the one we happen to stock.

It depends on how much you drink, not how much you know about coffee.

Solo 200g — one bag, one origin, around 13 cups a month. Best if you're trying us out or drink a few cups a week.

2 × 350g — two origins from two countries, around 45 cups. Best for one or two daily drinkers. This is the one most people pick.

2 × 500g — two origins, a full kilo, around 65 cups. Best value per kilo, and the right choice for a household or a heavy drinker.

Cup counts assume roughly 15g per cup. If you brew stronger, adjust upward.

Yes, any time, from your account. No notice period, no phone call, no retention offer.

Yes, we will even send you a reminder email so that you don't forget

Yes, just cancel the old one and start a new one, easy as that

We roast fresh every week, so your coffee will typically arrive 7 - 10 days after payment. 

Switzerland only for now, but we are looking at Europe. Shipping is free with our subscriptions and we will have pickup locations in the near future.

It's a grading standard, not a marketing word. Coffee is scored out of 100 by trained tasters, and anything scoring 80 or above is classified as specialty. It has to be largely free of defects, traceable to a specific farm or cooperative, and processed carefully. Most supermarket coffee is commodity grade and never gets scored at all.

We send whole bean. Coffee starts losing its aromatics within minutes of grinding, so grinding at home immediately before you brew is the single biggest improvement most people can make — bigger than changing your beans, your machine or your water.

If you don't have a grinder yet, we sell two: the Hario Mini-Slim Plus if you want manual and compact, or the Melitta Molino if you'd rather press a button.

Airtight, at room temperature, out of direct light. That's it.

Don't refrigerate it — coffee absorbs odours and the temperature swings cause condensation. The freezer works for long-term storage if the beans are sealed properly and you don't repeatedly thaw and refreeze, but for a bag you'll finish within a month it's unnecessary.

Keep beans whole until you brew. A sealed bag of whole beans holds up for weeks; ground coffee is noticeably flatter within days.

We ship once the coffee has degassed and is at its peak — usually a few days after roasting.

Mostly light to medium. African coffees carry a lot of their character in the acidity and the fruit — Ethiopian florals, Kenyan blackcurrant, Rwandan red berry — and roasting dark burns that off in favour of generic roast flavour. If you've only ever had dark roast, expect these to taste brighter and more distinct than you're used to.

Not always, since Africa grows bothet Arabica and Robusta coffees, so sometimes in rare circumstances we send high quality blends.  

They describe how the fruit was removed from the seed after picking.

Washed coffee has the fruit stripped off before drying. It tends to taste cleaner and more precise, with the acidity front and centre.

Natural coffee is dried with the fruit still on, so the seed absorbs some of it. It usually tastes heavier, sweeter and more berry-like.

Neither is better. They're different, which is part of why we send two.

From finest to coarsest:

If your brew tastes bitter and harsh, the grind is probably too fine. If it tastes sour and thin, it's probably too coarse. Change one thing at a time.

Any burr grinder over any blade grinder. Blades chop beans into random fragments, so you extract unevenly and get bitterness and sourness in the same cup. Burrs crush beans to a consistent size.

The Hario Mini-Slim Plus is manual, quiet, travels well and costs less. The Melitta Molino is electric with 17 settings if you'd rather not do it by hand.

Start at 60g of coffee per litre of water — about 15g for a standard 250ml cup — and adjust to taste. Weighing is more reliable than scooping, because beans vary in density.

Nearly all of them are espresso plus varying amounts of milk.

Yes. Grind finer and expect a more intense, syrupy cup. Light roasts can be trickier to dial in for espresso than dark ones, so give yourself a few attempts before deciding it isn't working.

Yes, from CHF 5 upward. Buy a gift card here. They can be spent on subscriptions or brewing gear.

Yes, on our AfricanCoffee.ch market place

Get in touch and we'll sort it out.

ZiMM.coffee is run by Zimkaffee Switzerland GmbH. We source African specialty coffee, roast it in small batches and send it out monthly. 

Switzerland mostly, sometimes the Netherlands or Berlin and even at orgin source, it all depends on balancing costs and trying to give as much back to the origin.