Pick up a can of NBA New Berry Addiction and look for where it was grown. It isn’t there. The label carries three words, red fruits, candied lemon and wild strawberry, printed down the side over a band of colour. No country. No farm. No process.
People Possession lead with flavour. Everything else, the origin, the variety, the producer, lives on the product page. Once you know how the range is put together, it takes about a minute to find your way around it.
Reading the name
People Possession’s coffee names look odd at first, but the brackets tell you something.
Square brackets describe the coffee itself: how it was processed, the variety, or a single flavour or colour. Finca La Palma [Washed Geisha] is a washed Geisha from Finca La Palma. Essential Standards [PEACH] is the peach one. Industrial Supply Series [RED] is the red one.
Curly brackets tell you what kind of coffee it is. {Filter} is roasted for filter, {Espresso} for espresso and {Omni} for both. {Blend} means it’s a blend, and every blend we stock is roasted for filter.
Three capital letters at the start also mean a blend, and the letters spell out its name. BPM is Blueberry Pie Magic. CAM is Coconut Alternative Movement. BAM is Blackberry and Mint.
Four ranges
People Possession sort their shop into four ranges. Which one a coffee sits in tells you most of what to expect from it.
The blends
The blends are the core of the range, and they’re all made the same way. Each one mixes a washed coffee with a co-fermented one, where fruit, or yeast and fruit, is added while the coffee cherries ferment.
Blueberry Pie Magic mixes a washed Ethiopian 74110 with a Colombian Caturra co-fermented with red fruits. Coconut Alternative Movement mixes a Colombian natural co-fermented with coconut with a washed Ethiopian. Blackberry and Mint mixes a Colombian honey co-fermented with wine yeast and blackberry with a washed Ethiopian. Prime Flavor Experience mixes a washed Ugandan coffee, SL14 and SL28, with a Colombian Castillo co-fermented with yellow fruits.
People Possession change what goes into these blends from time to time and keep the name. Blueberry Pie Magic changed this year: the tasting notes stayed exactly the same, but the coffees in it did not. The name tells you how it should taste. The product page tells you what is in it right now.
Essential Standards
Single origins, each named after one flavour: PEACH, BERRIES, CHERRY, APPLE. They are washed or semi-washed coffees from named washing stations and producers, none of them co-fermented, and they cost less than the blends.
PEACH comes from Keramo Washing Station in Sidama, Ethiopia, at 2,300 metres: 74112 and local varieties, tasting of peach, jasmine and lemon. BERRIES is Kenyan, from Karimikui Washing Station in Kirinyaga, where SL28, SL34, Batian and Ruiru 11 grow between 1,700 and 1,900 metres. CHERRY is the espresso of the series, a semi-washed Pink Bourbon from Maria Belén Diaz in Huila, Colombia, grown at 1,800 metres.
Industrial Supply Series
Named by colour: RED, GREEN, YELLOW. Each one is a single Colombian coffee, co-fermented with fruit, and sometimes yeast too.
RED is a natural Castillo from Huila, co-fermented with red cherry: strawberry laces, cherry and vanilla. GREEN comes from Jairo Arcila in Quindío, a honey-processed Castillo co-fermented with wine yeast and green apple. It tastes of apple soda, candy and berries.
Premium Single Origins
The top of the range, and the part that changes most often: Geishas, rarer varieties and more unusual processing.
Finca La Palma’s washed Geisha comes from Segundo Pintado Laban in Cajamarca, Peru, at 1,890 metres: peach, cranberries, vanilla and white flowers, with camomile and fig leaf behind them. Abu, from José Luttrell in Chiriquí, Panama, is a Catuai taken through a natural re-hydro double-phase anaerobic process, and tastes of ripe pineapple, strawberry and black tea. Some of these come in 100g cans rather than 200g.
The farms behind this part of the range, Inmaculada, El Vergel and Doña María Rodríguez among them, are covered in our People Possession roaster profile.
Where to start
The range is built around flavour, so start there.
Something like dessert. Blueberry Pie Magic: blueberry pie, raspberry ripple ice cream, vanilla. It is the People Possession coffee our customers buy most.
Something brighter. New Berry Addiction: wild strawberries, candied lemon, red fruits.
Creamy and tropical. Coconut Alternative Movement: coconut, white chocolate, vanilla.
Darker, with an herbal edge. Blackberry and Mint: blackberry, black tea, mint.
Light and juicy. Prime Flavor Experience: peach lemonade, iced tea, white nectarine.
If you’d rather have a single origin than a blend, try the Essential Standards.
A washed Ethiopian. Essential Standards PEACH: peach, jasmine, lemon.
A Kenyan. Essential Standards BERRIES: Karimikui Washing Station, Kirinyaga.
Espresso. Essential Standards CHERRY: a semi-washed Pink Bourbon from Huila.
Something more unusual. The Premium Single Origins and the Industrial Supply Series change from one release to the next. Whatever is current is in our People Possession collection.
The can, and the lid
Most People Possession coffees come in a 200g aluminium can. The can does not come with a permanent lid.
Once it is open, either decant the coffee into a container of your own or use People Possession’s reusable lid, which seals the can and can be used again. Their own shop lists it as “Reusable lid (don’t forget it)”. We stock it: People Possession Reusable Lid.
Brewing them
Everything above is roasted for filter except CHERRY, which is roasted for espresso, and the occasional {Omni} lot, which is roasted for both.
Co-fermented and anaerobic coffees can turn harsh when they are pushed too hard. We have written separately about why heavily processed coffees taste bitter and how to brew them, and about starting recipes by coffee type.
Who they are
People Possession are based in Paris. Their line is “radical sourcing, superior roasting”, and their manifesto opens on a complaint: “The quality of specialty coffee can be shockingly random.” What follows is a survival guide. Bring your own beans. Don’t leave home without a can. Steer clear of complimentary coffee in public places.
The cans travel. People Possession have made collaboration coffees with cafés from Coffi in Liverpool to Public Records in New York, and they turn up at the Paris, Vienna and Danish coffee festivals.
The full range is in our People Possession collection.