Farm Profile: Sitio Fernandes

Fernandes Family

Name: Sitio Fernandes
City: Pedralva
Total estate area (acre): 67
Altitude (masl): 1160-1330
Varietals: Bourbon, Mundo Novo, Acaia

About

The estate first belonged to Mr. Mario Fernandes who in 1974 was raising cattle and producing sugar cane. During this time coffee prices were experiencing rapid growth and the family decided to plant their first crop of coffee, which unfortunately coincided with the “Great Frost of 1975” and another big frost problem two years after.

The eldest son of family, Mr. Marcelo Fernandes, had planned to move to São José dos Campos to study but with consecutive frosts and subsequent difficulties with the farm he decided to stay and work with his father in the coffee plantations. For over 20 years, the family had no machines for coffee processing and the marketing of their coffee was done through brokers who bought coffee without any knowledge about the quality, thereby offering low prices in relation to the costs coffee production required.

Marcelo and his siblings Paul, Sebastian, Vanderley and Carmen have therefore struggled over the years and felt they had little prospect for growth and profitability with the farm. The situation was exacerbated when the patriarch, Mario, died in 2009. After his passing, the situation on the farm became critical and the family had to make tough decisions, as the farm was already split into small plots amongst the brothers, making each endeavor even less profitable. Usually in Brazil, the consequence of these kinds of realities is that the farm is sold with the former owners moving into the cities.

Instead, the brothers invested in infrastructure and mechanization to improve productivity and overall quality of the coffees. They built a single processing center for all the individual plots, which has a simple dryer and a small milling machine. The brothers were thus able to increase the productivity of each plot began seeing the benefits of correctly dried coffees. Improvements to processing led to a discovery of the huge potential of producing specialty coffees with unique characteristics of the micro region. An added result is that the family is able to inspire future generations to learn and continue with the coffee business.

One of the “next generation” is Marcela who is working in the quality department of CarmoCoffees, roasting and cupping coffees, which will undoubtedly contribute to her family’s business.

Background to Carmo de Minas

Over the past decade, Brazil as a nation has experienced fantastic economic growth in every field, with higher purchasing power and an ever-increasing standard of living. At least 20 million people have risen above the poverty-line and the middle-class has grown by 40 million in a relatively few number of years. The value of labor has also increased: Brazil now has full employment and rising wages. All of this naturally affects the cost of coffee production in general, but it especially affects labor-intensive coffee (read: new processing methods with even higher costs). In some cases it is difficult to find labor at all, especially for farm work. Incentives must be strengthened in order to keep people at work within coffee. And as the world’s largest producer of coffee, Brazilian coffee is the main component of blends all over the world. Thus, the price paid for Brazilian coffee is a reflection of the fact that coffee from here is considered a base product. In parallel with fluctuations in world markets and in the pricing of coffee in general, the specialty coffee segment has established its own price dynamics.

Although coffee is an old commodity in Brazil, over the past 10-12 years, the country has been showcasing its very best coffee and it has only been in the last 7-8 years that coffee in the Carmo de Minas municipality has been particularly noteworthy.

Carmo is one village among twenty in the Mantiqueira region, south of the Minas Gerais county, in Sul de Minas. In the same way that Burgundy is an important name in the French world of wine, Carmo de Minas has become a destination in the Brazilian coffee world. Some of its distinction can be attributed to topographic and climatic conditions, but as always, there are people engaged – from picking coffee cherries to processing; both crucial to the quality of the product. People make the difference.

Although many of the farms in this area have won awards and garnered attention in recent years, there have not really been radical changes in farming and processing methods. Not even in terms of picking. We believe that the area has achieved its status with a little bit of luck, good growing conditions, good plant material – mostly Bourbon – but otherwise quite ordinary craft. However, good coffee has come out of all this and as a result, Carmo has experienced a “clean sweep” in Cup of Excellence competitions. But the quality can be even better, as well as the amount of the best coffee increased.

Jacques Pereira Carneiro represents the new generation in Carmo. Together with cousin Luis Paulo (who currently is president of Brazil Specialty Coffee Association (BSCA)), he runs the coffee export firm Carmo Coffees. These two men represent a 5th generation of coffee farmers and they collectively oversee 12 farms and 6 processing stations – altogether owned by their Pereira family. This family is also members of the cooperative Coca Rive, which offers its members courses on taste evaluation, distribution of fertilizer and storage facilities. Coca Rive has 400 members and is the smallest of the smallest cooperatives in the Carmo region, with its 8000 coffee farms. Previously Coca Rive worked almost exclusively with commercial coffee in this area and a few years ago it was a challenge to fill even one container (300 bags) of specialty coffee. Last year Carmo Coffees sold 150 containers of coffee over 80-points. We at CCS expect true specialty coffee from 86-points, but know that this proportion is also increasing in Carmo.

Carmo’s reputation is so well established that there is an ever-increasing demand for more coffee of their quality. Carmo Coffees does not just work with its own family’s production; it works hard to provide coffee from farms outside the family’s, including coffee from other districts. Pedralva, for example, is just a few miles from Carmo de Minas and many of the farms here are good, with altitudes up to 1400 meters above sea level. The work now is for a few farmers to push the idea of working a little differently to achieve better quality. With higher prices in the specialty coffee segment comes the motivation to do better than before. According to Jacques, this change can be facilitated, but the first challenge is to pick a technique. On top of this are the added associated costs. Historically, the picking technique has been picking the coffee bush clean (stripping) during one picking and one harvesting season. Most people do this and even use partially mechanized equipment to do the job, which is more time-effective. But to get the sweetest coffee, you have to pick the sweetest, ripest cherries.

Minimum wage has increased to about $500 per month and although this is a low salary on any scale, these wages mean that the work of selective hand-picking coffee cherries represents up to 2/3 of the total cost of coffee production, even when coffee is sold at a 100% premium over commodity coffee.

The New Colombia: Specialty Coffee Driven by the People

Colombia is vast and I can easily admit that it’s one of my favorite places to visit in the Americas: for its beauty, its proud culture, and friendly people. La quiero mucho!

Although some distances may look short on a map, traveling East to West within Colombia usually means flying through Bogotá, which ends up taking a full day to get where you want to go. Upon landing from the international flight, sometimes additional flying is required, which can be through gusty mountain passes where you are at the mercy of the winds and rain storms. “Will this plane land?” Generally, proximity to the equator in the South, along with proximity to the Pacific coast in the West, combined with proximity to wet and warm lowlands in the East makes for incredibly different climates and temperatures. The hills and rocky mountains make for varied elevations, sun exposures and rainfall patterns. I have visited this vast and diverse country extensively during the last ten years and even more frequently than ever over the last 24 months.

This happens to be The Time when many new and interesting things are happening at this beloved coffee origin. The issue of drying coffee has been a particular source of concern for many years and while progress has been made, new techniques are being introduced constantly. Castillo: the varietal and the controversy, has been an integral part of what I, perhaps bluntly, refer to as the New Colombia emerging in the last half-decade or so, bringing the world’s second biggest (after Brazil) provider of Arabica back on track.

Carlos Arévalo at La Palma y El Tucan facility in Bucaramanga, Colombia. Elisa Maria Madriñan (co founder of La Palma y El Tucan) in the background.

Not coincidently, maybe even symptomatically of the Castillo-and-Volume-focus, there is a new generation of coffee people in the country coming forward: farmers who, as well as a whole community of coffee professionals, evidently want to reach a growing specialty market outside the county’s borders. Just as much as this is a story of new trends in an old coffee country, it is also a story about a better-connected world and the empowerment of coffee farming people.

E-mail and social media apps are now on everybody’s smartphones, including the ones many coffee farmers carry with them in their pockets. This means that farmers are able to be in touch with the ‘market place’, and can be in direct contact with their (green) coffee buyers. The world has opened up, connecting both ends of the chain – along with everybody in-between. Your favorite suppliers are now bombarding their Instagram accounts with photos of the new crop and new developments at his beneficio. New times.

Omar Viveros brewing Chemex at his house in Pitalito, Huila. He is avialable on Instagram at @FINCAMIRAFLORES

The coffees themselves trigger excitement for their quality and flavor attributes, yet the underlying currents for why things are happening in the first place—why things are changing, why things are diversifying and getting better—intrigues me just as much the coffee itself. We want to understand what is going on right now and support the people that are making the push.

For some funny and inexplicable reason, most coffee farmers I have met in my career have always seemed initially shy about joining for cupping, as though it is something that one inherently will not master. They seem to not want to risk feeling intimidated. That is of course not the case.

As a cupper and green coffee buyer this scenario can be a rather awkward position to be in: tasting and assessing a coffee in front of the farmer who is constantly studying your facial expression and looking for hints of appreciation, making it all the more difficult to explain the results when you have not had the same sensory experience as them. It can be devastating on a personal level.

Personally, I love it when we get to cup with farmers. It is such a great learning experience for everybody involved. The sharing of opinions can then happen in a much more fruitful way. Fortunately, a growing number of coffee producers are eagerly learning to cup and are thereby in a position to understand how and why we value their product.

Eider Perdomo Claros (far left) is always cupping his coffee with the Virmax-team when he submits at the Virmax warehouse in Pitalito, Huila. More than 80% of his production is 86+ pts.

As we all know, as calibrated as a group may be, a tasting experience is inherently subjective. Thus, having a chance to let a supplier understand what I prefer and what we look for is an important dimension of coffee buying. Then the next time around a farmer may understand what another customer of his prefers and may choose to prepare a different coffee to their liking.

Unless a farmer is tied to a buyer due to credits/loans, which commit them to sell their crop to the person or institution that granted it in the first place, they are free to sell to whomever they choose. The FNC is always the default buyer for any Colombian farmer. Such is Colombia’s coffee history and this is still the law. Yet it isn’t the only buyer, and with a growing demand for specialty coffee, other middlemen and buyers are setting up cupping facilities and logistical networks to get hold of the best lots.

By requesting not only a better quality, but simply a different product, one is subject to paying higher prices to the farmer. As obvious as paying higher may sound, this is where things sometimes get complicated.

What is the value for specialty coffee outside the FNC sphere? And when is it Specialty Coffee, by the way? Is the (specialty coffee) marketplace developed and sophisticated enough to establish a fair marketvalue for 86+ point lots? Castillo has a ‘certain reputation’; does Caturra always deserve a better price (to incentivize farmers to keep them)? How much higher is the value, then, for Bourbon, Typica and other varietals that are even more ‘endangered’?

This is the situation:

- The Castillo varietal is here, and it is here to stay. Can one disregard it then?

- At the same time, the Traditional Colombian Wet Processing of coffee cherries – as we know it - is scrutinized and analyzed. Simply put: It is being challenged. Big time!

It makes a whole lot of sense to see these things altogether.

Farmers are realizing that they will not get the best possible prices for their Castillo coffee, so they are seeking out ways to ‘build value’ into it. With this, they are reaching out to the marketplace with an altogether different product. The rhetoric is out there and invested people are talking about: “Enhancing the Quality”; “Adjusting the Flavor Profile”; “Changing the Cup Character”; “Making it sweeter”.

At the same time green coffee buyers continue to travel, people interact, trends move. Before you know it, an Australian buyer has met a farmer and talked about his preference for sweetness and body, while a Russian buyer may have met and talked to a middleman and voiced his curiosity for fruity flavors (that he just tasted in a ‘new wave natural’ from El Salvador). This while a Japanese buyer may be keen to get hold of a little something that is made ‘only for him’: an experiment with fermentation-time, hopefully making the coffee a little more juicy than the other (Castillo) lots.

In my next article I will present some of the processing techniques that we’ve seen out there, mostly to the Castillo varietal. These approaches and processes are themselves ‘catching on’ and are being used to twist and tweak the flavors of Caturra, Tabi, and other varietals as well.

In the meantime you may enjoy listening to a great podcast: Ferment in Colombia with Leo by our good friend Tom Owens at Sweet Marias. It is an interview he conducted with Leonardo Henao in Colombia and is such a great conversation about this topic.

We are very pleased to announce that one of our own partners in Colombia, the knowledgeable and energetic Carlos Arévalo, a long time coffee consultant in the Americas, currently at the La Palma y El Tucan farm in Cundinamarca, will be presenting these topics in-depth at LCDC in Paris, January 25-27.

- Robert W

Farm Profile: Pinheirinho

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Farm: Pinheirinho Area (ha): 25 City: Carmo de Minas Region: Carmo de Minas Altitude (masl): 1056-1140 Varieties: Yellow Icatu ,Yellow Catuai, Yellow Catucai, Acaia Processes: Naturals

About

Lilica is the third generation to manage the Pinheirinho farm, which was inherited from his father. When his father was still alive he oversaw the management of Pinheirinho and Lilica was not involved with the farm’s activities. Lilica has gone through much adversity in his personal life, struggling with alcohol abuse, amongst other things, which heavily contributed to Lilica being absent from the family business of managing Pinheirinho.

Twenty years ago Lilica’s father passed away and at this point Lilica had no experience with farming and continued struggling personally. During this difficult time Lilica sought the support of his family in order to overcome his alcohol addiction and to become focused on learning the activities of managing the farm he had inherited.

Over time Lilica began to better understand the process of coffee production but had little knowledge of coffee cup quality and therefore did not know the real value or potential value of his product. Five years ago, Lilica began working with Carmo Coffees and started to learn about the cup quality of his coffees and is now able to determine its flavours and attributes. In his words, "I discovered that my coffees on average reach 85 points and tastes like plum." When asked about future challenges to improve the quality of his coffee, Lilica responded, “[I] wish [in] the future to get a certificate of sustainability to the farm and a stable production of specialty coffees.”

2014 marks the first year that CCS is working with Lilica and one of the two lots purchased from Lilica was produced from a selective picking project wherein the tradition of mechanically stripping coffee cherries off the branches of the trees were dismissed in favour of hand-picking selectively mature, fully ripened cherries. We are excited about the long-term possibilities in working with Lilica.

Background to Carmo de Minas

Over the past decade, Brazil as a nation has experienced fantastic economic growth in every field, with higher purchasing power and an ever-increasing standard of living. At least 20 million people have risen above the poverty-line and the middle-class has grown by 40 million in a relatively few number of years. The value of labor has also increased: Brazil now has full employment and rising wages. All of this naturally affects the cost of coffee production in general, but it especially affects labor-intensive coffee (read: new processing methods with even higher costs). In some cases it is difficult to find labor at all, especially for farm work. Incentives must be strengthened in order to keep people at work within coffee. And as the world’s largest producer of coffee, Brazilian coffee is the main component of blends all over the world. Thus, the price paid for Brazilian coffee is a reflection of the fact that coffee from here is considered a base product. In parallel with fluctuations in world markets and in the pricing of coffee in general, the specialty coffee segment has established its own price dynamics.

Although coffee is an old commodity in Brazil, over the past 10-12 years, the country has been showcasing its very best coffee and it has only been in the last 7-8 years that coffee in the Carmo de Minas municipality has been particularly noteworthy.

Carmo is one village among twenty in the Mantiqueira region, south of the Minas Gerais county, in Sul de Minas. In the same way that Burgundy is an important name in the French world of wine, Carmo de Minas has become a destination in the Brazilian coffee world. Some of its distinction can be attributed to topographic and climatic conditions, but as always, there are people engaged – from picking coffee cherries to processing; both crucial to the quality of the product. People make the difference.

Although many of the farms in this area have won awards and garnered attention in recent years, there have not really been radical changes in farming and processing methods. Not even in terms of picking. We believe that the area has achieved its status with a little bit of luck, good growing conditions, good plant material – mostly Bourbon – but otherwise quite ordinary craft. However, good coffee has come out of all this and as a result, Carmo has experienced a “clean sweep” in Cup of Excellence competitions. But the quality can be even better, as well as the amount of the best coffee increased.

Jacques Pereira Carneiro represents the new generation in Carmo. Together with cousin Luis Paulo (who currently is president of Brazil Specialty Coffee Association (BSCA)), he runs the coffee export firm Carmo Coffees. These two men represent a 5th generation of coffee farmers and they collectively oversee 12 farms and 6 processing stations – altogether owned by their Pereira family. This family is also members of the cooperative Coca Rive, which offers its members courses on taste evaluation, distribution of fertilizer and storage facilities. Coca Rive has 400 members and is the smallest of the smallest cooperatives in the Carmo region, with its 8000 coffee farms. Previously Coca Rive worked almost exclusively with commercial coffee in this area and a few years ago it was a challenge to fill even one container (300 bags) of specialty coffee. Last year Carmo Coffees sold 150 containers of coffee over 80-points. We at CCS expect true specialty coffee from 86-points, but know that this proportion is also increasing in Carmo.

Carmo’s reputation is so well established that there is an ever-increasing demand for more coffee of their quality. Carmo Coffees does not just work with its own family’s production; it works hard to provide coffee from farms outside the family’s, including coffee from other districts. Pedralva, for example, is just a few miles from Carmo de Minas and many of the farms here are good, with altitudes up to 1400 meters above sea level. The work now is for a few farmers to push the idea of working a little differently to achieve better quality. With higher prices in the specialty coffee segment comes the motivation to do better than before. According to Jacques, this change can be facilitated, but the first challenge is to pick a technique. On top of this are the added associated costs. Historically, the picking technique has been picking the coffee bush clean (stripping) during one picking and one harvesting season. Most people do this and even use partially mechanized equipment to do the job, which is more time-effective. But to get the sweetest coffee, you have to pick the sweetest, ripest cherries.

Minimum wage has increased to about $500 per month and although this is a low salary on any scale, these wages mean that the work of selective hand-picking coffee cherries represents up to 2/3 of the total cost of coffee production, even when coffee is sold at a 100% premium over commodity coffee.

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Producer Profile: Nelson Ramirez

 

Farm: Chely Owner: Nelson Ramirez Location: El Cielto, Santa Barbara Altitude: 1510-1550 Variety: Red Catuai Size of the farm (ha): 15 Average production per year: 100-120 bags Process: Washed

The villages Cielito, Cedral and Las Flores follow one after another along the mountain range in Santa Barbara. Grown on this hillside is mostly Pacas, a coffee species akin to Bourbon, as well as Yellow Catuaí and Pacamara. It is challenging to process coffee cherries in areas like these, which are close to the jungle and thus, to rain. The drying process, in particular, is especially demanding. But when these processes are precisely controlled, seemingly problematic factors (like drying under challenging conditions) are what make coffee from this area particularly interesting. The coffee produced here cups with flavour attributes not found anywhere else in Central America.

Since 2005, the region, Santa Barbara, and the small producers living and working there, have shared the distinction as the place and the people producing exceptional coffee within Honduras. Our work and the beginning of the on-going relationships we’ve since established here began during the 2005 Cup of Excellence. We came to realize that there are exceptional producers from this small area. And since that inaugural year, we have purchased from over twenty different Santa Barbara producers.

Located in the village of Pena Blanca is coffee exporter San Vicente – the company that coordinates the coffee we buy from Santa Barbara. Over the past several years, one particular hillside has become the largest supplier of CoE winners in Honduras. The most successful farms with the smartest and most innovative farmers are neighbours on this hillside and they help each other to refine the best of their lots.

There exists an eagerness here; a willingness, motivation and ambition to produce the best coffee in the country. But there are also large differences amongst the farmers and our purpose is to be close to this special coffee community and get to know the most ambitious of the farmers here; the ones we can develop something with. In order to build relationships – that allow both parties to have a common understanding of quality coffee – there must be frequent and long-term presence.

To produce coffee that tastes fruity is not very complicated. But to produce coffee that is clean, clear, fresh and fruity – that’s an art. One of the biggest assumptions within specialty coffee is that coffee from high-altitude areas naturally exhibits these characteristics. But high elevation can lead to potential problems, even in tropical climates.

In the highest areas of Santa Barbara, up to and over 1800 meters, producers can experience “freezing”: the combination of temperatures between 4-5C and rainfall that combine to cause cherries to not ripen and leaves to die on the bush. These conditions create a cold and humid climate, which is hazardous for processing and requires steady and reliable drying conditions for coffee so quality will not deteriorate. These natural conditions, of course, cannot be evaded. But clever and prescient coffee farmers, like the ones we collaborate with, invest in drying systems that minimize the risks associated with weather.

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Producer Profile: David Munoz

 

Farmer: David Omar Muñoz Ulloa Farm Name: Nueva Esperanza Location: El Cielito Region: Santa Barbara Altitude (masl): 1570-1670 Farm Size (ha): 2.8 Variety: Pacas Process: Washed

David planted his farm in 2008, based on all he'd learned about the benefits of producing specialty coffee. He learned about the specialty coffee movement in Santa Barbara coffee production because of the growth of this market in the region, as well as through his work as an employee at Exportadora San Vicente, the only coffee exporter in the area. As part of his work at San Vicente, David has a hand in managing most of the production of the high quality coffees coming out of the Santa Barbara mountain ridge.

The Pacas varietal has been planted on David's farm because it is a variety he knows and likes and it is also one that has developed a good quality reputation for in the Santa Barbara area.

Background to Santa Barbara

The villages Cielito, Cedral and Las Flores follow one after another along the mountain range in Santa Barbara. Grown on this hillside is mostly Pacas, a coffee species akin to Bourbon, as well as Yellow Catuaí and Pacamara. It is challenging to process coffee cherries in areas like these, which are close to the jungle and thus, to rain. The drying process, in particular, is especially demanding. But when these processes are precisely controlled, seemingly problematic factors (like drying under challenging conditions) are what make coffee from this area particularly interesting. The coffee produced here cups with flavour attributes not found anywhere else in Central America.

Since 2005, the region, Santa Barbara, and the small producers living and working there, have shared the distinction as the place and the people producing exceptional coffee within Honduras. Our work and the beginning of the on-going relationships we’ve since established here began during the 2005 Cup of Excellence.

We came to realize that there are exceptional producers from this small area. And since that inaugural year, we have purchased from over twenty different Santa Barbara producers. Located in the village of Pena Blanca is coffee exporter San Vicente – the company that coordinates the coffee we buy from Santa Barbara. Over the past several years, one particular hillside has become the largest supplier of CoE winners in Honduras. The most successful farms with the smartest and most innovative farmers are neighbours on this hillside and they help each other to refine the best of their lots.

There exists an eagerness here; a willingness, motivation and ambition to produce the best coffee in the country. But there are also large differences amongst the farmers and our purpose is to be close to this special coffee community and get to know the most ambitious of the farmers here; the ones we can develop something with. In order to build relationships – that allow both parties to have a common understanding of quality coffee – there must be frequent and long-term presence.

To produce coffee that tastes fruity is not very complicated. But to produce coffee that is clean, clear, fresh and fruity – that’s an art. One of the biggest assumptions within specialty coffee is that coffee from high- altitude areas naturally exhibits these characteristics. But high elevation can lead to potential problems, even in tropical climates.

In the highest areas of Santa Barbara, up to and over 1800 meters, producers can experience “freezing”: the combination of temperatures between 4-5C and rainfall that combine to cause cherries to not ripen and leaves to die on the bush. These conditions create a cold and humid climate, which is hazardous for processing and requires steady and reliable drying conditions for coffee so quality will not deteriorate. These natural conditions, of course, cannot be evaded. But clever and prescient coffee farmers, like the ones we collaborate with, invest in drying systems that minimize the risks associated with weather.

pdf version

Producer Profile: Salvador Guzman

Salvador Guzman Location: El Cielito, Santa Barbara Altitude (masl): 1350-1450 Variety: Pacas Size of the farm (ha): 3.5 Average production per year: 10-14 bags Process: Washed

Background to Santa Barbara

The villages Cielito, Cedral and Las Flores follow one after another along the mountain range in Santa Barbara. Grown on this hillside is mostly Pacas, a coffee species akin to Bourbon, as well as Yellow Catuaí and Pacamara. It is challenging to process coffee cherries in areas like these, which are close to the jungle and thus, to rain. The drying process, in particular, is especially demanding. But when these processes are precisely controlled, seemingly problematic factors (like drying under challenging conditions) are what make coffee from this area particularly interesting. The coffee produced here cups with flavour attributes not found anywhere else in Central America.

Since 2005, the region, Santa Barbara, and the small producers living and working there, have shared the distinction as the place and the people producing exceptional coffee within Honduras. Our work and the beginning of the on-going relationships we’ve since established here began during the 2005 Cup of Excellence. We came to realize that there are exceptional producers from this small area. And since that inaugural year, we have purchased from over twenty different Santa Barbara producers.

Located in the village of Pena Blanca is coffee exporter San Vicente – the company that coordinates the coffee we buy from Santa Barbara. Over the past several years, one particular hillside has become the largest supplier of CoE winners in Honduras. The most successful farms with the smartest and most innovative farmers are neighbours on this hillside and they help each other to refine the best of their lots.

There exists an eagerness here; a willingness, motivation and ambition to produce the best coffee in the country. But there are also large differences amongst the farmers and our purpose is to be close to this special coffee community and get to know the most ambitious of the farmers here; the ones we can develop something with. In order to build relationships – that allow both parties to have a common understanding of quality coffee – there must be frequent and long-term presence.

To produce coffee that tastes fruity is not very complicated. But to produce coffee that is clean, clear, fresh and fruity – that’s an art. One of the biggest assumptions within specialty coffee is that coffee from high- altitude areas naturally exhibits these characteristics. But high elevation can lead to potential problems, even in tropical climates.

In the highest areas of Santa Barbara, up to and over 1800 meters, producers can experience “freezing”: the combination of temperatures between 4-5C and rainfall that combine to cause cherries to not ripen and leaves to die on the bush. These conditions create a cold and humid climate, which is hazardous for processing and requires steady and reliable drying conditions for coffee so quality will not deteriorate. These natural conditions, of course, cannot be evaded. But clever and prescient coffee farmers, like the ones we collaborate with, invest in drying systems that minimize the risks associated with weather.

pdf version

Farm Profile: Sao Joaquim

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Farm: São Joaquim Area (ha): 42 City: Conceição das pedras Region: Conceição das pedrasAltitude (masl): 1200-1450Varieties: Yellow Catuai,Red Catuai, Mundo Novo Process: Natural

About

The Sao Joaquim property is heritage of Jesimar grandfather, Mr. Vicente Garcia de Oliveira. In 1953, Mr. Garcia de Oliveira planted the first coffee tree on the property and over the years, the property has passed from grandfather to father to son and now Jesimar holds the family tradition in being a third generation coffee farmer. Jesimar’s father always maintained that his father was able to raise himself and his siblings from the income coffee generated; this has continued to the current generation and Jesimar is also able to raise his children with the income obtained from coffee. In Jesimar’s time, farm production has diversified from coffee production only to an expansion into banana and livestock production as well as coffee.

In 2009, Jesimar sadly lost his son in a truck accident and found some solace within his work on the farm. The farm and its cultivation of coffee became a type of therapy for Jesimar during this period of mourning and reflection.

In 2012 one of Jesimar sent a sample to the “Late Harvest” Cup of Excellence competition where it surprisingly won with a score of 92.13. São Joaquim became an instantly recognized farm in Brazil and the world.

Since 2012, Jesimar changed the way he runs the farm and now dedicates his work and focus on the production of specialty coffees. When asked about future challenges in improving quality, Jesimar says:

“My plan is to make a more selective harvesting of coffee [cherries] but this can only be done through long-term partnerships."

Background to Carmo de Minas

Over the past decade, Brazil as a nation has experienced fantastic economic growth in every field, with higher purchasing power and an ever-increasing standard of living. At least 20 million people have risen above the poverty-line and the middle-class has grown by 40 million in a relatively few number of years. The value of labor has also increased: Brazil now has full employment and rising wages. All of this naturally affects the cost of coffee production in general, but it especially affects labor-intensive coffee (read: new processing methods with even higher costs). In some cases it is difficult to find labor at all, especially for farm work. Incentives must be strengthened in order to keep people at work within coffee. And as the world’s largest producer of coffee, Brazilian coffee is the main component of blends all over the world. Thus, the price paid for Brazilian coffee is a reflection of the fact that coffee from here is considered a base product. In parallel with fluctuations in world markets and in the pricing of coffee in general, the specialty coffee segment has established its own price dynamics.

Although coffee is an old commodity in Brazil, over the past 10-12 years, the country has been showcasing its very best coffee and it has only been in the last 7-8 years that coffee in the Carmo de Minas municipality has been particularly noteworthy.

Carmo is one village among twenty in the Mantiqueira region, south of the Minas Gerais county, in Sul de Minas. In the same way that Burgundy is an important name in the French world of wine, Carmo de Minas has become a destination in the Brazilian coffee world. Some of its distinction can be attributed to topographic and climatic conditions, but as always, there are people engaged – from picking coffee cherries to processing; both crucial to the quality of the product. People make the difference.

Although many of the farms in this area have won awards and garnered attention in recent years, there have not really been radical changes in farming and processing methods. Not even in terms of picking. We believe that the area has achieved its status with a little bit of luck, good growing conditions, good plant material – mostly Bourbon – but otherwise quite ordinary craft. However, good coffee has come out of all this and as a result, Carmo has experienced a “clean sweep” in Cup of Excellence competitions. But the quality can be even better, as well as the amount of the best coffee increased.

Jacques Pereira Carneiro represents the new generation in Carmo. Together with cousin Luis Paulo (who currently is president of Brazil Specialty Coffee Association (BSCA)), he runs the coffee export firm Carmo Coffees. These two men represent a 5th generation of coffee farmers and they collectively oversee 12 farms and 6 processing stations – altogether owned by their Pereira family. This family is also members of the cooperative Coca Rive, which offers its members courses on taste evaluation, distribution of fertilizer and storage facilities. Coca Rive has 400 members and is the smallest of the smallest cooperatives in the Carmo region, with its 8000 coffee farms. Previously Coca Rive worked almost exclusively with commercial coffee in this area and a few years ago it was a challenge to fill even one container (300 bags) of specialty coffee. Last year Carmo Coffees sold 150 containers of coffee over 80-points. We at CCS expect true specialty coffee from 86-points, but know that this proportion is also increasing in Carmo.

Carmo’s reputation is so well established that there is an ever-increasing demand for more coffee of their quality. Carmo Coffees does not just work with its own family’s production; it works hard to provide coffee from farms outside the family’s, including coffee from other districts. Pedralva, for example, is just a few miles from Carmo de Minas and many of the farms here are good, with altitudes up to 1400 meters above sea level. The work now is for a few farmers to push the idea of working a little differently to achieve better quality. With higher prices in the specialty coffee segment comes the motivation to do better than before. According to Jacques, this change can be facilitated, but the first challenge is to pick a technique. On top of this are the added associated costs. Historically, the picking technique has been picking the coffee bush clean (stripping) during one picking and one harvesting season. Most people do this and even use partially mechanized equipment to do the job, which is more time-effective. But to get the sweetest coffee, you have to pick the sweetest, ripest cherries.

Minimum wage has increased to about $500 per month and although this is a low salary on any scale, these wages mean that the work of selective hand-picking coffee cherries represents up to 2/3 of the total cost of coffee production, even when coffee is sold at a 100% premium over commodity coffee.

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FOTOS 234

A Natural(s) Backdrop

In Brazil, historically, processing coffee cherries has been equivalent to just drying them. The coffee cherries are kept intact while drying, neither requiring water nor involving any mechanical procedures. The natural process, then, has been a resource saving method altogether.

Although the natural process is solely a drying process, there are traditional and regional variations as to how the process is done. In one method the cherries are fully matured and fully dried while still hanging on the tree. But more often, cherries will be picked at the ‘average peak’ of maturation, and then dried in the sun or in a mechanical drier. In any case, and at any given time, all the cherries on a tree will be at various levels of maturation, or more or less dried.

Generally, labor cost is becoming an impactful economical factor in many coffee countries, particularly with a rapidly growing economy like Brazil has been experiencing in recent years. The expenses spent on picking the cherries off the coffee trees may represent a high percentage of the total cost of producing the coffee, thus the harvest regime is crucial for sustaining a sound coffee farming business. In Brazil, in most areas (and most commonly), coffee trees are harvested once every harvest with a traditional ‘stripping’ technique that is less labor intensive than selective cherry picking: All the cherries are removed from each branch in one swift maneuver. It has also become common to use mechanical equipment to save on labor involved with the harvest.

Natural processed coffee counts for more than 80% of the total volume produced in Brazil and in some regions it is still the only processing method. Access to water resources has obviously played a role in this, as well as varying degrees of access to the marketplace itself. It wasn’t until the early-1990s, with the introduction of Pinhalense de-pulping machines, which removes the skin and mucilage from the bean before drying, that the pulped natural process became an option. The pulped natural process was initially introduced as way a to add value to Brazilian commodity coffee: to provide it with a cleaner coffee flavor. The market has responded to this by paying a premium for a clearer cup profile.

The machinery used for pulped natural processing is equipped with a feature that pre-screens cherries mechanically before the actual de-pulping process starts.

When ‘stripping’ is the most common picking regime, the mechanical post-picking cherry quality selection is the key factor in achieving a cleaner cup profile. This is what pulped natural processed coffee has been associated with.

With this as a backdrop two intriguing questions arise:

1. What is the flavor potential of a Brazilian natural processed coffee if the cherries are picked carefully and selectively before drying?
2. How should cherries be dried anyway? With full sun exposure, or more gently under shade or more controlled environment?

The next posts will explore the themes arising from these questions, so stay tuned!

- Robert

Warm up to LCDC 2.0 at Belleville, November 6, 2014

Bonjour Paris!

Melanie will be in town this Thursday as part of a warm-up to Le Carnaval du Café 2.0, which kicks-off January 25, 2015 at the beautiful La Bellevilloise of Paris.

For those of you who didn't join us during Le Carnaval du Café 2012, one of our esteemed guests was Dr. Flávio Borém, who presented findings from his research on natural processing in Brazil. Flávio is not only the pre-eminent researcher on coffee quality post-harvest (processing, drying, storage); he is also a naturals-processing specialist: from both research and cupping aspects. To give the briefest of backgrounds to this, naturals are vitally important to Brazil's coffee production as it makes up 80-85% of all coffee exported from Brazil. However, Brazilian naturals have been disregarded from a specialty coffee standpoint because much of it is regarded as inferior in quality and taste in comparison to coffee processed through other methods. What we at CCS have found is that there are great naturals to be had - it's a matter of finding the right partners that do naturals right.

During this week's warm-up event, Melanie will present some updates on some of these themes, as well as cup samples from this year's harvest to showcase just how far some Brazilian naturals have come in cup quality.

Welcome!

Event details

Location: Belleville, 10 rue Pradier

Date/Time: Thursday,  November 6th from 16:00

Colombia: A Clash of Mindsets

Remember the days when the main quality distinction among Colombian Coffee qualities was Excelso (‘export quality’) and Supremo (‘export quality’, bigger screen)? Those were the days…

Looking back just a few years in time, it is evident that the development of ‘Specialty Coffee’ as a term and as a mindset has changed how we perceive coffee, how we describe it (with flavor attributes), how we communicate about it (as product from a concrete place and person) and how it is traded (transparently).

One may take these things for granted today. As we all should.

Soon Colombia will celebrate its 10^th year as member of the growing and still exclusive group of coffee producing countries that have been scrutinized and recognized by the Cup of Excellence (CoE) program. The program’s mission is to bring farmers to the forefront, by acknowledging both their existence and individually crafted products.

Up until ten years ago ‘Colombian Coffee’ had been presented to the world by a very different marketing concept. As early as in 1958, the Colombian Federacion Nacional de Cafeteros (FNC) created Juan Valdez, a marketing mascot playing the role as a personification of the Colombian Coffee Farmer. ‘He’ is not only a fictive figure, but has represented FNC’s marketing concept which, quite tellingly, has been a presentation of the entire community of Colombian coffee farmers, meant to build a collective pride as a nation of coffee famers. And it has worked well for a long time.

Colombian coffee had been marketed as a brand and as a blend, made collectively by the country’s half million coffee farmers, and managed to build a worldwide reputation for its quality. It had fame and recognition and became a staple on every roaster’s menu. CoE’s concept of bringing farmers individually and personally into the light and onto the stage, which at the time was a new idea, didn’t fit perfectly well with how Colombian coffee had been marketed by the FNC in the past.

With the CoE competition in 2005, this was literally the first - and ultimate - test of what Colombian Coffee really was about. Since the average production at a coffee farm in Colombia is much less than the CoE program’s minimum submission requirement of 12 bags, farmers were allowed to form groups with coffee from up to three farms constituting a CoE competition-lot. Despite this stipulation, samples representing over 800 lots were submitted to FNC’s center in Manizales that first year, where the national CoE jury first pre-screened the samples based on technical quality and then began the comprehensive cupping/further screening and re-cupping processes of the remaining 150+ samples. Of these, the international jury were presented with 60+ of the best samples and given the task of cupping and scoring them all over again. The CoE international jury’s mandate is to screen the national jury’s selection further in order to find the very best lots (at the time those who scored an average of 84pts or more), and then ranking these top coffees, as well as describing each coffee’s attributes.

Many of the well-known personalities, new and old in the coffee trade, were on that jury, including the gracious Grand Lady of Specialty Coffee, Erna Knudsen. As a matter of fact, it was she who coined the term Specialty Coffee almost thirty years prior to this event.

During the course of two weeks, all the samples from the submitted lots were cupped five times, but even with all that, on the final table, when ranking the top 10 coffees on the final day of the competition, samples were rejected for phenolic off-flavors, a defect that is usually related to issues with the processing of the coffee cherries. Hey, Juan Valdez, what was going on?!

In the end, the remaining top coffees were fantastic and all the farmers’ names were revealed. The winners received their standing ovations and sold their coffees at the auction at record prices. Regions and microclimates were discovered. A new era began.

Still, this was also a time for reflection on how to approach the seemingly endemic processing issue that had thrown so many coffees out of the competition.

Meanwhile, another kind of problem had been threatening the Colombian coffee tree population for a long while. Coffee Leaf Rust, La Roya, is such a long-standing phenomenon that Colombians commonly use it as a slang term for something that ‘takes with it whatever comes in its way’: La Roya se lo llevó. Coffee farmers have had to struggle with climate and climate changes that have created environments where fungi that can kill coffee trees leaves are able to flourish. The traditional ‘Colombia Varietal’, a Catimor hybrid, was designed to be Leaf Rust resistant, whereas the Caturra varietal became known to be more susceptible to it, yet many farmers have been able to work out Roya-threats proactively.

Coffee is a cash crop; it is handled as any other cash crop, like soy, maize, beans, bananas, etc. Coffee farming in Colombia is usually a rather non-technical enterprise, often times with little planning, thus no calculations for concrete outcomes. With little control over harvest outcome, revenue, and cost control, one becomes vulnerable to unexpected problems and market price volatilities. Coffee farming is often times a losing proposition.

Being on top of the game requires more than just will. Taking care of a farm, particularly with the ever-present risk of a Roya-attack, is labor intensive and costly. Cleaning weeds, pruning trees, fertilizing, and in order to maintain sound trees is key, particularly when there is an environmental threat lurking. A healthy tree is generally less susceptible to diseases like Roya. If proactive spraying is necessary, usually done with copper, this is an extra cost to already expensive regular operations.

One may take the chance and do nothing about disease prevention, but if the farmer wants to be proactive and doesn’t have money saved from previous harvest sales to buy the required products and pay for the labor to apply it, he can easily find himself within the hands of those money lenders, or those who sell disease prevention products on a credit basis. These suppliers can be private, sometimes a cooperative, but usually the supplier is the FNC itself. The same FNC that guarantees buying coffee at the market price, but at market price only…

One of the results of all of this is that the concept of investing in a coffee farm and keeping healthy coffee trees isn’t necessarily a viable path from an economic perspective - considering the level at which coffee is usually paid for. So when fertilizers and fungicides are needed, a vicious cycle of borrowing money before the upcoming harvest can easily develop. When you don't own the revenue for your own coffee harvest until all debt has been paid off (sometimes at exploitative high interest rates) it becomes tempting to not spend extra money on the farm.

For Colombia, as a coffee producing country, this kind of vicious cycle has been even bigger. When millions of trees lost their leaves, partly due to insufficiently attentive farming practices or plain negligence, many farms lost entire harvests, meaning Colombia as a nation lost a lot of revenue. The FNC went on the hunt for solutions!

This is when the Castillo varietal, a modern version of the Colombia (Catimor) varietal, was developed and pushed for by the FNC. Castillo was cleverly designed as 11 different types, meant to be ‘site specific’ to particular geography, environmental and climatic conditions around the country. But the FNC not only encouraged farmers to exchange the Roya-susceptible Caturras into Castillo; Castillo was made a requisite variety, meaning it became eligible for subsidies and credits from the government.

Castillo has its benefits. It can be planted more densely (higher yield per hectare), the trees are shorter (easier to access for cherry pickers), and it produces more even cherry ripening than other varietals (making the harvest season shorter). Though whether Castillo continues to be resistant to Roya, or other fungi, in the future is as yet to be seen. Coffee farming may not prove to be that simple.

The good news for Colombia is that tanking production levels and a record low of 7 million bags is now turning around. Production levels are back at 11 million bags; approximately where they were ten years ago.

In the meantime, the country has transformed itself into a ‘Castillo-origin’ making the other varietals (Caturra, Bourbon, Typica, Tabi, etc.) more difficult to find. Begging the question: How smart is this, when a growing market is asking for diversity and specialty quality?

And this is all political. Of course it is!

As a nation, for which the GDP is dependent on coffee, the market price level matters.

On the other hand, Colombia’s coffee production level (volume) affects the world market and international coffee price. In any economy where a product is – to such an extent – culturally engrained, is so much part of national identity, with so many livelihoods dependent on it, it will be – and should be – a political matter. But as is any political matter in any modern society, it is – and should be – up for debate; the policymakers in power accepting of questions. As independent as the FNC is supposed to be, there is no question that it is seen as, as well as functions as, an extension of the governing institutions of the country. I get this perception. Policies need to adapt to changes occurring over time, whether they are internal or, as is very much the case with coffee, international. Today, the parties on both ends of the chain, the producers and the buyers, are interacting and communicating more transparently than ever before.*

Colombia is not merely a coffee supplier; the ‘market’ is not merely asking for supply.

For one, the ‘market’ is divided into at least three coffee segments:

- Commodity coffee (sold at NYC with a differential);

- Certified coffee (sold with a premium);

- Specialty Coffee (sold at a negotiated price based on quality assessments, including cup attributes).

With this backdrop and based on recent visits, my next article will look into what is happening in the field of Specialty Coffee in Colombia right now.

As an important aside, the Cup of Excellence program celebrates its 100^th competition this fall. Susie Spindler, the program’s director for many years has chosen to step down, thus we should take a moment to reflect on her formidable and significant contribution; building CoE’s credibility by holding firmly to it’s protocol, which has helped to define Specialty Coffee as we know it today. CoE, under Susie’s tenure, has helped create an understanding of the individual origins it has been present in since the program’s inception in Brazil, 1999.

Looking back at a hundreds of years of coffee history, this understanding has developed a long way in a very short time. Thank You Susie!

- Robert W

*In the case of Specialty Coffee we are seeing a drive toward taking charge of the production by ‘designing quality’ for specific markets. With so many Colombian farms being re-planted with the Castillo Varietal, the question becomes if the Country is able to meet the demand of an increasingly growing Specialty Coffee market.

Collaboration, Community & Le Carnaval du Café (postponed!)

Roundabout_2

‘Collaboration’ isn’t even our middle name; it’s our first name, which means we really want to work together with awesome people to make awesome things happen.

This is why Collaborative Coffee Source has put together a fantastic program for Le Carnaval du Café event in Paris, yet we regret to announce that LCDC will be postponed to January 26 & 27, 2015. We are sorry for the inconvenience this may cause some of you!

Collaboration

Colombia is one of many important countries in the world of coffee – so to call it a particular focus for CCS would be unfair to all the other origins. But we are studying it very closely and making sure we get great coffee for our roasting customers all over the globe. That is always a focus anyway.

This is why I’ve been back in Colombia for the second time in just a few weeks and am planning to go back again when the harvest really starts in November. Thus far I have visited well familiar places and exciting new regions, continuously meeting with the most ambitious farmers and getting acquainted with a half-dozen Colombian coffee exporters; setting up the best logistical channels for swift handling of these precious beans.

I went to the ASIC conference in Colombia recently to pick up the very latest news from the coffee research community, meeting with coffee chemistry geeks from all over the world, but most importantly people who can shed some light on the latest events in the development of Colombian Coffee itself. Because we want to present some of that at LCDC!

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Community

We may be the smallest coffee trading company on the planet and are trotting all over it anyway. I’m confident that we are making an impact: In the past few weeks, the CCS-team has presented new and upcoming harvests at events in Oslo, Paris, Taipei, Tokyo, Moscow and New York.

Wherever we go we meet with eager roasters and other professionals that are truly inspiring to us, and it feels like we are all building something very meaningful together. There is a great sense of community that we are so grateful to be part of. CCS wants to contribute in every possible way. We are dead serious about coffee professionalism and making it a sustainable business, but we love to play a little too. That is why we want to make the LCDC event so cool and collegial!

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Le Carnaval du Café

We’ve been very proud and happy about how the program has been coming together. We are thankful to those that have eagerly said yes to present at LCDC. Until now I haven’t even mentioned that Oliver Strand from the New York Times is going to present about an interesting chapter from his new coffee book, about the current coffee/political situation in the Nyeri region of Kenya; or that Carlos Arévalo, from Colombia is going to speak about the new wave of experimental processing techniques that are being done there, particularly with the infamous Castillo varietal. He has many years of experience in the coffee industry and is working as a consultant for La Palma y El Tucan. Then there is all the related cupping of course!

We have decided to postpone the event simply because we want more people to be able to attend this awesome event. The feedback has been that November 2014 seems to be difficult for some, while in January 2015 we can fill the house with you all! Welcome back!

- Robert W

Tickets now in stock for Le Carnaval du Café 4-6 November 2014

We are happy to tell you the tickets for Le Carnaval du Café 2014 are now in stock, friends! You can buy your ticket from our brand new website lecarnavalducafe.com where you can find all the information of the event. Read more what the tickets will include. The price for a LCDC 2014 ticket is now set to 600 USD. A ticket includes the entire program during 4-6 November 2014 in Paris:

• Presentations
• Cuppings
• Meet-and-Greet workshop
• lunch in 5th and 6th November
• snacks during the days
• Material prior to and during the event
• Your own LCDC cupping spoon
• LCDC closing dinner on 6th hosted by our friends 32 Cup

The tickets can be bought via PayPal so if you already have an account for PayPal, buying a ticket is easy and quick. If you have to create an PayPal account, it is also really simple and you can find directions on our website how to do it.

Event program

Meet-and-Greet - Late Afternoon, Tuesday, November 4 LCDC starts with a meet-and-greet amongst participants. We are meeting later in the afternoon so that participants flying into Paris have a chance to settle in during the morning. We will all gather for a workshop in a Parisian coffee facility (location TBA). 

Day 1: East Africa Day, 9am-5pm Wednesday, November 5

The day will is all lectures and cuppings about our East African focus countries, Burundi and Ethiopia. Confirmed speakers are Paul Songer, Heleanna Georgalis and Lauren Rosenberg with Oliver Strand acting as discussion moderator.

Day 2: Latin America Day, 9am-5pm Thursday, November 6

The second full day of the event will focus on lectures and cuppings of our Latin American focus countries, Honduras and TBA. In the evening, LCDC’s closing dinner will be hosted by our friends, 32Cup, venue TBA.

See you all in Paris! Le Carnaval du Café 2014 will be held in beautiful and historic La Bellevilloise.

Le Carnaval du Café will land in La Bellevilloise: 4-6 November 2014

Le Carnaval du Café is a celebration of coffee in a comprehensive sense: it’s a time for illuminating the latest in coffee research, a space where merited farmers and exporters get to share their valuable knowledge and expertise, it’s a collegial gathering of researchers, roasters, farmers and exporters—passionate coffee craftspeople. In Paris, no less! We are pleased to announce we have now landed on the venue and dates for this year’s LCDC: La Bellevilloise, a cultural and historic venue in Paris will be Carnaval’s home this year from Tuesday, November 4th to Thursday, November 6th, 2014.

Schedule

Late Afternoon Tuesday, November 4

LCDC starts with a meet-and-greet amongst participants. We’re setting the time later in the day so that participants flying into Paris that morning can have a bit of time to settle into their accommodation and make their way to this first gathering.

9am-5pm Wednesday, November 5 and Thursday, November 6

These are the two main days. All the lectures/presentations and cuppings will take place at La Bellevilloise from 9 AM to approximately 4-5 PM.

Evening, Thursday, November 6

LCDC’s closing dinner will be hosted by our friends, 32 Cup. Venue TBA.

While the event ends on Thursday, hopefully some of you will stay in Paris for the weekend to enjoy all the city has to offer in terms of cultural events, food and coffee culture. We’ve got a lot of recommendations for you; a list carefully curated by our Parisian coffee friends who are in the know. On the other hand, the event ends early enough for you to be home for the weekend. Nice, right?

Historic venue

La Bellevilloise is beautiful historic venue with many big spaces and we have rented their Le Forum for our event. Le Forum is bright hall where we are going to have a stage for the speakers to put them on a spotlight what they truly deserve. The space additionally contains two other rooms where we are going to set our cupping tables and an area for relaxation between the presentations.

Read of the interesting history of La Bellevilloise:

” Founded in 1877 near Père Lachaise cemetery, right after the Commune, La Bellevilloise is the first Parisian cooperative built to offer to the middle class an access to political education and culture. A place of resistance where the first commercial exchanges from producer to consumer, early equitable trade and shows took place, La Bellevilloise had a main role in the economical and cultural life of the eastern Paris from 1910 to 1949. Since 2005, Renaud Barillet, Fabrice Martinez and Philippe Jupin, three agitators from the living arts production, media and production industry reopened this historical building with a strong project: give a second life to the spirit of La Bellevilloise by creating a huge independent place with artistic activities and happenings for the public, companies and media which is unique in Paris.”

More info coming this week!

Read more at Le Carnaval du Café 2014 website: http://lecarnavalducafe.com/

We have a limited amount of tickets in our pockets so be quick! Reserve your spot here by email to hanna@collaborativecoffeesource.com.

Coffee Profile: Limu

 

Type of Coffee: Limu Variety: Limu Heirloom Area: Limu, Djimmah Altitude (masl): 1800-2000

About

This coffee comes from within the Limu area within the Greater Djimmah region. Limu coffee, is not just “Washed Djimmah”. It has its own special genetic profile and its own unique cup profile, which is like a smooth red wine; an elegant coffee from the Highlands of Southeast Ethiopia.

All sundried coffee from Limu has been traditionaly exported as “Djimmah”, while all washed coffee from Djimmah has been exported as “Limu”. This approach, unfortunately, contributes to the incorrect perception that “Limu” is simply a “washed Djimmah” when in actual fact, coffees from Limu are quite distinct and beautiful.

CCS works with a private company that purchases coffees through the ECX, where the majority of Ethiopian coffee is sold. Once coffee is purchased from auction, our partner hand sorts and prepares the green coffee to CCS’ quality specifications. The selection of the coffees from the auction is of premium quality with CCS preferences in mind. 

Washed Process

Coffee cherries, are delivered to the washing stations within four hours from the time they were handpicked from the trees. Coffee is then passed through a pulping machine. Once cherries have been depulped, the remaining coffee husks float through channels to an area where it is dried and stored to eventually be used as fertilization. The coffee seeds float through the water channels (“flotation”) and this process sorts the heavier more mature beans from the lighter, greener and less mature beans.

After flotation, the mature and dense coffee is moved to tanks full of water, where fermentation will take place. Fermentation removes the sugars that remain in the skin of the seed and the chosen process is determined based on the climatic conditions of the region the washing station is located. This process usually spans from 36 to 76 hours. Once sugars have been completely eliminated through the fermentation process, the coffee moves under the sun for drying in parchment.

The “washed process” is favoured for its stability. By eliminating the sugars in the fermentation process, the drying process is less risky as less microorganisms that can affect quality have the potential to develop. Secondly, washed coffee cup brighter, with more delicate characteristics. Acidity is highlighted.

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Coffee Profile: Kochere

Type of Coffee: Yirgachefe Variety: Yirgachefe Heirloom Area: Gedeo Town: Kochere Altitude (masl): 1800-2100

About

Washed Yirgacheffe Kochere is a coffee from GEDEO, but from a smaller geographical area, called Kochere. Kochere coffee is more acidic, with a bright acidity as the altitude is higher, and the most common variety there is Kurume, hence the coffee beans are smaller. Altitude is 1800-2100 metres as Kochere extends through a mountain.This coffee is exported a “Yirgacheffe” in accordance with the Ethiopian Commodities Exchange (ECX) classification system. Under this system, all the coffee produced within the large Yirgacheffe area is called “Yirgacheffe Coffee”.

As coffee is pulped, the sugars remain on the bean and these sugars are then fermented in water in fermentation tanks for a period spanning 48-76 hours, depending on the heat and altitude from where the coffee is delivered. Once sugars are completely eliminated through the fermentation process the coffee moves under the sun for drying in parchment.The acidity of washed Ethiopian coffees is much more pronounced due to the fact that the sugars have been removed from the coffee. In contrast to the natural process, where sweetness is key, one can more clearly perceive the acidity in these washed coffees.

Ethiopian coffee is still made up of many wild growing coffee plants – most of them have not yet been classified, so the genetic diversity is innumerable and is still very much being studied and explored. While varieties do change from region to region within Ethiopia, you will often see “landraces” or “heirloom” listed as the varieties, even though this does not denote a homogenous genetic pool covering all of Ethiopia.

Being wild, these varieties have evolved naturally and so are well adapted to their surroundings. All this means that chemical inputs (fertilizers), pesticides, herbicides and fungicides are rarely needed/in use in Ethiopia; the majority of coffee produced is organic in the truest sense of the word.

Our washed coffees are carefully selected, rigorously sorted (by both machine and hand) and curated together with Heleanna Georgalis of Moplaco Trading Co. Heleanna and her team purchase coffees from the Ethiopia Commodities Exchange (ECX) and once the coffees arrive at their facility in Addis, they are meticulously sorted so that the full potential of each lot is clearly distinguishable. The current iteration of the ECX is structured in such a way that transparency (i.e. knowing the specific people involved with harvesting, and the place the coffee was grown and processed) is not available. Licensed exporters like Heleanna purchase coffees based on three criteria: broad geographic areas (e.g. Yirgacheffe, Sidamo), quality grade as determined by the ECX (e.g. Q1, Q2), and the lot’s date of submission to the auction. Bidders are not allowed to see or taste the coffee prior to bidding. These realities are why the work of Heleanna’s processing and export team is so fundamental to the quality of the coffee our roasters receive; it’s why we consider Moplaco to be a “producer”.

Important Terms & People within Ethiopian Coffee Production and Export

Garden coffee: coffee grown and harvested on smallholder property.

Semi-forest coffee: coffee that grows under a forest canopy. The land below the canopy belongs to a farmer who produces coffee in addition to other crops.

Forest coffee: coffee grown in forests protected by the Ethiopian government. People are given permission to harvest cherries. No people-induced cultivation is allowed.

Plantation coffee: coffee grown on privately owned commercial farms.

Smallholder: coffee farmers owning smaller plots of land.

Collector: a person that bought coffee cherries and in turn sold to suppliers (i.e. washing stations). In the current version of the ECX, there are no longer collectors.

Supplier: washing stations that are owned by a private person, or a cooperative. They deliver processed coffee to the ECX.

Exporter: can be a private person/company, a commercial farm, a union (usually supplied by cooperatives), or a government plantation. Commercial farms can only export their own production.

The ECX system: previous & new 

The ECX auction system was established in 2008 and is a private company made up of private parties and the Ethiopian government. It was set up, ostensibly, to protect the rights of all parties involved, from sellers, to buyers, to intermediaries.

During its early iteration, smallholders sold their cherries to a collector, who bought cherries from throughout their area and in turn sold to suppliers/washing stations. Collectors had to obtain licenses in order to buy from their specific areas (e.g. Kochere), to which they had to strictly adhere.

Once processed by a washing station, coffee was delivered to the auction in Addis and were cupped and graded by the Coffee Liquoring Unity (CLU). Auctions occurred daily and exporters had the opportunity to see the samples, which together with the coffee’s region, is what they based their purchasing decisions on. In this early system, the name of the region (e.g. Yirgacheffe) as well as its specific locality (e.g. Kochere) and sub-locality (e.g Chelelektu) were transparent. Also available was the name of the supplier/washing station. Notably, exporters did not have the opportunity to cup these samples; only look at the sample and see its lot info. This is in contrast with other auction systems, such as Kenya’s (for example), where exporters routinely cup coffees they’re interested in.

Once the auction ended, the trucks containing the lots were sent to the exporter’s warehouse within the same day. This allowed for good quality control—trucks delivering coffee that did not match the sample could be sent back—and it allowed for price discovery via the knowledge about specific geographic origin and the exporter’s knowledge of demand for the various regions. One downside and perhaps a subsequent reason that the ECX was changed is that certain suppliers and exporters would enter into prior agreements so that the supplier could end up withdrawing from a sale if the highest bidder was not the same person it entered into a pre-arrangement with.

In the newer version of the auction, which was implemented quite soon after the first version of the ECX, collectors were eliminated and centralized marketplaces were implemented. So now, rather than suppliers buying from collectors or specific smallholders, they buy from centralized markets: cherry prices are based on the “market price”. One big effect of this change is that suppliers can no longer negotiate prices based on whose cherries they like better: they have to buy lots based on what’s available at the market.

Once the coffee (in parchment for washed; hulled for natural) arrives at the specific auction allocated for that particular region (e.g. Dilla auction for Yirgacheffe region), it is cupped and graded by the ECX lab within the facility, each truck that contains specific lots from specific washing stations is given a number so that its identifying information is only known by the Ministry of Agriculture, and exporters purchase based on the region and ECX grade. For washed Yirgacheffe coffees, there is an additional identifier: type A are coffees that have the “Yirgacheffe flavour” and type B are coffees that do not have the “Yirgacheffe flavour”. Washed and natural coffees have slightly different classifications.

About Moplaco

Yanni Georgalis established Moplaco in 1972 and was a third generation coffee exporter. Yanni was highly respected not only within Ethiopia but was well known and beloved by buyers of Ethiopian coffee around the world. He rightfully maintained a reputation for not only selling the highest quality coffee, but also for his integrity in all aspects of the business. Heleanna, Yianni’s daughter, then comes from a long and established lineage of highly respected Ethiopian coffee exporters.

Heleanna is a courageous woman and has done an admirable job of continuing the legacy of her father’s at Moplaco while also carving out her own version of it in the years since her father’s passing. Under her leadership, Moplaco is constantly evolving to produce ever-increasing quality coffee in spite of the complexity and challenges continually present within Ethiopia’s coffee production and auction systems. Born in East Harar Heleanna, as a young girl, was forced to flea her home in the face of civil war and so grew up and was educated in and around Europe, where she eventually established a successful career in finance. She neither imagined nor planned to find herself back in Ethiopia and working in the footsteps of her father within the world of specialty coffee.

After the sudden passing of her father in 2008, Heleanna was faced with a difficult crossroads: continue the legacy her father had meticulously built with almost no knowledge about the coffee business, or continue on the path she had created for herself within the world of finance. We are very glad and lucky she chose coffee. True to her personality and way of approaching new challenges, Heleanna completely immersed herself in learning about roasting, cupping, agronomy (including the latest research and practices in natural processing) and the niche markets of specialty coffee all around the world. Though she admits that these challenges were extremely daunting at times—and sometimes continues to be—Heleanna continues to trailblaze her way through specialty coffee and is consistently updating herself on the latest trends and experiments in agricultural and processing techniques, travelling around the world to meet with and discuss these developments with the best and brightest producers and coffee researchers.

pdf version

Coffee Profile: Sidamo Guji

Type of Coffee: Guji Variety: Guji Heirloom Area: Gedeo Altitude (masl): 1770-2100

About

This coffee is exported a “Sidamo” in accordance with the Ethiopian Commodities Exchange (ECX) classification system. Under this system, all the coffee produced within the large Sidamo area is called “Sidamo Coffee”. In fact CCS “Sidamo” coffees are of the “GUJI Type”: a coffee that has a clear cardamon, black tea flavour, coming from producers whose farms are located at altitude ranges from 1770 (in Shekiso, for example) to 2100 metres. Guji is on the side of Gedeo and it is a very big area.

CCS works with a private company (much coffee is sold through cooperatives) that purchases coffees through the ECX. Once coffee is purchased from auction, our partner hand sorts and prepares the green coffee to CCS quality specifications.

Washed Process

As coffee is pulped, the sugars remain on the bean and these sugars are then fermented in water in fermentation tanks for a period spanning 48-76 hours, depending on the heat and altitude from where the coffee is delivered. Once sugars are completely eliminated through the fermentation process the coffee moves under the sun for drying in parchment.

The acidity of washed Ethiopian coffees is much more pronounced due to the fact that the sugars have been removed from the coffee. In contrast to the natural process, where sweetness is key, one can more clearly perceive the acidity in these washed coffees.

pdf version

Craft Coffee in Burundi?

I was in Burundi in June to cup the freshly harvested coffees. Even though I’ve spent quite a bit of time in Burundi, particularly in the Kayanza province (of increasing fame via Cup of Excellence), this was my first time travelling to the country as a coffee buyer. I conducted some field research there in 2012 as a master student and now during this recent trip, began to recognize a lot of background reasons—themes I found in my master’s thesis—behind the challenges specialty buyers face there.

Burundi’s economy is heavily reliant on coffee. Coffee is Burundi’s biggest export revenue earner, making up as high as 80% of earnings. There are 600 000 families, close to 40% of the population, involved in the coffee subsector. Hilly and mountainous, Burundi boasts an ideal agroecology for coffee cultivation: it has great soils, very high elevations in some coffee growing regions (up to 2000 masl) and ideal climates. On top of that, it has great infrastructure: the World Bank and other partners invested heavily during the 1970s and built 133 washing stations (wet mills) that are better equipped and organized than the ones in neighbouring Rwanda, which has been more successful so far in transitioning into specialty coffee production. Many factors have “held back” Burundi’s move into specialty coffee including a long and very slowly diminishing government presence in the coffee sector. Unlike in more successful examples of government intervention in coffee production (e.g. some of the Central American origin countries), Burundi’s government has a mismanaged and bureaucratic national coffee board (ARFIC, previously OCIBU) and for most of the last 30 years, employees hired by OCIBU were running all of the countries’ washing stations. For more background, see previous posts as well as reports such as this one from USAID.

My thesis question was concerned with how direct trade affects the livelihoods of Burundian coffee growers. I met with people involved in all different aspects of coffee production: farmers/cherry growers, washing station managers/owners, government officials in charge of legislating the coffee sector, cooperative presidents, etc., and heard time and time again, the following:

1. Burundian coffee growers feel powerless to influence and feel quite removed from coffee production past the growing and delivering of their cherries to washing stations. This results in much frustration and feelings of being “taken advantage of” in relation to the prices they receive for their cherries;
2. Direct trade is not currently possible at farm level largely due to the realities that:
   • Each farmer’s annual yield is very small, given that they own no more than 250 trees on approximately 0.4 hectares of land and have very poor yields per tree (about 0.5 kg of cherries per tree in comparison to 1 kg in Kenya, for example);
   • The coffee sector is not structured and organized to allow for it. Although the coffee sector has been undergoing liberalization and privatization since the end of the 1990s civil war, progress has been very slow and the coffee sector continues to be disorganized and bureaucratic. Even at the washing station/wet mill level, operators find it quite challenging to work directly with buyers;
   • Farmers don’t currently know what happens with their cherries past the delivery to the washing station, with the result that it is difficult for them to work with buyers. In addition to the language barrier (the main language in Burundi is Kirundi), farmers are also not “speaking the same language” practically with the buyers. Growers and buyers do not have the same level of knowledge about the entire production/supply chain with the advantage heavily in the buyer’s favour.
3. Farmers feel empowered when they are given the opportunity to meet with international coffee professionals, including buyers and fellow coffee farmers from other countries. When they are able to speak with coffee people outside of Burundi, it provides a broader picture of how coffee production “works” and leads to previously uncontemplated questions and thoughts about how Burundi’s own coffee production is structured.

Craft Coffee Suppliers

The mindset of the supplier is just as, or perhaps even more important than the soil and growing conditions, processing methods, varietals being grown, altitude of the farm, etc. One of the biggest distinctions between specialty coffee and commodity coffee is the crafted nature of specialty. Craftsmanship in coffee doesn’t begin at the roaster; it begins (hopefully) at the farm with the person cultivating and overseeing the work on the land and in the tending of the coffee plants. It then extends to the washing station/wet mill, beginning with cherry reception and only accepting fully mature cherries, then to pulping, drying, etc. Because of a myriad of reasons, some of which are discussed here (as above), but many that are not, a Burundian coffee supplier from a buyer's perspective, is the washing station.

My use of the word craftsmanship comprises at least four things: ambition, knowledge, skill and execution. A coffee supplier that expresses all of the above makes the job of buying coffee very easy. Following that, it is much easier to pay a commensurate price for coffee coming from this kind of person.

There’s debate about whether farmers can afford to care about quality. Some[1] argue that there is currently not enough incentive for farmers to spend the time and resources to improve quality. These articles are discussing a Central American and more of a farm-level perspective, but I would imagine their arguments extend to washing stations, which largely comprise coffee suppliers in East Africa, since this is where the majority of "direct trade" coffee sales are made. I haven’t yet met a coffee professional who hasn’t agreed that prices are too low for great quality coffee. At CCS, we have the luxury of working with roasters who understand that quality coffee costs and for the most part, we are working with suppliers (now speaking in more of a global sense: growers, washing stations, exporters) who know how much it costs to produce exceptional quality at every stage of production and can thus outline why they’re asking the prices they’re asking for. These types of suppliers generally:

• use inputs that are right for the soils in their particular micro region
• prune coffee plants regularly and replants when necessary
• hires skilled pickers who identify and pick only the ripest cherries and pay them a commensurate wage
• either process and dry their own cherries using good facilities they themselves have invested in, or work with wet mills/washing stations that have great facilities and know-how

Coffee suppliers who are ambitious will invest to produce quality coffee and they will then demand to be paid accordingly.

Craft Coffee in Burundi?

The reality is different on a Burundian farm than it is on the Central American farms we work with. Farmers are working with a lot less land and and also have to be geographically lucky enough to be close to a washing station that invests in and produces quality coffee. Sometimes, and this is not just specific to Burundi, you come across a coffee that is exceptional and when you ask the supplier how it came to be great, they don’t know how to answer because the truth is, they haven’t used a specific strategy to make that coffee great. Traditions for how to make "good coffee" have simply been followed. In these cases, other factors influence quality: a particularly good harvest due to ideal climactic conditions, agroecology, etc. This is pretty close to reality with much of Burundi’s best coffee: all the right conditions and then good (increasingly better) processing comes together to provide great coffee.

At the moment, selective cherry picking doesn’t happen anywhere and on top of that, many washing stations accept un/over ripe cherries and focus their care and attention on processing. Some do a great job processing (e.g. multiple COE winner and third time CCS supplier, Masha washing station) and this is mostly why great lots can be found. Some also have very skilled cuppers on their team who choose which day lots to blend to create great lots. So rather than us as buyers choosing the best day lots as we do elsewhere, we’re choosing the best blended lots.

It's clear that suppliers (i.e. washing stations) are eager to provide great coffee. It's a matter of pride, as well as getting a good price. Right now it's necessary to focus at the washing station level as a buyer. I believe that over time, once there has been a more concrete shift at the washing station-level towards crafted coffee, that the farms will also begin to care about quality. I'm optimistic that we have started to build some great partnerships with ambitious and quality-driven suppliers. But it's also clear that it will take some time before this ambition turns into concrete actions that will lead to identifiably great coffee.

- Melanie

[1]Here and here, for examples.

Factory Profile: Karinga

Name: Karinga Factory Affiliated to: Gitwe Farmers Co-operative Society (FCS) Province: Central District: Thika Location: Gatundu Nearest Town/Centre: Gatundu Average Annual Rainfall (mm): 1500 Altitude (masl): 1840 Producers: 650 members Average Annual Harvest (kg): 208 520 Drying Method: Sun Harvest Method: Handpicking Harvest Season: Early: April – June; late: October – December Varieties: SL 28 & 34 Soil: Rich red volcanic loam soils

About

Founded in 1983, Karinga factory lies on five acres of land serving Kimaruri, Kariungu, Gachuha and Mugalwa villages.

Karinga Coffee factory is run by Samwel Muteti, who works with six permanent staff along with a changing number of casual staff. Number of casual staff varies from year-to-year depending on harvest yields. During peak season the factory employs about six casuals, while during the off-peak, at most one is retained. Permanent staff duties include weighing coffee, selection and grading of coffee, paying farmers and addressing farmers’ concerns.

Crop production has not been stable at this factory due to poor payment, internal political wrangles and other factors. Most of farmers are tea growers, but management is now encouraging farmers to go back to coffee production because the cherry prices are stabilizing and have been quite high since 2010.

Affiliate members of the factory carry out all agronomic activities associated with coffee production (i.e. sourcing coffee from the Coffee Research Station and planting according to its guidelines). Their
fieldwork also involves weeding, pruning, spraying, and application of fertilizer, mulching and technical advice. Technical advice is offered through farmer training programs and field visits offered by Ministry of Agriculture. Compliance to the agreed guidelines is checked and supervised by the field committee. Amongst other things, this committee checks that coffee is not inter-cropped with maize and beans, though they do allow intercropping with macadamia nuts.

After harvest, coffee cherries are delivered to the factory and undergo wet processing. Water is pumped from the River Rwabura to the reservoir tanks for pulping and recirculation. After pulping, the coffee is stored overnight, is then washed, soaked and finally spread on drying tables. The parchment is frequently turned, and then sorted and stored, awaiting delivery to millers.

To ensure that the processing is carried out efficiently the factory has invested in a pulper, a recirculation system and about 12 conditioning bins.

Background to Kenya

There’s no doubt: Kenya is an amazing coffee destination. Coffees from this origin are known for their powerful aromas, refreshing acidity, flavors of sweet berries, rich mouthfeel, and clean and lingering aftertastes. Years of experience have really taught us how to limit our search at this origin, but we are always open to surprises and are ready for new partners and flavors. Kenya has a well-established and well functioning auction system.

Dormans, based in Nairobi, is where we usually go in order to sample coffees we are interested in buying. Dormans has a reputation for retaining good cuppers. We like them, we trust them, and they rigorously search for the best coffees to offer us. In the peak of the buying/auction season they will screen thousands of coffees each week. Dormans has a license to buy at the auction and they are also partner to a marketing agent/mill—Central Kenya Coffee Mill (CKCM)—where coffee is processed after it finishes drying at the factories.

The washing stations that produce our coffee pride themselves on having some of the best-paid cherry producer members in the country. The system at the Kenyan Coffee Auction is refreshingly transparent in its communicating where coffees come from, its systematic organization of coffee by screen quality (such as size and physical attributes), and in its practice of rewarding cup quality/sensorial attributes.

Most coffee producers in Kenya are “smallholders”. Each producer’s total volume might only be a few bags, thus hundreds of farmers, when living in the same area, are likely to be members of a cooperative, which markets and sells coffee on the whole community’s behalf. Each cooperative typically runs several “factories” (i.e. processing and washing stations) where producers deliver cherries from their farms. Sometimes a producer chooses to deliver to the closest factory but some prefer delivering to a different factory, due to differing management practices. The usual reason for choosing one factory over another is based on the prices a given factory manages to obtain for its cherries.

Good management at a good factory will not allow for unripe or unevenly matured cherries. This is because accepting such cherries damage the potential to receive optimum prices for everyone concerned. We pride ourselves in knowing the factories we buy from pride themselves on ensuring their community of members deliver only red and mature cherries. In Kenya’s market make-up, cherry price is directly linked to cup quality.

In Kenya, a cooperative is a democratically run organization with producers acting as both members and as representatives of the governing board. One key function of the board is to nominate a marketing agent: a body/organization/company that retains a license to sell the coop’s/client’s coffee at the highest possible price. This works in both parties’ interests. Normally a coffee lot is sold at auction, but it can also be sold outside auction if the coop and marketing agent believe they can get an even better price outside auction through selling directly to a customer. That is where we come into the picture.

In the last few years we have taken advantage of the possibility of buying coffees directly from, or at least in understanding and agreement with, the cooperatives. The cooperative is the seller of the coffee and always wants the highest price possible in recognition of: 1. The hard work of quality oriented farmers and factories, 2. Cup quality, and 3. In recognition of the current price of coffees of “similar quality” being sold at auction in Nairobi. Negotiating the price of the best coffees is important to a buyer eager to secure lots before it goes to auction where somebody else might buy it. The price offered has to be high enough for the cooperative to ensure it won’t be sold better at auction, which can, in turn, discourage quality-minded producers. As a matter of fact, all the best coffees are sold this way, thus the only way to get hold of these lots is to be present at origin while they are coming from the mill.

In Kenya, a “coffee lot” is made from a bigger batch of coffee that is delivered to the dry-mill from a cooperative on a given day. When a coffee batch arrives at the mill, it is processed (hulled), analyzed (technically and sensorially), screened (separated due to bean sizes) and given an outturn-number. While the parchment is taken off the beans in the hulling process, the beans are screened and separated due to shape and size.

AAs are flat with screen size 17+. ABs are flat with screen sizes 15 and16. PBs are pea-berries. There are always a certain percentage of lower grades too.

Screen size does not necessarily correlate with quality in terms of flavor attributes. For example, sometimes we find many of the AB-selections to be superior to the AAs from the same lot. In addition, it is not true that PBs are necessarily more intense in flavor or better in quality than flat beans.

Acidity junkies love cupping in Kenya. The questions are much more about “how” and “what kind of acidity” one wants in the coffee, rather than whether one can find it. We work hard to get these Kenya lots in quick and fresh so roasters can have all the acidity you wish to play with. Look for a well prepared, vacuum-packed and clean selection.

pdf version

Factory Profile: Karatu

Name: Karatu Factory Affiliated to: Gitwe Farmers Co-operative Society (FCS) Province: Central District: Thika Location: Gatundu Nearest Town/Centre: Gatundu Average Annual Rainfall (mm): 1500 Altitude (masl): 1883 Producers: 800 members Average Annual Harvest (kg): 200 366 Drying Method: Sun Harvest Method: Handpicking Harvest Season: Early: April – June; late: October – December Varieties: SL 28 & 34 Soil: Rich red volcanic loam soils

About

Founded in 1965, Karatu factory is run by David Kanya, who works with six other permanent staff. The number of casual staff varies from year-to-year, depending on harvest yields. During the peak season the factory employs about eight casual staff, while during the off-peak, one is retained. Permanent staff duties include weighing coffee, selection and grading of coffee, paying farmers and addressing farmers’ concerns.

Crop production started rising during the 2002 – 2003 harvest, which is was encouraging, though not completely offsetting the fact that most farmers are still more active with tea production than coffee. However, management is now encouraging farmers to go back to coffee production and because the price is becoming more stable and is quite high, farmers are thus more encouraged to return to/begin more coffee production.

After the harvest of cherries, the coffee is delivered to the factory and undergoes the wet processing method. Water is pumped from the River Rwabura to reservoir tanks for pulping and recirculation. After pulping, the coffee is stored overnight, washed, soaked and spread on the drying tables. The parchment is then frequently turned, then sorted and stored to before delivery to the millers.

To ensure that the processing is carried out efficiently, the factory has invested in a pulper, recirculation system and about 20 conditioning bins.

Background to Kenya

There’s no doubt: Kenya is an amazing coffee destination. Coffees from this origin are known for their powerful aromas, refreshing acidity, flavors of sweet berries, rich mouthfeel, and clean and lingering aftertastes. Years of experience have really taught us how to limit our search at this origin, but we are always open to surprises and are ready for new partners and flavors. Kenya has a well-established and well functioning auction system.

Dormans, based in Nairobi, is where we usually go in order to sample coffees we are interested in buying. Dormans has a reputation for retaining good cuppers. We like them, we trust them, and they rigorously search for the best coffees to offer us. In the peak of the buying/auction season they will screen thousands of coffees each week. Dormans has a license to buy at the auction and they are also partner to a marketing agent/mill—Central Kenya Coffee Mill (CKCM)—where coffee is processed after it finishes drying at the factories.

The washing stations that produce our coffee pride themselves on having some of the best-paid cherry producer members in the country. The system at the Kenyan Coffee Auction is refreshingly transparent in its communicating where coffees come from, its systematic organization of coffee by screen quality (such as size and physical attributes), and in its practice of rewarding cup quality/sensorial attributes.

Most coffee producers in Kenya are “smallholders”. Each producer’s total volume might only be a few bags, thus hundreds of farmers, when living in the same area, are likely to be members of a cooperative, which markets and sells coffee on the whole community’s behalf. Each cooperative typically runs several “factories” (i.e. processing and washing stations) where producers deliver cherries from their farms. Sometimes a producer chooses to deliver to the closest factory but some prefer delivering to a different factory, due to differing management practices. The usual reason for choosing one factory over another is based on the prices a given factory manages to obtain for its cherries.

Good management at a good factory will not allow for unripe or unevenly matured cherries. This is because accepting such cherries damage the potential to receive optimum prices for everyone concerned. We pride ourselves in knowing the factories we buy from pride themselves on ensuring their community of members deliver only red and mature cherries. In Kenya’s market make-up, cherry price is directly linked to cup quality.

In Kenya, a cooperative is a democratically run organization with producers acting as both members and as representatives of the governing board. One key function of the board is to nominate a marketing agent: a body/organization/company that retains a license to sell the coop’s/client’s coffee at the highest possible price. This works in both parties’ interests. Normally a coffee lot is sold at auction, but it can also be sold outside auction if the coop and marketing agent believe they can get an even better price outside auction through selling directly to a customer. That is where we come into the picture.

In the last few years we have taken advantage of the possibility of buying coffees directly from, or at least in understanding and agreement with, the cooperatives. The cooperative is the seller of the coffee and always wants the highest price possible in recognition of: 1. The hard work of quality oriented farmers and factories, 2. Cup quality, and 3. In recognition of the current price of coffees of “similar quality” being sold at auction in Nairobi. Negotiating the price of the best coffees is important to a buyer eager to secure lots before it goes to auction where somebody else might buy it. The price offered has to be high enough for the cooperative to ensure it won’t be sold better at auction, which can, in turn, discourage quality-minded producers. As a matter of fact, all the best coffees are sold this way, thus the only way to get hold of these lots is to be present at origin while they are coming from the mill.

In Kenya, a “coffee lot” is made from a bigger batch of coffee that is delivered to the dry-mill from a cooperative on a given day. When a coffee batch arrives at the mill, it is processed (hulled), analyzed (technically and sensorially), screened (separated due to bean sizes) and given an outturn-number. While the parchment is taken off the beans in the hulling process, the beans are screened and separated due to shape and size.

AAs are flat with screen size 17+. ABs are flat with screen sizes 15 and16. PBs are pea-berries. There are always a certain percentage of lower grades too.

Screen size does not necessarily correlate with quality in terms of flavor attributes. For example, sometimes we find many of the AB-selections to be superior to the AAs from the same lot. In addition, it is not true that PBs are necessarily more intense in flavor or better in quality than flat beans.

Acidity junkies love cupping in Kenya. The questions are much more about “how” and “what kind of acidity” one wants in the coffee, rather than whether one can find it. We work hard to get these Kenya lots in quick and fresh so roasters can have all the acidity you wish to play with. Look for a well prepared, vacuum-packed and clean selection.

pdf version

Factory Profile: Kangunu

Name: Kangunu Factory Affiliated to: Mutheka Farmers Co-operative Society (FCS) Province: Eastern District: Embu Location: Runyenjes Nearest Town/Centre: Runyenjes Average Annual Rainfall (mm): 1600 Altitude (masl): 1600 Drying Method: Sun Harvest Method: Handpicking Harvest Season: Main: March – June; secondary: October – December Varieties: SL 28 Soil: Rich red volcanic loam soils

About

Founded in 1966, Kangunu factory has an active field management and is located in the main coffee growing zone, near the slopes of Mt. Kenya. Villages that deliver cherries to Kangunu include: Gicera, Gichiche, Gaciari, Kamica, and Kathera. The factory includes three big soak pits, which are large enough for proper drainage of waste water; there is no river nearby that can be potentially polluted. Nappier grass is planted nearby and trees to help in the purification of waste water.

Cherries are selectively handpicked and delivered to the wetmill on the same day. These cherries are sorted at the wetmill prior to pulping, where ripes are separated from under- and overripes. All processing uses clean river water from the Rundu River that is recirculated prior to being disposed of in seepage pits (to prevent contamination). Once parchment is fermented, it is washed and then sundried.

Background to Kenya

There’s no doubt: Kenya is an amazing coffee destination. Coffees from this origin are known for their powerful aromas, refreshing acidity, flavors of sweet berries, rich mouthfeel, and clean and lingering aftertastes. Years of experience have really taught us how to limit our search at this origin, but we are always open to surprises and are ready for new partners and flavors. Kenya has a well-established and well functioning auction system.

Dormans, based in Nairobi, is where we usually go in order to sample coffees we are interested in buying. Dormans has a reputation for retaining good cuppers. We like them, we trust them, and they rigorously search for the best coffees to offer us. In the peak of the buying/auction season they will screen thousands of coffees each week. Dormans has a license to buy at the auction and they are also partner to a marketing agent/mill—Central Kenya Coffee Mill (CKCM)—where coffee is processed after it finishes drying at the factories.

The washing stations that produce our coffee pride themselves on having some of the best-paid cherry producer members in the country. The system at the Kenyan Coffee Auction is refreshingly transparent in its communicating where coffees come from, its systematic organization of coffee by screen quality (such as size and physical attributes), and in its practice of rewarding cup quality/sensorial attributes.

Most coffee producers in Kenya are “smallholders”. Each producer’s total volume might only be a few bags, thus hundreds of farmers, when living in the same area, are likely to be members of a cooperative, which markets and sells coffee on the whole community’s behalf. Each cooperative typically runs several “factories” (i.e. processing and washing stations) where producers deliver cherries from their farms. Sometimes a producer chooses to deliver to the closest factory but some prefer delivering to a different factory, due to differing management practices. The usual reason for choosing one factory over another is based on the prices a given factory manages to obtain for its cherries.

Good management at a good factory will not allow for unripe or unevenly matured cherries. This is because accepting such cherries damage the potential to receive optimum prices for everyone concerned. We pride ourselves in knowing the factories we buy from pride themselves on ensuring their community of members deliver only red and mature cherries. In Kenya’s market make-up, cherry price is directly linked to cup quality.

In Kenya, a cooperative is a democratically run organization with producers acting as both members and as representatives of the governing board. One key function of the board is to nominate a marketing agent: a body/organization/company that retains a license to sell the coop’s/client’s coffee at the highest possible price. This works in both parties’ interests. Normally a coffee lot is sold at auction, but it can also be sold outside auction if the coop and marketing agent believe they can get an even better price outside auction through selling directly to a customer. That is where we come into the picture.

In the last few years we have taken advantage of the possibility of buying coffees directly from, or at least in understanding and agreement with, the cooperatives. The cooperative is the seller of the coffee and always wants the highest price possible in recognition of: 1. The hard work of quality oriented farmers and factories, 2. Cup quality, and 3. In recognition of the current price of coffees of “similar quality” being sold at auction in Nairobi. Negotiating the price of the best coffees is important to a buyer eager to secure lots before it goes to auction where somebody else might buy it. The price offered has to be high enough for the cooperative to ensure it won’t be sold better at auction, which can, in turn, discourage quality-minded producers. As a matter of fact, all the best coffees are sold this way, thus the only way to get hold of these lots is to be present at origin while they are coming from the mill.

In Kenya, a “coffee lot” is made from a bigger batch of coffee that is delivered to the dry-mill from a cooperative on a given day. When a coffee batch arrives at the mill, it is processed (hulled), analyzed (technically and sensorially), screened (separated due to bean sizes) and given an outturn-number. While the parchment is taken off the beans in the hulling process, the beans are screened and separated due to shape and size.

AAs are flat with screen size 17+. ABs are flat with screen sizes 15 and16. PBs are pea-berries. There are always a certain percentage of lower grades too.

Screen size does not necessarily correlate with quality in terms of flavor attributes. For example, sometimes we find many of the AB-selections to be superior to the AAs from the same lot. In addition, it is not true that PBs are necessarily more intense in flavor or better in quality than flat beans.

Acidity junkies love cupping in Kenya. The questions are much more about “how” and “what kind of acidity” one wants in the coffee, rather than whether one can find it. We work hard to get these Kenya lots in quick and fresh so roasters can have all the acidity you wish to play with. Look for a well prepared, vacuum-packed and clean selection.

pdf version