12th anniversary & charity: water

While Madagascar’s rich biodiversity draws environmental and conservation attention, the people who live there are often overlooked. Madagascar ranks 173 out of 191 ranked countries on the 2022 Human Development Index. Basic access to clean drinking water sits at just 53% throughout the country and drops to 36% in rural areas. Sanitation and hygiene access is similarly limited. Regular floods, droughts, earthquakes, and cyclones exacerbate basic health and safety concerns.

charity: water began working with with Catholic Relief Services (CRS) Madagascar in 2019 to provide clean water access where needed. CRS Madagascar uses a public-private partnership approach that engages the local government and a private water service provider. Once a water system is built, the private service provider will operate and repair the system for 10-15 years. People pay a small fee for water, which goes toward service operations, maintenance, repairs, and WASH (water, sanitation, and hygiene) programming.

This year, to commemorate Nylon’s 12th birthday, we will be raising funds to build a piped system for a community in Madagascar to access clean safe water. This piped system is planned to serve approximately 90 people and Nylon has committed to donate US$9000 for this water project. We are inspired by the stories of how a simple water tap can change peoples’ lives including 2 of our favourite ones which we shared below that really touched us.

Meet Honorine - Honorine used to wake up at 3 am to collect dirty water. But now, with access to clean and safe water, she’s been able to devote her time to much more important things—like running her own restaurant!

Every Father's Dream - Clean water brings a father in Madagascar more time with his daughters.

We hope to see you down at Everton Park to support us on this project. All coffee sales go towards the our fundraiser - the more you drink, the more we can raise! See you on 1 May!

Going 3

For a business to turn 3 doesn’t really seem like a big deal, but for any F&B business to get to this landmark might be regarded as pleasantly admirable. In light of the competitive F&B landscape of Singapore, as well as the ever growing scene of cafes and coffee roasters on the island, we take heart that we are continuing to serve many with the delicious coffees that we roll out from our little roasting machine in the shop. Looking back at some of the major milestones, eg. connecting with our very first direct farm relationship with the good folks of Fazenda Ambiental Fortaleza of Brazil in our 1st few months of operation, expanding our direct sourcing to include Colombia and the expansion of our retail and roasting space in year two, we feel like we have come an incredibly long journey. Coming up to three, we will continue to push ourselves both in the realms of sourcing and roasting as well as brewing. 

A photo posted by Nylon Coffee Roasters (@nyloncoffee) on Feb 25, 2015 at 4:27pm PST

Earlier this year, we headed to the region of Huehuetenango in Guatemala hoping to get our hands on some excellent tasting coffees from this country. Things are moving a little slower than what was planned due to the later harvest in this country compared to its Central American neighbours who have mostly completely their harvests by the end of February/early March. We will definitely keep you posted in time to come.

A photo posted by Nylon Coffee Roasters (@nyloncoffee) on Jan 21, 2015 at 3:59am PST

Last year, we also started to tweak our approach to roasting to incorporate some new ideas and experiments that we have been discussing for a while. Some of you who dropped by to buy coffees will probably have heard us explaining that you can also try to pull shots using our coffees showcased for filters and vice versa. This is a reflection of how we grew in our role as roasters. We found that roasts that are too light might result in coffees tasting under-developed, lacking flavours and sweetness. We have come to understand our roasting machine better and we feel more confident of roasting in a way that nicely develop the coffees without adding any unpleasant roast character but still light enough to preserve the subtle nuances of that coffee. That said, we are still differentiating our retail bags as black and white based on what we feel our customers might enjoy better as an espresso-based coffee or filter coffee.

A photo posted by Nylon Coffee Roasters (@nyloncoffee) on Jan 30, 2015 at 6:00pm PST

Since 2014, a few members of our team have also started to participate in competitions, throwdowns and also judging, to continuously keep ourselves abreast of the skills and knowledge. We are firm believers that competitions pushes innovation and brings out creativity,. These experiences allow us to serve you better, not only in terms of the coffee, but equally important, the overall experience that you will have in Nylon. We also feel strongly that we need to contribute to the specialty coffee industry as a whole by being part of it.

As part of our 3rd anniversary, we have planned a couple of events starting off with our usual annual big celebration on 1 May 2015. We want to continue our efforts that we have started with charity: water since Year 1, which have shown us that every little effort will make a difference to the community of Kimbamba in Rwanda. We did even better in Year 2, but we know it doesn’t end there. Few days ago, the world witness another tragic disaster when a devastating 7.8 magnitude earthquake struck Nepal and the people need our help now. This Friday, we will serve coffee FREE from 9am - 6pm! In return, we humbly ask for your support towards our cause. On top of your kind donations, we have lined up a limited run of tees and tote bags* for sale to help raise even more funds for those in need. This is the 1st merchandise run that we have done in our short history but we promise that you will not be disappointed.

Mark your dates and we’ll see you down on 1 May 2015!

*All profits from the sale of tees & totes will go towards the fund.

A Big Thank You

On 1st May 2013, we celebrated our 1st birthday with coffees on the house in exchange for your kind donation to charity:water. Together with the limited edition totes and tees sold, we raised an amount that the team was so proud of.

This year on 1st May 2014, with an extended standing room in our tiny shopfront, we kept the coffees flowing with no charge for the 2nd year running. The support from the crowd was unwavering, as we collected a sum of S$5,701.25 from the generous donations as well as the sale of the limited edition buttons. A very kind lady also pitched in another S$900 for the brew gift set, bringing the total amount to S$6,601.25 for charity: water.

Your kind support is very much appreciated.

Thank you - Team Nylon.