Why can’t you buy more Direct Trade coffee than you do?

What kind of shade trees should I have on my farm?

What kind of opportunities do you have for growers at lower elevations who do not qualify for the Direct Trade lots?

Can you cup all of the coffee from Nueva Generacion for consideration for direct trade?

Will we receive the same amount per pound this year as we did last year?

Can CBI fund our new building to hold meetings in El Huabo?

The questions were well founded, and some of them tough to answer.  I was able to convey the answers to questions about prices very well, and I think that the producers were satisfied with my answers.  I also suggested to Elmer that CBI buy some regular FTO lots from Cenfro to be able to include some lower elevations growers.  This would not be a Direct Trade coffee, but would support the growing efforts of the farmers whose coffee does not cup at least 85 points.  The question about shade trees made me want to go back to school and study agronomy, since this type of question, a request for advice about coffee production, comes up very frequently in my job, and I don’t always know how to answer.  Since I know only what farmers have taught me the past 2 years about coffee, I don’t like to be the one who is giving them agricultural advice.  Maybe one day I will be qualified to answer questions like these, but for the time being I steer clear.

All in all it was a very productive day, and I promised to return after the harvest to check in again with the producers. They even offered to provide me with a horse since I can’t climb the mountains quite as well as all of the old men…

We were treated to a delicious lunch of rice and yard bird before going through a couple of rounds of homemade moonshine.  Drinking is very social here, only one cup is provided, and once you pour your share, you pass the bottle to the next person.  When you have finished your drink, you shake out the cup on the ground (offering to Pachamama, mother earth), and then pass the glass on to the next person.  It is really fun at first, until you want to stop drinking and no one else does.  It’s rude to give up your turn, but sometimes I can get away with it by being a gringa.

This concludes my pre-harvest check in’s with our producers from San Ignacio.  Here’s to a great harvest!

Greetings from San Ignacio! Today has been a much brighter day, with a lot of farm visits and camaraderie with my group of farmers from El Huabo.  The “joven” picked me up on his motorcycle at 8 this morning and we set off straight to El Huabo to visit farmers.  Riding on a motorcycle with a 15 year old was really exciting, but he is from the region so he knows the roads very well and was an excellent driver.  My dad will probably not be thrilled to hear that there were no helmets involved, but I am still alive to tell the tale, so no harm done.  We were well on our way when we got stopped at a roadblock due to construction.  The government is expanding the road north out of San Ignacio to go all the way to Ecuador, so there was a lot of action as bulldozers expanded the width of the road and trucks brought in loads of rocks for paving.  The activity is indicative of the economic boom that this region saw from last year’s high coffee prices, and the improvements are great for the farmers here.  A better road to El Huabo means it will be easier for farmers to bring their coffee to the cooperative, reducing the effort and the time it takes them to transport coffee during the harvest.  After a 30-minute wait, we were allowed through and arrived in El Huabo in no time.

All of the nearby farmers were already ready and waiting for me to arrive at the house of Honorato Garcia Morales, the infamous Manchester United jersey-wearing farmer who I visited last year.  Paul, you will be glad to know that he was sporting the same jersey on today’s visit, so I snapped some more photos for you.  All of the farmers were very eager for me to visit their farms, so off we headed.  In the morning I visited the farms of Maximo Granda Gonza, Jose Herrera Aranda, Timoteo Garcia Granda, Juan Pintado Humberto, and Honorato Garcia Morales.  It was great to visit some of the same farms that I saw in September of last year to see how improvements have been going.  It was also nice to have my origin travel book on me that listed all of the basic facts of the farm so I didn’t need to ask all of the simple questions (altitude, varietals, etc) of the farmers.  I think it also impressed them that I keep all of this information organized, and I caught them peeking through the pages every time I put down the book.  The farms are looking really great this year.  Harvest is just starting, with the first cherries turning red and getting ready to pick.  This week is the first week of picking in El Huabo, but since the volume is still so small this early on, everyone had time to stop and chat when I came by.  I will never cease to be impressed by the physical strength of the growers who live here.  By lunchtime I was so winded from the altitude and the steep climbs to farms that I thought I might faint, but it was just a normal day for these growers who walk the paths to their farms multiple times a day, usually with a 100 pound bag of cherries on their shoulders as well!

Not all of the farmers have implemented the changes they wanted to do last year, but I was reassured that those would be happening in the next couple of weeks before the harvest got into full swing.  Most notable was the lack of solar dryers installed.  Last year the farmers seemed really jazzed about building solar dryers, but none of them who did not already have one in place has built one yet.  I will have to see how this turns out when I come back after the harvest.  Solar dryers are a real boost for coffee quality, since they allow coffee to stay out and keep drying even during rainy days.  All of the farmers who had proposed buying new land and renovating old hectares of coffee followed through on their promises.  Some had taken out loans from local banks to purchase new land, and others had fully replanted up to 1 hectare of coffee.  It is great to see the enthusiasm and the commitment to coffee quality from these growers, and I am excited to see how harvest progresses.

I had brought along 4 CBI hats to distribute to the farmers, but felt in a bind about handing them out in a bigger group.  Instead, I decided to give them to the president Carlos to decide who would get one, and all of the growers decided that a raffle would be the fairest way to distribute the hats.  They all put their names in a hat and the 4 lucky winners of CBI hats were so excited! Hats have been a big hit this year, and I can’t wait to see people wearing them all around the world.  After the hat lottery, we ate lunch graciously provided by Honorato’s wife and then set off for some farms further up the road.  Afternoon visits included Maximiliano Garcia Abad and Lelis Armijos Aguilar.  Maxamiliano, the infamous farmer of many photos, was not around, but I got to chat with his daughter who was already picking coffee.  Lelis had the biggest success of the day, though; taking me to his parcel of land that was only newly planted when I first came to Peru 3 years ago.  This new hectare of land is finally producing coffee this year, and looks really great! He was so proud of his land, and his long investment will finally ay off this year.  He planted Caturra, Mondo Novo, and Catuai in his new hectare, and the trees are loaded with cherries.  This will definitely be an awesome year for Lelis.

After the afternoon visits me and my joven driver set off back to San Ignacio.  It would have been a quick trip if not for the blasted roadblock.  We just missed the passage through, so had to wait for over an hour before they would let us pass.  I bided my time by getting attacked by fire ants and inviting a nasty sunburn to the back of my neck.  All in a day’s work in the Direct Trade coffee business.

All in all, a great and productive day of farm visits.

Some random highlights:

• Cutest farm dog of them all finally letting me pet him after I fed him my rooster bones from lunch
• Drunken man who made last year’s blog found me again and invited me on a trip to Madrid
• Approving looks from the farmers when I finally figured out how to hop of the back of the motorcycle without making a complete fool of myself
• Outsmarting the coffee bugs with 100% deet.  Suckers!
• Gracefully jumping off motorcycle before we went down in a muddy patch
• Getting in some intense leg workouts on my treks up and down the northern Andes.  Jay would be proud

Hasta Manana!

Greetings from Jaen!  I am back down in northern Peru checking in on our Direct Trade producers in San Ignacio, Peru.  It has been a hectic but very productive couple of days here.  Tim Chapdelaine and I arrived in Piura on Tuesday morning and went straight on to visit the mill operated by Cepicafe.  Tuesday was May 1^st, labor day in Peru, so there was no production going on at the plant, but Daniel from Cenfrocafe and the mill manager were there to show us around and talk about their plans for storage during this year’s harvest.  Last year they were overbooked at the mill, and ran out of space to store coffee indoors.  This is a problem in Piura, where the temperatures are too hot o store coffee outside for very long without affecting the quality.  This year Cenfro is going to make better use of some new warehouse space in Jaen and will send coffee down to Piura only when it is ready to be milled.  Jaen has a much milder climate, especially during harvest, so coffee storage will be much more stable and will definitely improve the quality this year.  Cepicafe has also invested in a new color sorter at the mill, which has a much greater capacity and will operate much faster.  This color sorter will speed up the milling process as well as sort coffee more efficiently, increasing yields and wasting less good coffee during the milling process.  Good things are happening at the mill, and it was definitely worth the longer trip to make the visit.

After a quick lunch (ceviche, of course) we hit the road to Jaen.  The trip was as grueling as I remembered it, and no amount of carpolepsy could make the 6 hours trek feel any shorter.  But, as always, we finally arrived and crashed at our hotel to get ready for the next day.  This morning we met with the governing board of Cenfrocafe and were given a presentation on how last years harvest went. Volume is definitely increasing, and Cenfrocafe is making some great strides in developing their cooperative.  Plans are in the works to build a new processing plant right here in Jaen, which would be owned and operated by local cooperatives in the area.  This project is still waiting for financing, and is expected to be completed by 2014.  In addition to the processing plant, Cenfrocafe is expanding the capacities of its receiving offices in the 10 different coffee growing regions where they operate.  New warehouse space has been added to their higest volume receiving centers, and mechanical dryers are being purchased to aid with production during rainy harvests.  Having the ability to mechanically drying coffee will help to avert disasters that arise when coffee cannot dry properly.  Given that northern Peru’s climate has been changing very rapidly, having these mechanical dryers as a back up system is a really great call on behalf of Cenfrocafe.

We enjoyed a delicious lunch of Cuy (guinea pig) and “chicken” (yard bird) before heading back to the cooperative for individual meetings with Anner, the president of Cenfrocafe, Elmer, Ruben, and the cuppers who will be managing our Direct Trade lots this year.  Having cycled through what seems like every problem in the book, it feels like we are on a really great page to start this year.  We discussed pricing, differentials, what our contingency plans will be if there is a drastic swing in the market, and really hammered down what CBI is expecting from Cenfrocafe this year.  The cuppers are really dedicated to separating our lots, and we have a good concrete plan for when our coffee will be approved, milled and shipped.  Communication was the topic of the day, and I hope that everything will go much more smoothly this year.

Tim and I were exhausted after a full day of meetings, but we managed to get through a cupping with Rony, Alex, and Elias to make sure we are all still calibrated and spend some time together.  We were then surprised with a feast at a local restaurant with 25 of Cenfrocafe’s Jaen employees.  Smoked pork, fried yucca and local wine rounded out our culinary adventure, and we were finally able to bid ourselves goodnight and hit the sack!

Tim leaves tomorrow to go back to the US, and I will head up to San Ignacio for a couple of days of farm visits.  Stay tuned for more!

Buenas Noches!

Bienvendios to the last day of the Nicaragua blog.  Today was a full day of farm visits, and I am glad to report that the farmers passed with flying colors.  Carlos and Angel of Aldea Global picked me up this morning “on time” and we headed directly to Las Mercedes to get the visits underway.  Our first stop was to a new producer, who wasn’t really informed that he was participating in this program.  I’m glad that we got to meet him and tell him a little more about where his coffee is going, and was also a warning that the message about Direct Trade might not have spread from the first 6 producers that we started with.  To this end, Warren and I came up with the idea to make certificates for the producers who’s coffee is included this year, that explains Direct Trade and lists their cupping scores and promises that they have made to improve their farms.  This way we can ensure that all of the farmers are getting the message even if I don’t make it to every farm.

Our second stop was to Angel Castillo’s farm, who you might remember from a couple of years ago.  In 2010 Angel had just bought his first solar panel and was busy showing off his 2 new lightbulbs that he had put in his house, making it the first time in his life he has lived somewhere with electricity.  Angel has an adorable family, and his wife, who he calls “La Jefa” (the boss), made me sit down and eat a plate of beans and tortillas.  Not that I am complaining.  It was great to catch up with Angel and see the new improvements he has made to his farm.  Angel is enthusiastically committed to Aldea Global, and he delivers all of his coffee their every year, no matter what the price on the street is.  Last year Angel built a new wet mill with the money he received from Direct Trade.  Before, his wet mill was out in the open, but now it is enclosed in a new wooden structure.  Angel also put in a new and longer washing canal that is tiled with ceramic tiles, and next year he plans to tile his fermentation tank as well.  It is always a pleasure to work with producers like Angel who are so devoted to their land and to their families.  He has done great work, and I look forward to seeing how his harvest progresses next December.

Our next couple of stops were to farmers Juan Antonio and Primitivo Moran Herrera from the first “group of 6.”  Their farms are in great condition, and both invested in new land this year, which has been planted and is steadily growing.  Unfortunately looking at soil samples does not make for the most compelling stories or photos, but it was wonderful to be there in person and listen to the farmers explain how these new parcels of land were developing and getting ready for harvest next year.

We moved on to Jose Isabel Hernandez’s farm, which is always a pleasure.  Don Isabel is like the kindest, most interesting grandpa that anyone could ever wish for.  Pushing 70 years old, Don Isabel still works every day of the harvest picking coffee and milling.  He never fails to wear a cowboy hat and worn in boots, and is eager to talk about the improvements that he is making to his farm.  You would think that after a lifetime of coffee farming, there would be fewer and fewer new developments to share, but Isabel proves that the opposite is true.  Just last year he put in a water tank and gas motor to pulp coffee (previously he was pulping his entire crop by hand!) and this year he is planting his first-ever coffee nursery.  Isabel is not one to fool around and waste time, so he already has his dirt packed and ready to go for when the seeds are ready to plant in the nursery.  He is also expanding his home this year to widen the hallways.  The concrete blocks were bought and waiting in the backyard, and the earth behind the house had already been dug up and primed for building.  It is really easy to believe Isabel when he says he is going to do something because the evidence is already there.  Next year he plans to tile his washing canal (which does need some serious work) and replant a new ½ acre of land.  Commitment does not get much more complete than Jose Isabel.  People like him make my job really easy.  His hard work also really paid off this year, since his cup score jumped from and 83 to an 85, which will qualify him to receive the higher tier premium for this group.  This will be a significant price increase for him that he really deserves.

The rest of the day I spent meeting new farmers and getting them familiarized with the Direct Trade program and explaining how we will use their coffee.  By 1 pm everyone was out of their houses (the window to find someone at home is before noon, apparently), so we packed up shop and drove back to Jinotega.  Tonight I will head back to Managua and then back to Portland to get my head into SCAA mode.

It is days like today that make me really proud that we do what we do with our Direct Trade program.  While some farmers are more committed than others, it is a real pleasure to see the select few who really take our Direct Trade philosophy to heart.  I can’t wait to keep working with these farmers.

Stay tuned for more trips coming up! Hasta Luego

Highlights of today:

-Surprise bowl of beans at Angel’s house

-Watching a chicken lay an egg in a coffee-picking basket

-Not getting attacked by dogs, even though there were a couple who would have gladly eaten me given the chance

-passing out CBI hats to all the famers so that all the other buyers who pass through here will see our mark

Today we had a full day of cupping and meetings today, all on “Nicaraguan Time” (that really fun period of time where you constantly wait for someone to do something).  Instead of cupping at the lab in Jinotega, we set off for Soppexcca’s dry mill in Matagalpa.  Ivania and I got a quick look at the coffee being stored before export and laid out a template for how we will price the coffees this year.  The template is essentially the same as how we ran our beta test last year, but this year we will not be separating the lots by conventional/organic like we did last year.  We will pay the average price realized by Aldea Global this year as our base price, and pay a premium for Organic (it is still important, even though we will not sell this coffee as organic, that the farmers know that the extra effort to grow coffee organically is worth it to us) and an additional premium for realized quality.

Our cupping started “on time” and we cupped through each of the 20 producers who contributed to the container we will import.  The Soppexcca cupper and I were very close in our scores, and I am confident that these coffees are all really high quality.  The cupping scores ranged from 82 to 86.5 points, and we decided to set the scale the same as last year, with one price for 80-83.9, and a higher premium for 84-86.9 cup scores.  There were about 6 farmers in the higher bracket, and the rest in the lower bracket, but all told the quality has improved from last year, and the composite sample that we approved in Portland was fantastic, so I have no qualms about the coffee’s quality this year.  Last year we only bought about 20 bags of coffee, so it is going to be exciting to tell the farmers that we are buying more than 10 times that amount.

Tomorrow is farm visit day.  It’s going to be a long one, but I’m sure full of car napping time as well.

Hasta Mañana!

Welcome back to the Nicaragua Direct Trade blog! I am back down here checking in on the producers of our Direct Trade El Paraiso and Direct Trade Las Mercedes coffees.  It is delightfully hot and humid down here, and I am more than grateful to escape the never-ending Portland winter!

I set off early this morning with Roberto Bendana, the producer of Direct Trade El Paraiso and Organic El Crucero coffees.  Along for the ride were three young politicos that work with Roberto in politics in Managua.  They had never been to coffee farms, so it was fun to have some newbies along for the ride just to keep me on my toes on coffee production basics.  Our first stop was at Roberto’s dry mill, Beneficio La Pita, outside of Matagalpa.  Harvest and coffee picking finished up last week, and all of the coffee has already been dried.  It was a strange sight to see a mill in full production with no coffee drying on the patios.  It was nice, however, to see that the patios were in great shape, and will need minimal repairs before next year’s harvest.  The mill was running full speed, and Roberto still has a lot of coffee to get prepared for shipment this season.

After the visit to the mill we made a quick stop at Roberto’s bank in Matagalpa to get to the root of some issues we have been having with wire transfers.  Turns out that the only way to get things done at a Nicaraguan bank is to get down there and talk with the bank manager.  Lesson learned, I will never try to deal with them remotely again! After a quick 10-minute chat, all of the issues plaguing our banking process with them had been solved.  So much for a global world, there are some things that the Internet still cannot accomplish!

From Matagalpa we finally headed up to Roberto’s farms and had a delicious lunch and a quick look around the farms.  There is not too much to see on the farms at this time of year, the plants are tired from the harvest, and only a couple of workers were busy pruning trees and getting ready for the first flowering.  Roberto is still waiting for the results of his soil analysis, so he is holding off on fertilizing until he knows exactly what he will need.  We were also able to stop by the school and daycare on El Quetzal farm, where he has hired a new specialist in early childhood development on to his staff full time.  This woman was going through the records of the daycare and preparing for a census of the worker’s families who attend the daycare.  Getting a better picture of the children that the daycare will need to serve will help them get more prepared and make a bigger impact in the development of the children, especially the youngest ones.  In addition to the early childhood development specialist, Roberto has hired two new teachers to support the elementary school staff.  Things are really shaping up here, and I am excited to get back down in December during harvest to see how everything turns out.

After a great afternoon with Roberto, I made my way down the road to Jinotega to meet up with Warren Armstrong of Aldea Global cooperative.  Warren works all hours of the day, so I was not surprised to find hi at the office at 5 pm.  It was great to catch up with him and with Ivania, who is back from her maternity leave, and make a plan for my next 3 days here in Jinotega.  We will be deciding on a price for this year’s Direct Trade coffee that is coming from the Las Mercedes region, as well as cup through all of the coffees an narrow down the offerings to one container.  What we have cupped so far has been excellent, so I am only expecting good things from the cupping with Soppexcca dry mill here in Jinotega.

Tomorrow will be another full day with cupping and meetings at the cooperative headquarters.  Until then…

Buenas Noches!

Lauren and I had a very restful night in our rural cabins in the mountains.  The dog-killing-rooster routine only woke us up a couple of times.  Really hope you survived the night, little guy.  We munched on a delicious breakfast of refried beans and eggs before headed on our way to El Rosario Farm in Ataco.

El Rosario was as beautiful as I remember it, all of the plants were finished harvesting 3 weeks ago, and they have been trimmed and cleared to get ready for next years harvest.  Today was the first application of Calcium Sulfate to the trees, a new technique that Miguel Sr. is really excited about.  The purpose of the Calcium Sulfate is to remove excess aluminum from the soil (improves cup quality) as well as strengthen and expand roots in young plants.  Lauren remarked that the application that looked like a light sprinkling of parmesan cheese, which Miguel Sr found highly amusing.

It was strange to see the farms after production.  The farm has a very different vibe, and lacks the constant hustle and bustle and smells of burning trash and firewood that usually inundates the atmosphere.  The walk around El Rosario was a great way to start the day, and I feel really lucky to have spent so much time there this year.  I joked with the farm manager, Nacho that I would be returning once a month to check up on the farm.  I’m not sure if he knew that I was joking.

We hit the road for El Salvador a little before noon, and came straight to FUSAL, a conference center where Lauren will be training the baristas from the Menendez’s shop.  We trained half of the baristas today:

Carmina- from Ataco, 1 year working at Tapacun, register and liquor bar, hard for her to make foam.

Jose Alberto-  4 years working at Tapacun.  Cook, bartender, waiter.  From San Juan Talpa (near airport)

Janette-  10 years working at Tapacun.  Spends most of time in kitchen making drinks.

Nelson- San Juan Talpa, newest hire, very new at making espresso drinks, waiter at the restaurant, liquor bar.

Jose Luis-  Roaster.  17 years working for Menendez, used to work in the restaurant too, really eager to learn more.  From Ataco.

Veronica-  6 years.  Waiter, kichen, cashier.  Loves making cappuccinos, wants to learn how to foam milk better.  Differences between drinks.

Marta (tita)-  Aunt.  Has managed the store for 1 year.

Lauren started with an overview of Public Domian, who they are and why they do what they do.  Next topic covered were the differences between different drinks, espresso, macchiato, cappuccino, latte and Americanos.  Next was an overview of grind, dosing, tamping, and shot pulling.  Lauren calibrated the machine, and then each of the baristas had a turn to pull a “perfect” shot.  Some of the baristas got it right away, and others took a few times, but all of them were able to pull a good 2 ounce shot on their turn.  After shots were mastered, Latte Art was high on everyone’s list.  Lauren explained the basics and then everyone got right down to it.  Lots of the baristas did not know how to manually steam milk before this, so having Lauren explain to them how to do it the right way was a big help.  Hopefully she has engrained some good habits and they will be able to perfect their latte art in the future.  Although the first latte arts of the baristas were a little sloppy, the milk texture was really great, so they have a lot of great skills to build upon now!

All in all we had a really fun day of training.  We will have a new group of baristas in the morning.  Until then, Buenas Noches!

–Fun fact: Café Americanos were invented in Italy during WW2 when American soldiers would ask for brewed coffee (not an Italian tradition).  They invented Americanos (espresso with hot water) to serve to the soldiers who were looking for a hot cup of black coffee.

Guillermo picked us up and we immediately set off for Ahuachapan to meet up with Mama and Papa Menendez to get to the Piedra Grande mill.  This is Lauren’s first trip to coffee origin, so it was fun to fill her in on all of the things that we usually take for granted: the names of the volcanoes, the smell of flowering coffee trees, and the undeniable stench of coffee cherry compost.

We arrived at Piedra Grande around noon and Miguel Sr. treated us to a brief tour of the mill from cherry to green exportable coffee.  The last picking was completed last Sunday, so the mill is much quieter than usual, and only a few lots of coffee were left drying on the warm volcanic clay ground.  After the tour we got to cup some great lots of coffees, the first table was a composite of bourbon coffees that have had a couple of months to settle, and the difference between January and March was incredible, and the wonderful chocolate and berry notes are really singing now.  Our second table, in Lauren’s honor, was different lots of Las Delicias Pacamaras.  These four lots were different pick dates and plots (3 from the front of the mountain and one from the back) and the coffees were really great.  There was one real standout coffee, the highest Las Nubes lot, that sparkled with peach, berry, and chocolate flavors.  Lauren and I both agree that this will be an awesome coffee for Coffee Bean International! The Pacamaras had only been resting for around 4 weeks on average, so these will only get much better with a little more time.

One delicious lunch and catnap later, we were on our way to visit Las Delicias farm.  Lauren used the Las Delicias coffee in her competition for the Northwest Regionals, so she was pretty well filled in on the farm already, but it was awesome for her to get to see everything that before she had only studied from my trip reports! Armed with an altitude meter and Miguel’s monster truck, we trekked up top to Las Nubes and walked down through all of the manzanas of Pacamara plants.  The trail is as rough as ever, but we recorded no serious falls, a first for the walk down Las Delicias for me I am pretty sure! Lauren really enjoyed the trip, and it was so wonderful to be with her as she experienced a coffee farm firsthand!

After Las Delicias, we spent a couple of hours driving through their other nearby farms San Antonio and Santa Barbara before we headed back down to the mill.  Lauren was able to see at least the dry mill in action as the workers worked overtime, sorting coffee to get the remaining containers bagged and exported.  The vibe on the farm was as jovial as usual, if not eerily quiet without the monster of a wet mill spitting out triple washed bourbons all night!

Now we are back in the peaceful retreat of the Menendez’s house in Ahuachapan, waiting for our sweet, sweet pupusas, tamales and refried beans for dinner.

Hasta Manana!

Today was one of those long farm days that was equal parts exhausting and exhilarating.  We set out early from Guatemala City for Finca Santa Felisa in the Paraxaj region of Acatenango.  We were greeted on the road by Anabella, who lives on the farm full time, and immediately set off to see the farm, which is in the final month of picking and production.  The first stop was at the newly producing Geisha plants, where pickers were hard at work getting the cherries off the trees before they over-ripened.  The entire farm has suffered this year from roya (leaf rust), but the geishas are more resistant than some varieties.  The brightly colored fabrics of the women picking were a beautiful contrast to the deep red cherries of the Geisha plant.

Our next stop was to see the newly planted Pacamara section of the farm.  The plants are still very young, but they have great shade cover and when it (hopefully) rains in the next month or so, they will really start to grow.  In the meantime, though, Anabella will have to bring a truck up with tanks of water and water the small plants one by one so that they don’t die before the rains come.

We took a quick and delicious lunch break before some cherries that were soaking overnight were ready to start pulping.  The process was beautifully simple.  Cherries were dumped into a high loading tank, where water carried them down through the one pulper.  From there, the pulped beans were carried to a specific fermentation tank, which was noted and labeled with the date and plot picked.  Each coffee that is picked is labeled by the day of picking that it came from (e.g. starting at 1 for the first day of picking.) This number follows the coffee until it is dried and bagged in the storage warehouse.  These numbers match data sheets for each lot of coffee picked, which is signed off by the responsible party at each step.  It is an incredibly efficient, not to mention impressive, transparency system.  Coffee is usually dried on cement patios, and small lots of naturals dry on newly built raised African drying beds.

Santa Felisa has been trending towards producing exclusively microlot coffees.  They are concentrating on identifying specific cup characteristics from each location and varietal on their farm.  The time and effort that have been put into this are impressive, and there are a lot of experimental projects going on right now.  It will be really exciting to see some of the varietals that they have in the works in the next 3-4 years.  Definitely something to keep a close eye on!

In the late afternoon all of the pickers arrived with their daily haul and each person’s load was weighed and recorded before they poured their bags into the collection tank for pulping.  The atmosphere was very jovial and it was a nice energy to be around.  Having camaraderie among the workers like that is a direct sign of the way they are treated and the opportunities that they are given on the farm.  It is clear that the pickers enjoy working at Santa Felisa, and Antonio and Anabella are very appreciative to have loyal pickers who will only pick the best coffees.  It is a system that really works, and is a pretty rare sight.

There were many more wonderful experiences to share about our day on the farm, but not all of them will fit in this blog.  I can only urge everyone reading this to make their way down to Santa Felisa and experience it for themselves!

Hasta Luego!

After battling the traffic, we arrived at the offices of Jose Padilla of AgroOriente, who manage the quality side for Santa Felisa until they get their own lab up in Acatenango up and running.  Jose was a very enthusiastic cupper, and was really excited to have us try the different lots that he had set up for us.  There were a lot of experimental coffees on the table that Santa Felisa has been preparing for some of their Asian buyers.  I had never heard of most of them, so here is a quick summary of the two most interesting

Pasa process- Coffee cherries are left to shrivel up and dry (over-ripen) on the tree.  They are then picked and soaked in water for 24 hours to rehydrate, then processed as a normal coffee

Kenyan process- I am pretty sure this is what they were calling this coffee, but don’t hold me to it!  Coffee is pulped and put in ferment tanks. Every 24 hours fermentation process is stopped and fresh, cold water is replaced.  Total ferment time- 72 hours.  Fully Washed.

We also geeked out and cupped some different varietals separated by lots at Santa Felisa, Typica vs. Bourbon, Honey process vs. Washed, and of course Santa Felisa’s first crop of Geisha.  All of the coffees were really impressive, but I must say that the Kenyan process coffee really blew me away.  It provided the fruitiness of a natural coffee without the overwhelming fermenty syrupy body.  Most of the coffees that we cupped were available as microlots, and will be offered at Santa Felisa’s auction on June 12^th.  I think there will be a lot of Public Domain quality coffees to choose from this year!

It was a great experience today to be able to talk Guatemalan coffees with such a diverse group of people.  The overall consensus for this year’s harvest is lower quantity but much higher quality.  The early rains and dry harvest season has lead to some really sweet, acidic coffees that I am really excited about!

Tomorrow is farm day.  Until then….