unionroasted blog

Here at Union we’re very excited to be one of the sponsors of the 2012 UK Barista Championships. Marc Pierre Dietrich from UK Coffee Events spoke to Alan Miller from Union recently about what’s in store this year.

MPD:  UK Coffee Events would like to thank yourself and Union Hand Roasted for getting involved with UK Coffee Events this year.

Additionally we would like to thank you for introducing a brand new prize category for the UK Barista Championships – Best Newcomer (Working Barista) – and for offering a trip to origin for the best newcomer in the UKBC.

What gave you the idea?

AM: Thanks Marc. We are pleased to be associated with UK Coffee Events as Roasted Coffee Supplier, and have been part of the UKBC for several years now, hosting the SouthEast Heat in London last year.

We are hoping to bring a new dynamic to the UKBC with this Origin trip prize. In our day job we support, advise and train many in the coffee industry: baristas, restaurant and bar managers, cafe owners. With the current upward trend in new businesses to the industry, we believe it’s important to support new talent, encourage skills development, as well as bringing our expertise in our ‘Direct Trade’ sourcing model to a wider audience.

Coffee education is pivotal in a barista’s understanding of coffee, from how to recognise quality in coffee to best practice brewing. A true 360 degree knowledge of how to extract the best out of the coffee is really important to arm the barista with knowledge and confidence to showcase the contributions of both producer and roaster.

MPD: This is a very generous offer. With taste being so important, will the baristas be cupping at origin?

AM: Places on trips like this are highly sought after, and are once in a lifetime opportunity for most people. The best newcomer to the UKBC, who is a working barista – who has scored the highest points after the regional heats – could find themselves heading off to a producing country such as Rwanda, Brazil, Guatemala, Costa Rica or El Salvador.

This will not be a 5 star holiday in comfort, but will be 5 star in experience!

During the trip the barista may need to adjust to altitude or put up with extreme weather, and he or she should be prepared to help with a coffee harvest (if one is taking place when they visit), or maybe get their hands dirty sorting or grading coffee. They may participate in a cupping but more importantly he or she will get to meet with farmers who we source from whilst seeing at first hand a working coffee farm and experiencing its environment.

The trip will be led by either Steven Macatonia or Jeremy Torz – both of whom travel regularly to origin to build relationships with existing producers for Union as well as uncovering new coffee gems, as their Direct Trade sourcing model delivers.

MPD: What reaction do you envisage from the barista community?

AM: It is our intention, I hope, that we engage and excite a whole new generation of coffee enthusiasts who are inspired enough to choose coffee as a career as Jeremy and Steven were when they first discovered their love of coffee.

MPD: Why do you work for Union Hand Roasted coffee?

AM: The energy in the coffee industry in the UK currently is exciting. The opportunity to tell our story and meet very talented people, be they baristas, producers (farmers) or suppliers, is a great part of the job that I do. And with such fabulous coffees in our portfolio to enjoy, the challenge in foodservice is maintaining the quality through to serve across a diverse group of customers.

People shouldn’t have to settle for a dud cup of coffee in the UK these days. Being part of the team that aims to bring great tasting coffee to all who want it, direct from origin in an honest and transparent manner is satisfying and fun!

MPD: What trends are you noticing in the UK at the moment?

AM: Tea menus are a common sight. Many cafes are now thinking about offering multiple coffees on their menus. We are excited that operators are beginning to realise that coffee drinkers want choice as well, so there is the start of offering a menu coffees with diverse taste profiles, or perhaps brew methods, will in turn showcase a good barista’s knowledge in understanding the large variety of wonderful coffees now available.

MPD: If you were entering the UKBC what coffee would you use this year and why?

AM: (without hesitation) I would use the Genesis Microlot, West Valley http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vQ8Iz1nwXdQ from Costa Rica.

The taste is wonderful, allowing the opportunity to create a superb signature drink marrying up with the flavours of red berries, toasted hazelnut and dried apricot.

This coffee is grown by Oscar Mendez who is almost theological about coffee. His approach is very inspirational, as he grows for quality not quantity and his focus and commitment to great coffee grown in harmony with the land on his farm is just brilliant.

In this short post I thought I’d rest on the psychiatrist couch & talk about emotions I experience on every trip and why I try to control the overwhelming desire to do a runner. In a second post I’ll discuss specifically what I’ve discovered from this trip to visit producers in Peru and why I do care passionately about the job.

There is a wonderful romance that is attributed to coffee, from the delight of the exotic countries and distant lands, through to the creativity of coffee roasting. But for me the reality can be harsh.  In my pursuit of coffee and developing our Union Direct Trade relationship it means that both Jeremy and I do a lot of long haul travel (mostly separately). This is a fantastic perk of the job, in fact getting deep in the rural areas of Central & South America, East Africa & Indonesia – it has to be the best job in the world. Yet before every trip I experience an anxiety attack.  It’s hard to put my finger on what sets me off, it’s not just fear of flying (I write this whilst sitting in Lima airport waiting for my long journey home) but that is one element.

This trip was particularly demanding, involving getting out to evaluate potential new producers down in the south of the country as well as re-visiting to catch up on existing relationships in the North. What was so gruelling this time? Maybe I’m just getting old, but crashing about in the back of a truck or bus perched on a narrow ledge climbing to 13,000ft + and looking out of the side window seeing the sheer drop really freaked me out this time. When the journey goes on for 8 hours, its cold, foggy, torrential rain causing rocks to fall off the mountain onto the road makes it  punishing, particularly  having to change a flat tyre and then still avoiding the boulders in the road. It doesn’t help that every vehicle coming in the opposite direction means we have to back up, to find a ledge wide enough to pass each other.

I’m not a fan of American 5 star hotels, but accommodation can be primitive in some rural places. Jeremy & I refer to the quality of sleeping facilities as the “Yirgacheffe Scale” – this was one of our early trips more than 10 years ago that we did together. The hostel was so scuzzy that I laid out my towel on top of the filthy mattress and slept fully clothed, with boots on, and hat pulled over my face to try keep the mosquitoes off. At least there was cold water and we had a torch for light.

By now I should be prepared for anything but stupidly this trip I forgot the torch, and I wasn’t so lucky to get water either.  Yes, the farm visits and huge mountain vistas are joy to experience. But by the time I returned back to Lima for the second leg of my trip I lost my bottle and couldn’t face a reprise of the experience again, I was close to bolting. I did a quick scrutiny and I could get a flight to Paris and be home the following day. I was desperate. What a wimp, but I could feel the tears but what do you do? I clamp my jaw and grind my teeth and stick to the plan.

I guess the point is, this trip wasn’t that different to any other. There’s always some problem or tricky issue and you have to just get over yourself.  Now I’m back at Lima airport again waiting to go home, and of course I loved the complete trip, as I always do. Our relationship with coffee producers is a privilege for me; from the warmth of their hospitality, their deep desire to please and demonstrate to me the extra work that is required for the quality of coffee we demand; it re-programmes me again why we do this.

Series about Union Direct Trade

In previous post about Union Direct Trade we’ve talked about how we’re gathering information from smallscale coffee farmers in Huehuetenango in Guatemala. This work has been undertaken by Pascale, a masters graduate in Development Economics from Wageningen University as a research project to define how Union can have a positive impact on the lives of coffee farmers.

Pascale has been in Huehuetenango for five months and now reflects on her experiences as she completes her first period of work there and prepares to move on to Costa Rica.

Emigration was one of the coping mechanisms to deal with the coffee crisis in the late 90s. It has become the major reality of rural economies Central America.

Of the 87 households I’ve interviewed here in Huehuetenango. I discovered that 72% have or had migrant family members. The majority immigrated to the United States
(89%) and 11% to Mexico. In 40% of the cases it was the farmer (head of family) who went to the United States. The reasons for migration are: earn money to pay off debts, buy land to cultivate coffee, buying a car, or construct a house.

Although migration and the money earned from this have positive effects, such as lower poverty rates there are many social costs; broken families, a reduction in labour supply, the risk of death, injury or imprisonment from illegal border crossing, and a reduction in knowledge and skill transfer since producers are not there to teach their children how to cultivate coffee. (Steven has previously talked about the impact on the women who are left behind – Abandoned in Guatemala)

Listening to the women farmers at Todos Santos

Fair and reasonable coffee prices and long-term commitment is therefore very important for coffee producers. As the groups I interviewed indicated, knowing that they have a committed buyer such as Union Hand-Roasted Coffee gives them just and spirit to keep on working to produce high quality coffee. The previous unstable markets impeded producers from investing in their coffee fields because prices hardly covered the cost of production, it also does not make any sense investing in high quality coffee if there was no premium for quality coffee. Quality coffee requires extra labour and money investments. Only ripe cherries must be picked and traditionally pickers get paid by piece (per
quintal (46Kg) of coffee harvested). A disadvantage of paying by quintal is that workers will pick as much as possible, to earn more. To incentivise pickers to only select the ripe coffee cherries, farmers pay day labourers a higher price per day.

Although these producers in Huehuetenango are on the right track, it is important that low interest credits to fund paying for the harvest becomes available to producers.  This will reduce their cost of production increasing the profits.

Guatemala is a beautiful country, colourful, rich in culture and tradition and inhabited by a population which is generous, hospitable and hard-working. Yet, Guatemala faces many difficulties. The country is very unsafe and Huehuetenango bordering Mexico is a collection of drug traffickers. Bad road conditions, landslides and (violent) demonstrations on the roads make it difficult or sometimes impossible to travel from one place to another. Especially during the harvest this is a serious problem for those preparing their coffee for export. Hence, I have the highest respect for those working under these conditions. The farmers of La Libertad and Todos Santos have faced many barriers, but they never gave up. “For every problem there is a solution” is their motto. I believe that the fair and transparent relationship that Union Hand-Roasted Coffee has with the organizations that form these co-operatives will contribute to the development of towns in La Libertad, Chanjon and Tuiboch (Todos Santos).

boarding the bus to agronomy classes

Transparency and traceability are two important aspect of a company’s business model. Only by being transparent in the whole coffee chain, can both buyer and producer be sure that the benefits really reach the producers.

Almost Integrated into Guatemala Culture !

My next stop is going to be Costa Rica; there I anticipate the situation with farmers will be completely different. Besides the fact that the country is much more stable and is classified as a middle–development country, Costa Rica has embraced a “micro-mill revolution” which Union has talked about before and I will describe more in my next post.

In my last post about visiting farmers in Rwanda during the current season, I discussed how high market prices can bring difficulties to the farmers. In this post we’ll look at how prices can affect quality.

Quality is not an Accident

The second negative effect of high coffee market prices shows its hand in the overall quality of coffee reaching consumers.  In years of low market price, farmers  producing high quality specialty coffee know they have to maximise that quality to attract best prices. They achieve this by careful and selective picking which is more labour intensive, and careful post-harvest processing of the cherries.  This year, not only in Rwanda but as we have seen in many countries, farmers understandably take the view that they will be receiving more than last year without the extra effort – so why bother!  Again we have taken a great deal of time – including Steven visiting them earlier this year – to encourage them to work carefully and reinforcing to farmers that our agreement to buy, at a premium to market value, is linked to producing high scoring speciality grades.

If all of this market turbulence was not enough to cope with, the weather also added its own challenge.  Usually, the cherries ripen and are harvested over a period of around twelve weeks.  This year however, due to lots of rain and warm sunshine, the full crop came in over just six weeks and the Coffee Washing Stations, where the cherries are processed, were inundated by huge volumes of coffee cherries which need to be pulped really quickly. The beans must be separated from the pulp in a timely manner. If this is not done, fermentation in the bean can occur, or insects are attracted and damage the cherries, both of which can cause unpleasant taste effects in the finished coffee.  As we are in regular contact with producers that UNION buy from, we were aware of the problem and knew that there would be issues in the harvest quality so careful selection was needed more than ever.

Each individual lot has to be sampled

It’s this last matter that really drove me to spend a chunk of July in the cupping Lab in Kigali, working with Leatitia, a cupper I had helped to train some five years ago and who helped select our lots last year.  Together we cupped and scored hundreds of individual production lots from three Cooperatives and to get the coffee Union requires this year, we discounted just over 50% of the lots as not being up to our standard, and that was after Leatitia had pre-screened the lots to offer me a choice of those she considered the best.

To make the selections, a sample of green coffee is taken from each lot passing through the stations on any given day and labelled with the district and control reference number and is sent to the cupping lab in Kigali.

First the lots are sample roasted

300g of the coffee is prepared and roasted the day before we cup the lot; first we assess the roasted fragrance of the dry grounds and then pour the water, steep before evaluating the wet aroma, and then tasting the coffee brewed simply in a glass. We evaluate for a range of characteristics to produce a final score and description for that coffee that enables me to make a selection and construct the overall quantity, quality and flavour profile when the lots are put together.

In each cooperative there are districts that each have their own terroir and hence character.  My job was to select the best lots and bring them together (blend them) to achieve an overall standard for the cooperative that reflects the style of the district.  Maraba for example produces a rich full bodied and smooth coffee with an
elegant orange/citrus acidity to balance the cup; we offer this as our Single Estate coffee, Rwanda Maraba Bourbon.  COCAGI cooperative in Gashonga yields a coffee that is sweet, fuller bodied and has more red fruit flavour notes which we’ve also selected as a core component for our Revelation espresso.  Karaba Co-operative was new to us this year and being out in the cupping lab to taste tens of lots from the district was fascinating and wholly informative.  I’m looking forward to UNION being able to offer this coffee, which is distinct from the others having a lighter body with clean fresh apricot and white fruit, almost floral notes and a silky milk chocolate mouthfeel.

Occasionally during the cupping process, a lot comes up on the table that has a really outstanding flavour, with clarity and balance coupled with unique flavour notes and which also receives a high score.  In these cases, I have requested that these small lots are segregated all the way through and are delivered to us as our micro-lot selections.  We will release information on these as and when we get closer to them arriving in London and have checked and approved the arrival samples ensuring nothing untoward has happened during shipping.

Samples cooling before cupped

It’s only by getting out to the farms that we can know what has occurred during the harvest each year and I have no doubt that there may, sadly be a lot of very variable quality Rwanda coffee reaching the international market.  But it’s through our Union Direct Trade relationships and putting the miles
and work in, also personally a very enjoyable process that UNION Hand-Roasted Coffee will again be able to represent the very best of Rwanda’s speciality coffee
harvest for 2011-2012.

Working out the final scores