St. Nina's Coffee
  • Home
  • Our Coffees
  • Making Coffee
  • About Us
  • Blog

ST. Nina'S coffee blog

Abbess Maria of St. Mary of Egypt Monastery, Uganda

4/17/2016

0 Comments

 
abbess aemiliane abbess maria uganda saint st mary nina monastery union bridge maryland md
Abbess Maria with Abbess Aemiliane of St. Nina’s.

​A big part of why we got into Ugandan coffee is Mother Maria, Abbess of St. Mary of Egypt Monastery, the first Orthodox monastery in Uganda. Our own Monastery's friend and fellow roaster Eija Pehu met Mother Maria on a research mission to Africa and made the connection. With her help and God's blessing, Mother Maria came to stay with us at St. Nina's for three months in the summer of 2015, establishing an ever-deepening connection between our Monasteries as we grow in Christ together.
Picture
Mother Maria with friend of St. Nina’s Lillian at St. Mary’s this spring. Passionfruit is one of the cash crops Mother Maria and her Sisters cultivate to help support the Monastery.
PictureMother Maria at St. Nina's last summer.
When we were just starting to get into roasting coffee late last year, the question arose—what coffee? And we remembered that St. Mary of Egypt Monastery is located in a region where coffee has been cultivated organically for many hundreds of years. Why not start with Ugandan coffee, as a first step toward our ultimate aim of partnership with St. Mary's in sourcing coffee directly? Mother Maria and her Sisters could put their experience and expertise in the areas of community development and agriculture to good use in helping to support themselves and the fifteen orphans they care for with proceeds from coffee sales, and we at St. Nina's could offer coffee from women farmers who are neighbors of St. Mary's in a Monastery-to-Monastery exchange!

PictureIn St. Nina's kitchen.
As a beginning step to this goal, we developed and perfected our own roast of Ugandan Bukonzo Nayabirongo, a fair-trade coffee imported by Crop to Cup in Brooklyn, NY. And is it ever good! Sweet, bright, and clean like a morning in the Rwenzori Mountains. Like a morning at St. Mary's or St. Nina's. Try it and tell us how you like it.

Would you like to help out Mother Maria, her Sisters, and the children they care for?
​
Contact us
 for more information about their needs and ways you can get involved.
Picture
Mother Maria with her goddaughter Evangelia, who was baptized along with her parents and four of her brothers and sisters last spring at St. Nina's.
0 Comments

Roast Session 4/12/2016

4/12/2016

0 Comments

 
Picture
We roast using three Behmor 1600 Plus machines, known as No. 1, No. 2, and No. 3. Each one has its quirks and requires a personal approach :) Roasting coffee is no 'set-it-and-forget-it' process—we call our coffee hand-roasted for a reason!

Picture
This blog most fittingly commences with the thing itself— coffee being roasted today, right here at St. Nina's.

Today’s coffees were Ugandan Bukonzo Nayabirongo and Ethiopia Yirgacheffe.


Picture
Fellow roaster and friend of the Monastery Eija was here to collaborate.
Picture
Shaking out the chaff post-roast and catching some fresh air in the process!

What a beautiful roast!
Buy our coffee
0 Comments

    St. Nina​'s Coffee

    Organic fair-trade coffee hand-roasted by the Sisters of St. Nina's Monastery, Union Bridge, MD.

    Archives

    December 2018
    April 2018
    March 2018
    December 2016
    June 2016
    May 2016
    April 2016

    Categories

    All
    International Connections
    Roast Sessions
    St. Nina's Coffee

    RSS Feed

Location

Sacred Monastery of Saint Nina
9002 Clemsonville Road
Union Bridge, MD 21791

About St. nina's Coffee

St. Nina's Coffee is fair-trade, organic coffee roasted in small batches by the Sisters of St. Nina's Monastery as part of our effort to become self-sustaining, living like the Apostles by the work of our hands.

ABOUT St. Nina'S Monastery

​The Sacred Monastery of Saint Nina is a monastic community of Orthodox Christian nuns of the Patriarchate of Georgia located near Union Bridge, Maryland not far from our country's capital. We’re multi-ethnic and pan-Orthodox, celebrating services in English, Georgian, Greek, Arabic, Slavonic, German and welcoming pilgrims from across the country and around the world.

Contact Us

Learn more about
​St. Nina'
s Monastery
sacred monastery of saint nina union bridge maryland
  • Home
  • Our Coffees
  • Making Coffee
  • About Us
  • Blog