Peace Coffee

So this pack of coffee beans wins the award for the absolutely cutest packaging!

As a bit of backstory to how I bought these beans, recently I’ve been watching Peace Wanko’s videos on YouTube. They’re a dog rescue organisation based in Hiroshima, and working towards reducing the number of shelter dogs needing to be euthanised in Japan. I love dogs, so I can’t help but be tugged at the heartstrings when I watch these sort of things.

On a related note, Japan also has a tax refund system called the furusato nozei where you can donate some of your income taxes to less-populated prefectures (who don’t get as much tax income) and in return get gifts from that region. Usually I go for rice, fruit or frozen meat. But I saw that Peace Wanko was accepting Furusato Nozei donations (on behalf of Hiroshima prefecture), and in return they would gift you coffee beans. This seemed like a win-win to me so I got two packs.

Since I was buying these beans as a donation I wasn’t really expecting anything in terms of the quality, but it’s actually really quite decent. The flavour is really smooth and just makes for an easy cup of coffee - not too much bitterness or acidity.

The parent company of Peace Wanko is Peace Winds, a Japanese NGO that has been around since 1996. And it seems like Peace Winds in turn started up Peace Coffee in Timor-Leste in 2002 to help out local farmers, which is where the beans come from. So I suppose that makes this a win-win-win.

(As a final side note, “wanko” in Japanese is a cute way of saying “dog”. As someone used to the word it didn’t really stand out to me but I saw some English speakers saying that it’s quite an unfortunate name and I can sort of see it).