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.

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

This weekend I returned back from 3 weeks in Africa, which included visiting coffee producers in Rwanda. Over the years, Steven and I have come to understand how essential these face-to-face meetings are. They give us an accurate picture of the complexities small-scale farmers are faced with, and ensure we continue to select and secure the best quality coffee for Union.

Two issues that are always important are; the local impact on small scale farmers of the volatile coffee market and secondly, how we select the specific lots of coffee that we want to buy from the new season harvest.

Coffee Markets and Small Scale Farmers

Over the last nine years we’ve been worked initially with one Co-operative, Abahuzamugami  ba Kawa, (Maraba), who  we proudly launched onto the speciality coffee market  in 2003. In more recent years our relationships expanded to a second group, COCAGI (Gashonga) and this year, now we are also excited to introduce Karaba Co-operative.

Offices at Abahuzamugabi ba Kawa Maraba

The nature of our relationship with these coffee producers involved many aspects aside from just being a commercial partner (buyer). Our participation has helped transform aspirations into a sustainable reality and we have increasingly and fascinatingly immersed ourselves in issues of community development, health and welfare, capacity building (business and management skills) and Co-operative development, as well as helping to train the first professional speciality coffee cuppers, all in the pursuit of bringing our Rwandan coffee up to the very best international standards of production and cup quality.

This year, due to the volatile coffee market and a number of weather and seasonal problems that coffee farmers faced, I decided to spend a period out here in Kigali at Rwashoscco, the Co-operative owned export organisation. I went to “cup the harvest” to select exactly which parcels and lots we’d be buying, and also to have our regular review meeting with the General Managers of Abahuzamugambi and COCAGI Cooperatives to find out how they have fared in this difficult season. Steven met with the Co-operatives before the season, in February-11, to plan the strategy, and now we meet to review how the season played out, and to plan for the next year.

Preparation of fully washed parchment Maraba

Many people will no doubt wonder why this year (climate aside) could be seen as challenging, surely the high market prices must be a goldmine for the farmers, and the coffee must be great, right?  Well, from what I’ve seen and experienced here and our work in Guatemala plus my recent visit to Costa Rica in May, high markets can bring as many problems as benefits to many coffee communities around the globe.

Many of the communities that we source from are not single farm businesses but Co-operatives: They function by buying coffee cherries from their members who are small-scale farmer families (Maraba have around 1300 families) as the ripe coffee cherries are picked, usually over a harvest period of around twelve weeks.  At the beginning of the harvest, the Co-operative must have enough funds to pay all the farmers for their picking.  At the end of the season, when the coffee is finally sold, the Co-operative receives their money from the buyers and a second ‘top up’ payment is made to the farmers; the community decide how to portion out any remaining profits.  They may vote to retain some capital for next year, possibly to invest in washing station equipment or for community projects such as a school or hardship fund for older members.

The key difference about how co-operatives operate and compete for the benefit of their community members against potentially better funded private businesses is in this first and second payment system. Private companies buy cherries by making a one-off payment to farmers, but in co-operatives where farmers initially accept a lower price, the co-operative can reduce the level of loans required from local banks to fund the coffee cherry harvest, and therefore reduce their interest costs which can be a significant part of annual expenditure.  The ‘difference’ is made up to the farmers at the end of the season. In well managed co-operatives, with good buyer relations such as we enjoy, they can provide the farmer with a higher income as the profits are shared in the community as opposed to being retained for the owners of private companies.

The challenge I mention is that this year, the market price of coffee has nearly doubled in the period since last harvest and the amount of cash the cooperatives need to fund cherry purchase has therefore similarly increased.  Such rapid increases in cost really puts these communities under stress as the amount of retained profit may not be enough to cover the increase and thus higher loans and interest payments are experienced.  Additionally, although cooperatives operate for the benefit of their members, they still experience competition locally as other coffee cherry buyers working as agents for the private exporters compete to buy this coffee.  There is no obligation for co-operative members to give their co-operative first refusal on their crop. But if the Co-operative is not offering the highest price, other benefits are available to members throughout the year.

With such young cooperatives where the full understanding of their concept is under-developed, the farmer, understandably wants money now, rather than a promise of (more) money later. This issue often will take a long time to become fully recognised and supported by farmers but it is important as spreading out of payments helps families who haven’t been educated about budgeting to manage their cash over a full year cycle.

Hand sorting washed parchment Maraba

Over recent years, Union Hand Roasted Coffee assisted communities like Maraba and Gashonga by paying a percentage of our purchases in advance of the season; a mechanism known as pre-financing.  This year again we provided pre-financing but due to the high prices that we agreed for the finished exportable coffee, we also faced similar cash constraints and could not assist pre-financing to the same degree as we would have liked.  To continue providing the best upkeep, we support the co-operatives in working with additional NGO’s and pre-finance trade organisations that provide credit to developing communities at a preferential interest rate.  As market conditions stabilise we hope to return to the level of pre-financing the co-operatives desire and help them to develop their community.

In my next post I’ll discuss how quality control influences small scale farmers.

Jeremy

The complexity of sourcing coffee in Ethiopia has always given us an edge of excitement, one mixed with a healthy tinge of anxiety that arises from the fiercely independent spirit of the Ethiopians and their determination to do things in their own ways.  From our first visit back in 2002, where it felt like we’d stepped back into the bible, on every subsequent visit the country has held a fascination for us and a desire to get inside their heads to figure out how it works.  I realise I’ll probably never achieve that understanding, but during this trip I got to know the country a little better. 

As the birthplace of coffee, Ethiopia rightly commands it’s place on the pedestal of specialty coffee, but in the last couple of years the changes created in the mechanism for bringing Ethiopia coffee to the market has changed radically.

Those of you who have followed our adventures in sourcing over the last ten years will know that at Union Hand Roasted, our goal is to find identifiable groups of small farmers who we feel have already some great coffee in cultivation and with whom we can work to tease out the very best of what can be produced in a truly sustainable manner for both the crop and community.  In Ethiopia (as with many areas we source from), the coffee is grown in small garden plots and the community cooperatives rely on large numbers of farmer members often over a relatively wide geographical area, altitude and terrain. This structure allows us to target resources on those micro-areas where not only a great quality coffee (clean cup, natural sweetness and balance) can be produced, but also ones with distinct character and regional flavour profiles that we enjoy as diversity of style (think French wine – big full bodied Burgundy or light floral Beaujolais from the south).  Two coffees may be assessed  in cupping to have top quality scores yet still exhibit dramatically different flavour profiles – our approach is to find systems where each of these special lots can be kept separate and traceable (se we know who produces it and who receives special premium payments) and bring these direct to you for unadulterated enjoyment.

The recent creation of the Ethiopia Commodity Exchange (ECM), where specific lots of particular quality (but not necessarily flavour profile) are sold to licenced exporters only permits the sale of coffee of a specific designated grade and quality, and does NOT permit isolation of traceable lots. Some exporters have devised ways around this restriction, to give a level of provenance but this is not easy to verify.   The process for the Commodity Exchange requires farmers to deliver their coffee cherries to designated Exchange Warehouses, which are out in the rural areas. Here producers are paid the current market price for their coffee. The cherries are then processed through to exportable grade but there is no segregation or separation to produce traceable lots. Equivalent grades from all farmers are mixed to create consistency and homogeneity, but with no recognition or reward to individual farmers for truly exceptional lots. This coffee is sold through the Commodity Exchange (ECX).  Coffee not deemed of sufficient quality to achieve export status is destined for the local market.  Indeed, it is not legal to sell export quality for local consumption; it has to be exported to bring maximum revenue to Ethiopia. 

The Direct Specialty Exchange (DSM)  introduced last year allowed buyers- roasters and importers- the shortest route to gain access to selected Q Graded lots  of highest quality Ethiopia certified (organic and or Fairtrade) coffees.   At the inaugural auction back in February 2010, we were able to acquire four different lots all produced from the Yirga Cheffe Farmers Cooperative Union  (YCFCU).  The Union is a regional organisation that represents and is owned by the cooperatives, and it is the Union that has the licence and capability to export the coffee produced at co-operative level for example the individual co-operatives  like, Konga, Haforsa, Koke, and Sigigia- the coffees we bought.

Our relationship with YCFCU goes back to our first visit in 2002, and we’ve been buying their coffee every year, but for a short blip. For a period of time, YCFC experienced numerous challenges around management and governance issues, and the result was a turbulent relationship between the farmer members and their board of directors with the consequence that support for the group and participation was greatly reduced. Unfortunately, this is nothing new in the complex world of coffee, particularly when dealing with so many farmers- each co-operative can have up around 2000 farmers each working 0.5 ha of land.

Conflict within cooperatives often occurs when there is lack of transparency. Farmers forget or just fail to appreciate that they own their Union, and a long process of education is all too often necessary give them the skills and confidence just to ask for, or get access to the information that belongs to them.

Ensuring there is transparent two–way transfer of information is therefore critical to a strong Union and this had been missing from the equation.  However, the impact that Takele, the new General Manager of YCFCU has had on their performance cannot be overstated.  It was encouraging to observe his strong leadership skills distilled to confidence at farm level.  In addition, our visits and continuing relationship with the group demonstrated the support of a committed buyer and has helped to provide the ‘light at the end of the tunnel’ for the producers.  The second payment (distribution of the cooperative’s profits fund) given to farmers from last season signalled a new re-energised level of activity at Konga and has attracted an increase in membership this year. We are delighted to see that they are back on track. The board of directors of a Union has to be accountable to their farmers at the level of the primary cooperative. What was now apparent to me at YCFCU office was how the farmers have direct access to what the YCFC Union does, every day.   

Back at the cooperative level, in the office of Konga co-operative, it was enriching to see the activity at their cupping laboratory; they are currently the only farmer group within YCFU that has this facility, and it undoubtedly goes a long way to explaining their high quality.  The Secretary of Konga, Sisay Daka told me how aware the cooperative is that the cupping lab is the instrument that enables Konga to improve their quality and to increase the selling price of their coffee. This is their “only income source and the current farmgate price is shining towards a bright future”. Maintaining and crafting the quality at Konga is enabled by the activity of the cupping lab which gives direct feedback to the manager of the pulping station, advising when protocols have been effective or in the event of problems, they are immediately detected and can rectified before they adversely impact quality and therefore price received.

In addition to the quality of this coffee, the second strength is the traceability through to each primary producer group.  They and I consider this the strength of the certification system, whether Fairtrade or Organic – both reveal the producer cooperative and gives visibility and hence added value to the producer.  It reinforces my schizophrenic approach on the benefit or demonization of Fairtrade.

After my visit to Konga, I travelled on to another group in the YCFU, Dama Cooperative who we are just about to begin a relationship with, and from whom I received a massively hospitable welcome.  I wanted to visit this particular group because aside from having cupped some amazing coffee from them this year, they are new recipients of a training grant to develop their governance and management skills. This programme is funded by Progreso Network, an NGO who is providing vital pre-financing* for our coffee from YCFCU this season. At Dama I saw the preparation of some special natural process coffees that we are seeking.  This was a special 2010-11 preparation that commenced with advising a democratically selected group of farmers to deliver perfect red ripe coffee cherries to the pulping station. These whole coffee cherries are carefully dried on shallow square wooden trays for up to 21 days as they gradually darken and dry out to resemble dried a dried black cranberry (or real cherry).   This process intensifies the sweet, syrupy pulpiness and makes this preparation so distinctive and irresistible.

This lot, along with our new season harvest of Konga Cooperative and a few other interesting Ethiopian coffees will be arriving at our Roastery in the next few weeks and it’s your chance (amongst our other origin micro-lot offers!) to get to really understand how much magic and diversity can be contributed by different micro-climates and the diligence of small committed farmers . 

 *Pre-financing refers to a buyer providing the cooperative with working capital with which they can fund the purchase of coffee from individual farmers during the harvest season.  In the absence of this, cooperatives have to secure commercial loans at high local interest rates which are repayed some months later when all the coffee has been collected, processed and sold.  Union Hand Roasted’s participation in this pre-finance has enabled us to build deep relationships with many communities and has been largely responsible for the consistent cup quality we are able to provide through the year.

Ever since getting the news that I was on this jury my excitement level had been rising. With seven previous competitions under their belt and with the legendary resources of the Federacion Nacional de Cafeteros de Colombia, (FNC) behind it, this competition was due to be one of the great ones.  With me on the panel were old friends like Salvador Sans (Cafes Magnifico, Barcelona) Geoff Watts (Intelligentsia, Chicago), Aleco Chigounis (Stumptown, Portland) and a group of great cuppers from Australia, Netherlands, Brazil and Japan- please check the list of all on the CoE website

It’s the first time I had been on a Colombia jury and the statistics leading up to the final international round was impressive and not a little intimidating.  A record 875 separate samples had been submitted to the National panel and under the stewardship of Head Judge Erwin Mierish (Nicaragua), they had slogged through cupping all these lots over a three week period, six days a week to screen the submissions through two rounds down to a final 51 that achieved a minimum score of 84 points.  Our job was to spend a highly focussed week again cupping these 51 to find those that we truly believed were in a class above and beyond what is recognised as speciality coffees.

Our final round week was hosted by the Narino (state) Coffee Growers Federation in the busy regional capital of Pasto, and this hectic town of over 500,000 at the heart of the southernmost coffee growing region provided an excellent base from which we had opportunity to travel out and meet at first hand smallholder farmers typical of the region as well as host meetings with local growers to help share our group knowledge and perspective of coffee markets and farming in the various countries in which we each source and sell our coffees.

Our cupping week was divided as per CoE rules into two rounds in which we first cupped all 51 samples and those scoring the magical 84 and over pass to the second with the scoring becoming ever more detailed as the remaining coffees inevitably become closer together and consistently high in quality.

Interestingly and pretty much as I had expected, the standard here was extraordinarily high. A number of coffees knocked out in round one were pretty decent and well crafted coffees that would be regarded more than sound, with pleasant sweet acidity and positive flavour attributes.  Also in contrast to many competitions which Steven or I have been on, there were very few tables presented where at least one coffee failed to generate enthusiastic support from at least one or more jury member.  The hardest tables to judge were those where all 7 or 8 samples were good or great coffees and this really caused us to look very deeply into each cup not only looking for those that the marks of greatness but which could also present these factors consistently over all four samples on each table.  Just one variable cup thus led to lower scores and singled out the truly remarkable.  At the end of round one, we had discounted 25 out of the initial 51 with around 4 coffees hitting the magical 90 plus; two coffees were also passed through on a decision to re-roast the samples due to round one roasts not being within specification and which had received marginal scores – we always try to give each coffee a fair ‘hearing’ in the jury room.

Second round saw increasingly passionate debate with jury members pushing their favourites and hitting those coffees that were just a little off base.  Its here that the Cup of Excellence scoring system really comes into its own setting the competition clearly apart from the now established Q-grading or SCAA scoring system.  The scale really pushes jury members who use it correctly to focus on each aspect of the cup and its here that we really expand the reward and ‘penalties’ and its how we differentiate between the great and the extraordinary.  Satisfyingly we found probably four coffees that were really close to perfection and the winner at the end of the competition still shone out as a bright star even at this stage with an amazingly sweet and vibrant cup, juicy with depth, finish and a layered complexity that beautifully balanced the cup.  It’s a very rare experience to find this sort of coffee even in our sometimes rarefied world of premium speciality coffee.

Our final day was an even further detailed re-cupping of the top ten scoring coffees to give ranking order and a final chance to stretch the differences out and after all marks were tabulated, less than two points separated first and second places with the outright winner achieving the highest score in a Colombian competition to date, 94.92 points.

The winning coffees will be going to auction on 26^th October and we’ll be watching closely for an opportunity to participate and reward the winning farms.

Whilst I am writing this summary of the competition, I also feel the need to discuss the wider context of the Colombian coffee situation this year (I’ll post another item very shortly to expand on this) as the industry is facing some huge structural challenges over the past 2-3 years.  Production this year is expected to be significantly down by anything up to around 40% due to two years of poor rainfall and a massive problem of coffee trees being infected by an infection called Roja (Coffee rust disease) which has in other countries in recent history virtually wiped out coffee production for a period of up to 5 years.  This fungal infection I should say poses NO RISK to health so don’t start getting alarmed about drinking coffee, it does not infect the coffee beans, but causes massive leaf drop on the trees rendering them unproductive.  This infection can be controlled through good farming practice and a judicious use of appropriate spraying (and no it does not mean nasty chemicals in your coffee; think of it more like having to get a flu shot in an epidemic).  The effect however has been a vast reduction in output with prices for good and great coffee rising hugely here.  The more worrying aspect however is that the FNC has looked for new cultivars such as Colombia and Castillo which are hybrids derived from Cattimor- supposedly more resistant, but as we have routinely found when cupping, the flavour profiles are nowhere as good as the traditional Cattura, Typica and Bourbon varietals.  At Union Hand Roasted we are working with our long standing friends at Timana to preserve the older varietals and seeking to focus on better farming practices to deal with the situation.  We believe that the current FNC approach is nothing more than offering a sticking plaster as opposed to dealing with the ‘root cause’ (sorry for that intentional pun!).  We remain committed to the long term health and welfare of the coffee and its producers.

Burundi Road Trip June 2010

Since we first got involved in Rwanda coffee in 2003, we’ve often been asked about sourcing from its southern neighbour Burundi. After the 1994 regional crisis and civil wars, Burundi remained in a state of turmoil with agreements only signed between the last of the rebel groups and the transitional coalition government as late as 2009. Since 2005 however, with increasing political stability, and the support of the international community, fundamental changes have been made to the coffee sector to enable outside investment and remove state ownership and control of the processing and export facilities. It was against this backdrop of liberalisation (thus allowing Union to develop direct contact with growers), our increasing interest in the unique coffees of the Great Lakes region, and their retained heritage Bourbon varietal (same as Rwanda) that I went to find out the breadth and diversity that Burundi coffee has to offer.

On this trip I was travelling with 6 other curious roasters from the USA and Canada and had been invited to tour a number of the producer cooperatives and meet the principal figures in the Burundi coffee scene from the various sectors; government, private enterprise and cooperatives. Whilst Steven and I don’t often go along on group tours, such an organised week of visits and intensive cupping promised to make the most of my time as I was also due to travel on the following week to spend days cupping lots for our 2010 Rwanda Harvest shipments. When you are getting to know a country’s coffee it’s important to cup as many lots as possible from a variety of areas and producers. This way you build up a picture of who is producing good coffee, who might be able to produce VERY good coffee with a bit of partnership and support, and who is talking the talk but not walking!

Our tour began crossing over the border from Rwanda at Kanyaru Haut crossing, accompanied by plus Ben Lentz (director of the US AID funded BAP Burundi Agricultural Project), Anne Ottaway, representing Michigan State University’s programme and various heads of coffee sector taking a ride in a convoy of 4×4’s. My travelling companion during the following days was mostly Adrien Sibomana, CEO of InterCafé , Burundi’s representative organisation for growers and exporters. Adrien is a tall quiet and thoughtful man, keenly aware of the most pressing issues facing Burundi coffee growers and is moving to get a national dialogue going about how to resolve increasing production of quality, value added coffee with the highly compartmentalised approach to family land ownership which inevitably prevents farmers from benefitting from even minor economies of scale. Over this and many other topics that affect coffee production and community development, Adrien told me more about his background and how he came into public office. What he (or anyone else) didn’t tell me, and what I found out two days into the trip, was that I was riding around with a former prime minister, (1988 – 1993).

Over the four following days of cooperative (washing station) visits and cuppings, it was clear that Burundi’s coffee industry is very much in a state of transition, with a well organised government established infrastructure of washing stations and dry mills that were developed with the single rationale of producing quantity, but not necessarily the quality that might be capable of generating added value for the country’s growers or the breakthrough quality that Union look for. In 2009 however the first stages of liberalisation took place with 13 of the country’s 160 washing stations being taken into either public (cooperative) or private enterprises, and we now have the opportunity to work direct with producers and source coffee traceable coffees.

On the first day, we spent the day touring Kayanza Province, a district to the east of the High mountainous forest area and arrived first at Ruhororo washing station. After being welcomed by enthusiastic Burundi ritual drummers we had opportunity to look at the process for receiving cherries and the washing station operation. One immediately apparent difference between Rwanda and Burundi station practices is that when smallholders bring cherry in, before they put the coffee on the sorting tables to screen out any under ripe (partly green) cherries, they have to put their pick into a basket or net which is then dropped into a water tank and the cherries that float (indicating malformed beans inside, insect damaged beans or over-ripe cherries) are skimmed off. The individual farmers then sort for only remaining perfect red (under-ripes sink as well as ripes) on the dry tables before weighing in and taking a chit or getting paid for the amount of coffee delivered. Ruhororo was one of the first of the stations handed back from the state after a group of 20 farmers decided to group together to take on the station and work as a cooperative taking cherries from local growers. BAP has partnered with this group contributing joint venture funding to add waste water processing capabilities to the station and prevent downstream negative impact while also contributing agricultural and organisational capacity building initiatives. This type of collaborative support is vitally important to us at Union Hand Roasted as we recognise that we are not a development agency but depend very closely on these aspects also being supported as well as our commercial support. Local partners can be highly effective and critical in maintaining what often seem like baby-step advances over the years of involvement.

Our second station visit seemed to be more like a visit to Mumbai train station with hundreds of people if not a thousand or so milling around the cooperative offices and warehouse. Even by African standards of hospitality and greeting this seemed to be an inordinate number of people so it was with relief that we found out that the farmers had turned up for the annual fertiliser handout. At Butegana, also in Kayanza, the station had been taken over in the first wave of liberalisation by a commercial operation known as Webcor Group, a private company active in commodity production in a number of countries around the world. With big resources, the company has made a significant commitment to Burundi coffee taking 13 stations in the first government privatisations and putting in human and financial resources to develop quality initiatives at both station and smallholder level. The principal difference here is that the processing facility is privately owned and as such profits remain within the corporation as opposed to being shared out amongst the community. In reality, coffee producing countries need both public and private producers as the latter can often employ capital to develop resources in an organised manner and if the goal remains that of creating added value coffee that the farmers can really see an improvement in earnings per kilo grown or labour hour employed then it should be seen as a benefit and not just the corporate arm of big business. As this is the first year of this relationship we’ll continue to watch and see how things progress. From the visit it was immediately apparent however that the station’s capacity was huge (500-1500MT) and that even with a central elevation of 1650MASL much work will need to be undertaken to really understand the areas from which their coffee comes, the daily lot sizes that comprise the stations operational capacity and how these can remain segregated to protect and retain the no doubt small parcel sizes where real quality coffee can be found and retained.

After a short lunch we made the final visit of the day to a station at Buziraguhindwa (CPC), a much smaller station (capacity 300-500MT) also private but this time owned and operated by a local private organisation. With an exciting altitude location of 1996MASL this station is well located in the higher reaches of Kyanza’s Muruta district and should be capable of producing some good coffee lots although sadly we didn’t see any samples from here on the cupping tables.

Looking at Burundi coffee there are unsurprisingly many similarities in the methods of operation when compared to Rwanda – after all both countries share so many aspects of terrain, population dispersal and density and of course the presence of old Bourbon coffee varietals. Just because of this however, one should not assume that the coffee itself will be the same as Rwanda’s. Now that the quality of Rwanda coffee has been allowed to shine through better agronomy and processing, real regional differences are becoming apparent characterising coffees that may be full bodied with deep brown sugar sweetness to those fleeting cups with floral, citrus and soft honeyed tones. I fully expect that with such a diversity of microclimates and a soil character that is similar but with enough differences to mark it out from other regions, Burundi coffee could provide us with yet more nuances of the region.

On day 2 of the trip, our cupping was due to take place at a regional cupping lab in Ngozi and here for the first time the roaster anoraks came out! When preparing cupping lots, we routinely use very small batch roasting machines known unsurprisingly as sample roasters. These bits of kit are, like any specialist equipment inordinately expensive and are manufactured in different sizes (number of barrels that can simultaneously roast). At Union we have a two barrel machine that covers the majority of our needs, but out here in Ngozi, the full evidence of government commitment (spending) became apparent. It seemed as though whichever door or hallway we looked in, there was yet another SIX Barrel roaster – in brand new pristine condition. In one lab we noted 5, six barrel machines – and by the end of the week our count had climbed up to a total of fifty something barrels!!!! I hope that these machines find their way out into the regions and are well used, its just that when one sees things like this – I hope that the machines do get implemented and don’t just disappear into the system!

Over the following two days we visited another four stations, both private and cooperatively owned and witnessed similar operations trying to tease out the differences between people and their approach to the coffee, subtle things that give you a feel for the people’s relationship to what they produce and how the community is established – their aspirations and willingness to partner with external organisations to improve quality and of course their return. No matter how much people get under your skin, its important as a buyer to remain focussed on the coffee. I’ve thought back over the years about how many people we’ve met each with great stories and how we’ve come away with a desire or a hope that their coffee meets our own requirements but the acid test is of course the cupping room and blind tasting. This trip promised to be a crash course in Burundi coffee and after day 4 we had hit over 240 sample lots and to keep the schedule on track had to resort to some pretty nifty speed cupping – yeah it’s the same as dating just that your partner doesn’t slap you in the face when you say something inappropriate!

On the final day of the trip, we had a long morning cupping session at Arfic – the Burundi National Coffee Regulation Authority with the US Ambassador in attendance and who also participated in the cupping under tutelage of Wendy DeJong, current chair of the US Roasters Guild. The Ambassador had only recently taken up the posting but it was encouraging to see how much time she gave us and the Burundian teams in seeking to understand the opportunity for both sides in this partnering for quality. I know our own government does do some good work in supporting developing countries –mainly in areas of governance and society, but as a coffee guy its frustrating not to be able to hook up with our own nationals in developing these sources of great coffee…..come on DFID?

Overall I have to say that this has been a great trip and I do feel much more aware of the range of possibilities in Burundi coffee. From my cupping notes I have already got my eye on some lots we’d like to try out and get to know Burundi a little better this year. Over the coming months we are going to look at some of the communities where we can, as with Rwanda, form a close relationship and work together to develop sustainable direct trading that yields more exciting coffee from the Great Lakes of Africa.

We had a bad time in Guatemala because of the Tropical Storm Agatha and the erupting activity of the Pacaya volcano last week. Many people died and some others lost their houses and their plantations. The most damage occurred was in the places very close to the coast area (pacific) near the volcano and Guatemala city. Many coffee plantations were lost.
Some people in Huehuetenango also faced some problems like those, specially the people who live in vulnerable places. Fortunately, where we are we didn´t have many problems with the coffee plantations, probably because of the many trees (roots) that protect the soil and prevent this problems. Now, everything is better. The coffee is growing and I think we will have a good harvest. I hope so.

Back in 2000 when Jeremy & I first starting giving thoughts to creating Union, it was partly as a reaction to the stories we were hearing following the drop in world coffee prices and how this was causing hardships to producers. In 2002, our first year of roasting, Jeremy participated in the first Cup of Excellence judging in Guatemala. During that trip he visited farms and saw the effect low coffee prices were having on producers. He took photos of the coffee plantations that had been abandoned because farmers couldn’t afford to keep them productive. We heard stories about how these abandoned farms would affect the local communities and cause disruption of rural economies. It compelled us to seek another way to trade, developing the relationship model & buying coffee according to its intrinsic value and quality, & not the vagaries of commodity traders working the markets.

Our approach to direct trade was a simple message but we’ve had to work hard to convince producers that it’s in their interest to plan for the future and agree prices that are sustainable for them. It may take the thrill of the roulette table out of their lives, but it removes the risk.

Now over the years we’ve developed the long term relationships with many producers so it’s been a while since I last talked about the coffee crises of the early 2000’s. This visit to Guatemala brought it right back to me as I was visiting farms that were now in the early days of re-establishing their coffee production again after having been discarded for so long.

Famers like Jose Lopez, who is the legal representative of a co-operative of smallholder farmers in La Libertad, Huehuetenango. His smallholding is 1.5 ha. The first trees we looked at were 2 years old, (farm section called La Fortuna). This farm was abandoned from 2002-5, because of low prices, but 3 years ago he started to reinstate it. It’s taken a long time to get back into condition and won’t be fully productive till 2011. At 1800mASL (5800 ft) it’s very high altitude and within this first section all the shade trees in the farm are indigenous which is unusual as most farmers tend not to use indigenous trees now.

The next section of his farm, also abandoned, is still being worked on to get it back into shape. The trees, a mix of caturra, bourbon, pache, tipica, and Jose explains they are 9 years old, which means they were new when they were abandoned.

The high altitude is a double edge sword; positive impact is no insects and no requirement to use any insecticide spray whatsoever. The negative is the effect of frost burn at this height that causes death to part or complete trees.

I found it disturbing to be continuously reminded about the coffee crises that in my mind was so many years ago. Yet, in the remoter regions of La Liberdad near the Mexico Chiapas border, farmers were talking about an even more complex legacy from that period. Here, abandonment had a more profound impact. Many of the farmers in this region are women, fending for themselves because the men left for the USA. The mounting debts their farms incurred after the crash, forced the men to seek work abroad, and try to send cash home to their families who had nothing. But some of the women hadn’t heard from their husbands in years; the women were abandoned with young families with no option but to learn agronomy and take over the responsibility of coffee farming. I asked the women what help they received, “very little, we employ a hand full of pickers, indigenous mayan, in the season, but we also pick and process our own coffee. Pruning shade trees to ensure the correct amount of sun reaches the coffee is the only task we struggle with and need to get assistance”. Again and again I heard this story, unveiling the legacy of the coffee crises from 2001-2203.

In Todos Santos, Huehuetenango, I was privileged to spend a few days with a small co-operative of 50 Mayan farmers. They only wear traditional hand made clothing and most only spoke their local language, “Mam” so working through 2 translators was tricky but we made good progress explaining the Union code of conduct, and how we seek to improve the working conditions and labour standards of all participants in coffee farming. It seemed to be well appreciated as these farmers are very progressive and work according to the Slow Food philosophy of producing high quality coffee, care for the environment and social development for the farmers. This region of Northern Guatemala was closed to visitors until the end of the1996 civil war, and even after this period travellers did not venture here. The culture of these Maya was not respected by western visitors and this caused tension and problems in the region. The Guatemala government commenced a programme to sensitize the people of this region towards visitors and the outcome is that the Mam are now happy to receive outsiders and enthusiastic to explain their way of life. These farmers told me they were not seeking a buyer, they want a partner, a long term committed relationship. This meeting was like an arranged marriage. The last few years they’d been receiving intensive agronomy training and in 2009 they received funding to construct a new pulping station. Now they produce beautiful coffee so am hopeful this will be a union made in heaven.

Its striking to hear their stories – the oldest member of the co-operative remembers when they first started to grow coffee – nearly 70 years ago. And he stands in front of the coffee tree that he remembers his father planting when he was a 7 year old boy. Back in those days the ground was so fertile, they could just stick seeds into the soil and the trees would grow without any inputs. Nowadays they have to apply organic fertilizer to achieve good production.
We’re looking forward to their coffee arriving at our roastery- during June.

Last month we completed a short internship here in London, with Zacharie from Café de Maraba, Rwanda.

Our relationship with the Rwanda farmers at Maraba & Gashonga, is through Direct Trade in its truest sense and we’re assisted by Rwashoscco (Rwanda Small Holder Specialty Coffee Company) which exports and markets the superb specialty Rwanda coffee grown by the 11 Co-operatives on behalf of the farmers.

Rwashoscco is owned by the Co-operatives and is a for-profit business. It also operates “Cafe de Maraba”, a small coffee roasting company, now in Kigali but previously in Butare, nearby Maraba.

Cafe de Maraba sells to the local restaurants, hotels and grocery in Rwanda. It is the best known coffee in Rwanda, and when I’m in Rwanda and ask a waiter in a restaurant “what coffee am I drinking?” they always tell me “Café de Maraba”. But ask to see the package, and it can be another story. Sometimes its one of the competitors, and you can tell because they don’t taste as good.  So Zacharie, the Manager of Café de Maraba, was with us in London to pick up some ideas on how he can grow and develop Café de Maraba and market it successfully.

The coffee which Café de Maraba roasts and sells creates additional revenue stream for the co-operatives.  So, the strategy is for the farmers to participate in a business which provides value added “roasted coffee” as well as earn income from their crops through selling to the co-operative.

The team at Café de Maraba is very small; they are very good and committed to what they do, but the barriers which they face – high taxes, low internal coffee consumption, constant power failures and delivery issues make managing a business incredibly difficult.  Despite the challenges, they are selling roasted coffee in a market which is leading the continent in business growth. With the interest in tourism, there are many new hotels, and restaurants are busy and new openings too.

Zacharie had the opportunity to observe how we navigate Union on a daily basis. We visited clients (thank you to Giraffe, Canteen, Taylor Street Baristas and Royal Festival Hall).  He has to wear many hats; managing the Roasting Facility, Sales & Marketing, Administration, Distribution. We know exactly how that feels when you only have a couple or three people in the team so hopefully he picked up a few tips.  I think the more people Rwashoscco is able to have with the passion and enthusiasm that Zacharie expressed, the greater the chances are for them to be successful as a company and of course that will bring success for the individuals too.
So if you are fortunate enough to visit Rwanda, perhaps drinking coffee in a restaurant, check that it’s Café de Maraba, & pick up a pack at Kigali Airport before you leave.

In early February 2010 I visited a new producer group in south of Costa Rica that we’re working with this year for the first time. But more about that in another place. So whilst down near the Panama border I took the opportunity to travel to one of the remotest areas of Costa Rica called, Bioally, to visit Gonzalo Hernandez Solis at his Finca Coffea diversa. The concept of his farm is a coffee varietal botanical garden (Jardín de Variedades) which is in the midst of creation.

Generally coffee farms are limited-varietal plantations, where just one or two of the most common botanical cultivars, Caturra, Catuai, Catimor, Typica, or Bourbon are planted.
Almost all of the planted arabica coffee varieties grown in the world today are derived from the C. arabica Typica and C. arabica Bourbon. So, for that reason the genetic composition of almost all of the arabica coffee grown all over the world has low level of heterogeneity.
Therefore, Gonzalo suggests the main differences in cup profiles are generated by the microclimates and geographic conditions where the coffee is grown, with less influence from genetic heterogeneity of the coffee plant. The homogeneity within these populations is further enhanced by the predominantly self-pollinating nature of Coffea arabica.

Gonzalo at Coffea diversa has acquired the largest private collection in the world of rare species, mutants, and cultivars, and has a project to test the source of diverse cup profiles offered through genetic heterogeneity.

These rare and exotic varietals have not been commercially available, mostly because of extremely low yield and susceptibility to disease.
So, the question he is asking is what is the effect of genetics on cup quality? It’s answered through working with an extensive range of different cultivars, giving genetic heterogeneity, under controlled planting conditions and with the potential to create an enormous source of different taste profiles. Gonzalo has created an astonishing and beautiful coffee farm laboratory to examine possibly the most overlooked and under-researched factor influencing taste profile.

Garden Setting:
As I approached within reach of the farm gate entrance, I could see why Gonzalo describes this as a botanical garden. It was delightfully planted, with a large range of flowering shrub and tree species bordering the rows of young coffee trees. This first section of the farm is separated into different plots for each species, each plot contains up to 25 different identical coffee trees; many are rare botanical varietals. When these trees have matured to produce sufficient beans to sample roast and determine cup quality, then if the coffee is deemed worthy, a micro-lot sized plantation is created in a different section of the farm.

Gonzalo first bought the land more than 20 years ago; geographically it is difficult to reach so just a few have tried to grow coffee there. Although only 1200-1350 mASL, Gonzalo is enthusiastic about the extremely good micro-climate and soils which he believes have the capacity to grow excellent coffee. The farm is close to La Amistad International Park, the largest forest reserve in Central America with about 500,000 hectares of protected primary tropical rainforests. The farm extends to around 150h; nearly 30% remains as forestland and the natural streams are protected by 50m boundary of wooded area.

It is hugely impressive and the results of an obsessive and visionary Gonzalo Hernandez Solis. Through the next few years as his results emerge, it will be interesting to discover which of the many varietals produced under the growing conditions at Finca Diversa, has the potential to reveal excellence in the cup. Coffea diversa will make these rare coffee species and cultivars available, maybe even for the first time, so coffee devotees can discover these cup profiles.

The Mother of Arabica
Genetic studies suggest that Coffea arabica originated about one million years ago, somewhere in the vicinity of southwest Ethiopia, southern Sudan or northern Kenya as a result of a spontaneous cross between Coffea eugenioides (maternal) and Coffea canephora (robusta) that gave birth to Coffea arabica. There is still some debate about which was the paternal progenitor as some scientists say that it was not Robusta but Coffea congensis. There is unanimous consensus as to the maternal progenitor, Coffea eugenioides. This is supported by means of molecular markers, gene sequencing and genomic in situ hybridization.

Interestingly, Coffea eugenioides has a low caffeine content; Coffea arabica has an average caffeine content of 1.2%, Coffea canephora has a caffeine content range of 1.5-3.3%, Coffea eugenioides has only 0.3.-0.6% caffeine content.

Coffea eugenioides is now native to the highlands of East Africa, where it occurs in the eastern part of the DR Congo, Rwanda, Uganda, Kenya and western Tanzania.