ABOUT US - Our Story
It all started in 2014, when a French-Portuguese couple, Nina and João, who live on the island of Flores (Azores), began exploring the coffee plant.
Coffee was introduced in the archipelago during Portugal´s Age of Discoveries (15th century) and was never commercialized, being used since then as an ornamental plant in backyards and gardens at home, which led the couple to talk to the elders and to realize that this plant really grew well on the island of Flores.
In 2016, driven by the idea that it could be an interesting crop in the archipelago, in partnership with other researchers from Terceira Island, they gave wings to this project and began to cultivate specimens of the coffee plant. Since that moment until today thousand of plants have proliferated, including those that are still in nurseries and trees already planted. More than 2000 coffee trees came from the islands of São Jorge and Pico.
Rifte coffee plantations are spread across the island, mainly located in the parish of Fazenda, Lajes das Flores, in the Southeast. Our plantations come in all shapes and sizes. They are also at different altitudes, in a range between 5 and 300 meters from sea level.
Essentially, our cultivated coffee trees are from the Arabica species:
-Yellow Bourbon Arabica;
-Red Caturra Arabica;
For a good soil structure and its benefits, coffee trees have always been mixed with other fruit trees creating a symbiosis between the plants, protecting each other, thus increasing vegetal and mineral diversity and resilience. In addition, here at Rifte, we decided to innovate: we mixed coffee with cereals such as corn. The corn seed is native from Flores Island and has been rehabilitated too. This way we aim to produce a special coffee with a unique flavor.
Over the years, this couple’s dream also became the dream of others who have joined the initiative. The project was materialized and is growing stronger wrapped in a powerful community spirit. Nowadays, we are a small team of young entrepreneurs who seek to create a unique product in the world: Rifte Café.
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Our brand RIFTE
Rifte is a portuguese brand created by a group of young entrepreneurs. It aims to be organic and to integrate biodiversity and nature into our brand strategies emphasizing quality over quantity. It has an ESG (Environmental, Social and Governance) approach/strategy. It wants to be known for its high quality, medicinal properties , tasty, flavoured and special coffee that is also truly human and environmental friendly.
The brand’s name was inspired by the Mid-Atlantic Ridge, a geological zone where the American, African and Eurasian tectonic plates come together, about 50 kilometers east of the island of Flores. A long ridge that crosses the ocean from north to south, making the Atlantic a giant coffee bean, with its slit in the center.
The island of Flores thus becomes a point of connection between continents, with us bringing to Europe a crop that is often found in Central and South America.
What we stand for
We aim to offer our customers a high quality product that is unique in the world, due to its geographic location and production conditions.
But also a product that:
– contributes to local and regional development;
– promotes business diversity in the region;
– takes sustainability into consideration to accomplish an outstanding nutritional and
medicinal product that has in itself social and environmental values too.
For us, it is also important to rehabilitate coffee as a medicinal plant used by humans for centuries in their daily lives.
Equally, we aim to share with people interested in improving their knowledge about coffee through retreats that merge gastronomy, agriculture and wellness activities.