February Coffee Box at RISE

An introduction from Alice & Ben

Hello! 👋 If this is your first time to RISE coffee box, we’re Alice and Ben, founders of RISE Coffee Box and we welcome you to our community! For anyone coming back, hello again and we hope you love what we have in-store for you in February. 

February can be a tricky month, we're still deep in winter, but we're coming out the other side and looking forward to spring! When we curate our February Coffee Box, we always think about comfort, depth of flavour, and coffees that feel like a small daily reward. This month’s box is exactly that: bold, warm, super interesting specialty coffee, thoughtful sourcing stories, and a mix of bold and gentle options to suit every kind of coffee drinker.

Who we are & what RISE Coffee Box does

RISE Coffee Box is a UK-based coffee subscription built around great taste, transparency, and positive impact, all handpicked and curated by us, Alice and Ben.

Each month, we partner with independent roasters to deliver carefully chosen specialty coffee to your door. We focus on:

• High-quality, freshly roasted coffee

• Transparent sourcing and traceability

• Fair prices paid to smallholder farmers

• Supporting coffee-growing communities through our Friendly Coffee Fund

We’re proud to be a B Corp certified coffee subscription, and we believe ethical coffee is about more than labels it’s about how coffee is grown, who grows it, and how fairly they’re paid.

Tell a friend & earn £10 ☕💛

Love your RISE Coffee Box? You can now refer a friend and earn £10 for every share.

When your friend signs up:

• They get £10 off their first coffee box

• You receive £10 credit to spend online or automatically knock off your next RISE Coffee Box

You can find your unique referral QR code in your customer account or click here

Sharing great coffee has never been more rewarding.

Organic coffee: why not all specialty coffee has the label

Organic coffee is often seen as the gold standard for ethical and sustainable coffee – but in the world of specialty coffee, certification doesn’t always tell the full story.

Many smallholder farmers already grow coffee without synthetic pesticides, often because chemical inputs are expensive or inaccessible. When we visited farmers in Costa Rica and Uganda, we saw home-made, natural pest control methods such as chilli or neem leaf being used effective, affordable, and far cheaper than chemical alternatives.

So why isn’t all specialty coffee certified organic?

• Organic certification is expensive and time-consuming

• Farmers in Uganda told us certification can cost around £600 more than some earn in a year

• Annual audits and ongoing fees make certification hard to maintain

• Premiums paid for organic coffee don’t always cover the additional labour and materials required

Understanding this helps put labels into context. Ethical coffee is about transparency, farming practices, and fair pay not just a badge on the bag.

What really matters when choosing coffee

When we select coffees for RISE, these are the things we prioritise:

• Transparent sourcing and traceability

• Fair prices paid directly to smallholder farmers

• Low-input, natural, environmentally conscious farming methods

These values guide every coffee subscription box we put together.

2025 recap: As voted by you ⭐

A huge thank you to everyone who voted and shared feedback on their favourite coffees. Your comments genuinely help shape the coffees we choose going forward.

Your Top 3 Coffees

1. Tamp – Colombia

2. Bailies Signature Blend

3. Mission Coffee – Costa Rica

Your feedback plays a huge role in shaping RISE as we move into 2026, and we’re so grateful to have such a thoughtful, engaged community of coffee lovers.

If you still want to leave feedback you can do so here.

This month’s chosen coffee

Small Batch Coffe, Brighton | Excelso, Colombia

The roasters: Founded in 2006 in Brighton & Hove, Small Batch Coffee began with a simple goal: to make truly great coffee that everyone can enjoy. What started as a local roastery quickly became a community favourite, now recognised far beyond the UK for consistency and quality.

The coffee: Grown in Huila by Juliana at La Terraza Farm, this organic Yellow Bourbon coffee is carefully washed, slowly fermented, and sun-dried to allow the flavour to fully develop.

Yellow Bourbon is a rare Arabica variety with yellow cherries, known for its sweet, smooth profile.

• Roast: Medium to medium-dark

• Process: Washed

• Altitude: 1,850 metres

• Tasting notes: Cola bottles, chocolate, caramel

Juliana runs La Terraza Farm with a strong focus on organic practices, composting, soil restoration, and native shade trees protecting biodiversity while producing outstanding coffee.

Oddy Knoky Coffee, Bolton | Virgin Mountain, Papua New Guinea

The roasters: Oddy Knoky Coffee are exactly the kind of roastery we love working with – no jargon, just really good coffee. Their approach is flavour-forward, bold, and approachable.

The coffee: Papua New Guinea is an underrated origin, often hard to come by. This Virgin Mountain coffee was sourced exclusively for RISE, grown by smallholder farmers, hand-picked, and naturally farmed using compost from coffee pulp rather than chemicals.

Made from the Arusha and Blue Mountain varieties, it’s bold, comforting, and instantly likeable.

• Roast: Medium

• Process: Washed

• Altitude: 1,850–1,900 metres

• Tasting notes: Chocolate brownie, hazelnut, jam

It’s one of those coffees you fall in love with from the very first sip.

For the decaf drinkers out there ☕✨

Exceptional decaf specialty coffee is very much a thing – and February’s box proves it.

Small Batch Coffee – Decaf El Buho (Colombia)

• Roast: Medium

• Process: Washed

• Altitude: 1,800–2,000 metres

• Decaffeination: Washed sugarcane

• Tasting notes: Stone fruit, toffee, milk chocolate

This award-winning decaf (2024 Nourish Award winner) is full of flavour and depth, with none of the compromise.

Oddy Knoky – Colombia Serene (Decaf)

• Roast: Medium-dark

• Process: Washed

• Altitude: 1,500–2,100 metres

• Decaffeination: Washed sugarcane

• Tasting notes: Golden raisin, biscuit, apricot jam

Deep, interesting, and beautifully balanced – you’d never guess it’s decaf

Final thoughts from Alice & Ben

February’s Coffee Box brings together everything we love about specialty coffee: flavour, people, stories, and care at every step of the supply chain.

Whether you’re enjoying a bold Papua New Guinea brew, discovering just how good decaf can be, or learning more about organic coffee beyond the label, we hope this box adds a little warmth to your winter days.

Thanks for being part of the RISE community 💛

Happy brewing, Alice & Ben