Young Tree Coffee

Barista Magazine Scribblings

2011-03-13T13:18:00.000-07:00

Here are a couple thousand of my words. I try to cover planting coffee from two different perspectives: 1) large scale 2) smaller scale. Page 66-71.

If you have 15 min, give it a read and let me know what you think.

I'm working on a longer post to say how things have changed on Finca La Paz since writing that article.
The photos are of my last trip where I did some pruning, export prep and general catchup on the farm.

Harvest Updates

2011-01-23T15:17:00.000-08:00

Pa' que sepa. So that you know. The harvest at Finca La Paz is over for this year. The yield was a bit less than last year. I was there for the prep of the farm and I have been following weekly updates about picking, processing, weather, dry times, weather, rain, cloud cover, processing, weather, and more weather.

Last year's harvest couldn't have asked for better weather. The rains were so cooperative it was really incredible. This year was a bit rougher. We had a tropical storm hit us just as the largest picking happened. That was an issue because for a couple days we couldn't dry the coffee. Lucky for us the weather passed and the sun came out to dry the coffee. In general, the coffee took a while to dry. This season varied between wet and cold. The town of Los Frios only sits at 1,200 meters, but at our latitude we are stuck with typical high-altitude cool afternoons. Sure it will break 80 degrees most days, but to dry coffee on a raised beds and a patio 85+ for 6 hours is perfect.

On average the coffee took over two weeks to dry. This is good for the green life of the coffee. The natural process was the last one to finish.

This year there will be three different processes and I hope to sell them individually in a three pack of coffees. Washed with a post-fermentation soak, underwater fermentation then fully washed, and full natural.

Like I said the yield is low but the quality should be just fine after a good hand sort.

I am headed down to the DR in two weeks for the pruning and export prep of the coffee. The pruning and the post harvest management are some of the most influential factors that determine next years production. There will be a few different pruning methods used. I will share more as it happens.

When the my coffee is for sale I will share more details.

Now it is time to finish making Sancocho to fend off this sub-zero week here in New York City.

Ummm. I feel like I should say something.

2010-12-10T15:54:00.000-08:00

So I asked some questions. Some of those questions were answered in a long post. I know I offended the people at dirty Cup and Safe House Coffee and Tea. I know some of their friends were also very upset at how I asked some questions online. The response was warranted. They felt attacked even though it wasn't my intention to attack. Many people have personally approached me to thank me for my post, but few have posted comments of their own. Those at Dirty Cup were mad because I didn't call first. Sorry. But my questions are for everyone, just like the project.

Let me tell you a story. After two years living in a coffee producing community, I left touched forever by the lives that people shared with me. I had close friends of mine die during those two years both in the US and new friends in the DR. I came back inspired to make a difference. It took me a full year before I had the idea to enter the coffee industry, I'm a slow learner. When I did start as a production employee at Batdorf & Bronsons roastery in Atlanta, I bagged coffee for 40 hours a week. I purchased a coffee farm six months into that job. I put up a website and proclaimed to the world that "middle men in coffee make all the money." I was working for a great roastery and had two years experience listening to farmers. After several months of research and talking to all the exporters in the DR, I decided that this one guy, Bent, who might be the best one for the job.

Bent and his wonderful wife, Begonia, and I went out to see their farm and dry mill the first day we met. Halfway to the farm while the SUV Turbo Diesel Mitsubishi pitched back and forth over half paved roads, Bent said to me, "Byron, something on your website really pissed me off". Clearly I was shocked he had read the site and his anger rang clear in his voice, "You said middle men make all the money in coffee." Instantly I knew that my attempt to commiserate with my fellow Dominican farmers had gotten me into a tight situation. "Um yes I did say that," I did my best to maker sure my tone wasn't defensive or aggressive because I wanted to hear his side. He very eloquently told me about the value of middlemen in the coffee equation who bring wet parchment to drying areas. Who is going to pay the insurance on the truck if a middleman doesn't charge a margin? Who is going to pay for the new tires when the bad roads shred them? He mentioned specific examples. I shared prices from my community that intermediaries charge. I had been misinformed about the weight loss in coffee and the prices then made sense. My ideas about how coffee worked were changed forever.

I got in the SUV with words that I had listened to for two years straight, "Middlemen make all the money, us poor farmers are left with the scraps and can't cover our costs." I believed it so much that I posted it on the WORLD wide web. Bent asked me a pointed question and I learned something. Coffee, for me, has been the most humbling series of life experiences.

I only posted questions because I thought they would help me and others understand the mission. It would be totally wrong for me to say I'm doing anything different. I write a column in Barista Magazine about my farm to educate baristas about the realities of origin life. I keep a blog. I've given talks in coffee shops about processing coffee. I've hosted cuppings of my coffees to show the differences in processes. Dirty Cup and Safe House Coffee are doing similar things. This isn't about being right and wrong.

Coffee is a great teacher. I didn't post answers because I don't know what is best for Linares. The last thing I would do is tell Dirty Cup how to run a project. I know a bit about coffee from diverse experiences. I sincerely thought good questions would only strengthen the entire concept. If my intention was slander, would I have sent it to Hunt directly after I posted it? If I intended to slander, why didn't I put links up elsewhere? I was happy to leave it up on a site that only gets about 1 visit a day. On that last Monday when it went up I was in a training over Skype with someone in Brazil, so I couldn't respond to Hunt's attempts to contact me until 4pm. I did post something, but it was never published. So I had to put something where it would be published.

People strongly recommended posting something to make sure my voice was heard as I intended it, which is very different from the voice of the anonymous comment below.

Coffeeland Honduras Coffee Documentary

2010-11-30T19:16:00.000-08:00

I would never do this if I didn't feel strongly. At the very least I'm posting this in a place that gets very little traffic and largely abandon by me, the author.

After hearing about this buzz, I have decided to look into it myself and make my own opinion. I took the time to watch the video and google the title of the project. The basic information was repeated a few times on high traffic coffee blogs. Let me make one thing very clear, I adore Hunt and his crew they are dedicated and passionate coffee professionals that I know personally.

If you are reading this and know nothing about my experience, which is totally expected, let me tell you that over the last 7 years I have been working in a remote, rural town in the Dominican Republic who's history mirrors Linares'. Hit by a hurricane that destroyed the coffee - Check. No electricity- Check. Small farmers who have moved away from coffee - Check. Need for literacy work - Check.

I started working in Los Frios in 2003 as a Peace Corps Volunteer in the agroforesty sector. After three months of intensive language, cultural and technical training, I could identify types of shade used in coffee, I knew the basics of inter-cropping, I could speak conversational Spanish. I spent the first year (365 days) learning cycle of planting, politics, why the community used slash-and-burn methods, and economics of the community through building relationships around my work in fruit tree nurseries.

It was only after 9-12 months of living in Los Frios before I could start to stand up in meetings and know who the players were, what was important and what the people actually wanted. Since then, I have purchased a small coffee farm in Los Frios from an old friend and have been in the process of converting it from an avocado farm back to coffee. I have done it fully self-funded. I have, from the beginning, tried to make it a sustainable business because all my experience has taught me that community work is about positively effecting people’s lives through sustainable businesses and practices.

1) A poor community will never say no. Never ever. I have years of non-profit experience and not only in the DR. Walk up to any poor community say, do you want this? They will say, Yes.

2) Agronomos son plaga. Even if the wonderful people from Safehouse were traditionally trained agronomists from Central America, could they add real value to this one town? Probably not. Traditionally trained agronomist that speak Spanish talk all about production and disease resistance. Quality is an afterthought only valid when the price is rewarding quality. Then try to apply agrochemical techniques in such a remote setting, using mules to carry N-P-K and herbicides. . . Will local agronomists know the techniques to building appropriate fertilizer locally?

3) Can you make change in 10 days? It depends on how small of a unit you use to measure the change. If the unit is very small and not dependent on being positive or negative, then yes.

4) Camera Equipment for 6k? I have friends who are professional photographers and friends who make short films they shoot in HD. Neither one asks for help paying for equipment except from Credit Card Companies, but that is not my point. My point is that they have made it clear to me at one can rent an HD Video camera or lenses for international travel because both have offered to shoot something on my farm. Neither was going to ask for donations to a non-profit to cover something that can be rented at a fraction of the retail cost.

5) Rings of service. The entire trailer on kickstart.com rings of the desire to serve both the small town on the Linares and Griffin Georgia. But I have to ask, what does a documentary shot over 10 days provide as service to Linares?

6) Hurricanes are bad. They destroy things. But to say those robust people that Hunt describes couldn't rebuild is simply insulting. Ten people died in Los Frios when Hurricane George hit the Dominican Republic. Many coffee farms were leveled, especially those that didn't have any soil conservation methods in place. Then in '99/'00 the coffee price fell through the floor. That is why people didn't replant coffee in Los Frios or, I would imagine, Linares. What is the percent increase in labor cost in the last five years? Has that question been asked? That is one of the major factors killing coffee production, in some Central American countries, the labor cost goes up 7% each year. How much as the Honduran Lempira lost against the US dollar in the last 5 years? What are the government programs supporting coffee farmers? Who are the people who can get the coffee produced from those 22 families to the dry mill assuming you can wet mill it on site? Blaming it all on the hurricane shows me how much investigation has been done in this project.

7) I don't know shit. I have a fraction of the experience of many of the greats in this coffee industry. But I have been on both sides of the equation. Listening to a community plead for support ($). And I have been a farmer trying to reestablish a coffee farm in these terrible financial times. I have spent hours upon hours in meetings with co-ops. Once we figure out what the fundamentals in the business are, then we can all make progress. But coffee is business pure and simple.

8) Coffeeland Honduras is an honorable project when properly managed and well funded. But to create a 10K project that promises so much for a 10 day trip is hard for me to swallow. 10k could fund a bilingual person six months living in that same community working with the farmers to see how much coffee they need to plant to make money. That person could even write a cost of production for coffee to see if coffee is even viable. All the sudden it becomes business like. Then it becomes personal. Twenty-two families is not a small number. Pull them away from food crops to plant a cash crop? I would never do that. That is me. I went and purchased a farm because I don't believe that any family should follow me until I showed them that it works. Poor families are risk adverse. Any change is risk. Why will they follow a roaster/retailer's advice?

9) Show that its broken. I think if Coffeeland Honduras is done well, it would show with lucid detail why coffee in Central America doesn't work. The battle cry to bring back the life like their grandparents used to have is nice, but not possible from my perspective.

In conclusion, this is personal for me and that probably rings through loud and clear in this post. I have very strong opinions on how development should work in rural agricultural communities. I feel that - no hay mal que por bien no venga - all things bad started with good intentions. Positive intention doesn't mean positive results. I guess the kicker for me is the camera. Once the documentary is released who takes that camera home to shoot videos to support what brand? Dirty Cup/Safe House Coffee, they ultimately take it all home on the community’s coin. I also started to form a non-profit called Young Tree Community to run the development aspects of my work in the Dominican Republic. I never formally finalized the organization because my help decided to work elsewhere. I feel a dual model of non-profit and for profit can work beautifully if managed transparently in different ways. In the end, I don't see a quality documentary fitting under the umbrella of a non-profit, but I'm not a lawyer. Maybe I look at things in too black and white a manner. Maybe I totally missed the point. Or maybe I have a point and felt like I should share it with an impressionable community. So that is what I did.

Fundamentally, I would like to see this project be taken through to fruition, but not by these methods.

New Everything

2010-11-30T19:01:00.000-08:00

Hello world,

Last I posted something it was July and I had just returned from Uganda and Ethiopia. Then I was to start as a Sales Rep for Dallis Bros Coffee. At the end of my training they offered me a job as their Coffee Director to buy green coffee, manage quality control and direct training for the company. Truly my dream job.

So I said yes, moved to Brooklyn, starting commuting to Queens five days a week and generally adjusting to a new everything. I've gone to the Dominican Republic to prep the micro-wet mill for the harvest and to Kenya on a coffee buying trip and also to Texas to participate in the Global Coffee Quality Research Initiative.
So far I love it. I work with genuine real people that I really really enjoy. I work for a company that I believe in, and who has a mission I fully support.

On Finca La Paz, we are on our third picking and the harvest is already past its peak. I plan on heading down there for the usual pruning and export prep trip in late January.

I just felt the need to post this because the next post is more of a rant. I don't know if it is the New York attitude that has seeped into me or the fact that I just disagree so strongly. Regardless I just think it needed to be said.

You just can't describe Africa. . .

2010-07-19T18:31:00.001-07:00

I've been told that my many people. You just have to be there to smell the red dirt. You just have to spend time there to understand it. Africa is different. People usually describe it as a positive trait, it is special. The people that tell me usually roll their eyes back "oh my gosh" in this , it was so amazing face. Some friends have lived there for a few years as a Peace Corps Volunteers, others friends for 6 months with 4H. They all have educated opinions.

So, when I arrived I was really stoked to see if I would tap into this vibe that is so beyond words that all my educated friends can't seem to share it verbally. I was only there for 3 weeks. I only visited two countries of East Africa: Uganda and Ethiopia. Therefore my opinion is rather near sighted, but I do want to put in to writing the vibe that I sensed.

I'm about as Irish as I am black. Really. If you have seen me before you would know that the only dark skin I have is called a freckle. If you haven't, here is me:We (United States People) like to refer back to our "roots". We like to say yes I'm Irish. Yet we have never been to the island and don't know why they are fighting in the North. We like to say, I'm 1/4 German, 1/4 English and 1/2 French because we can. On my first trip to Europe, I went to Italy. I saw a sculpture that is 5X older than our country. I saw ruins that were even older than that. Our desire to have roots pushes us to refer all the way back to our Pre-British colony roots. I know that my mom's family can be traced back to the Mayflower and through that, I'm related to George Washington. And yet, when people ask me about the red hairs on my chin and pale skin, I say, "I'm 1/2 Irish, 1/4 English, 1/4 German".

In our individualist society, in the USA we love to pride ourselves in how each one of us is exceptional. And we are. Everyone is. Our search for our tribe is what, I think, drives us to look way back into our genealogical history to find our origin.

In Uganda, there are about 20 tribes and about 25 million people. Each tribe has its own language, customs and culture. Seeing as how there are Muslims and Christians living there in more or less unity leads me to believe it can be done here in the USA. But the fact that they are a country is more a recognition of the need for a political boarder to manage the rich resources, than a unifying bond behind the 20 different tribes. When I was in Kasese, Uganda I towered over most of the local men. It was a nice change. But that is a tribe known for being small.

Ethiopia has about 84 tribes and about 80 million people. It seemed to be similar. As we drove from the Oromia region, where the only nice buildings between the huts and shacks were Mosques, it was clear this was a Muslim state. The terrain changed and we crossed a river into Kaffa, now there were more women showing hair and much fewer Mosques. There were Orthodox Churches and Protestant Churches everywhere. When one crosses that river the language, culture, religion and terrain changed noticeably.

What did I find common in both countries? OUR roots. Really. What struck me when looking at the faces of Ugandan and Ethiopian people was that I saw myself. Remember I'm white. But something about the unspoken of human structure of society and how it plays out into different tribes fighting over certain resources and sometimes over nothing. Now we are all fancy an call them countries but really we are just tribes. So many people seemed to say with their faces, we've seen this before. And even the designs of logos, and buildings struck me as so classic and timeless. See the match box below and the Tonic Water above. Those are from big companies but even the small companies often had beautiful logos that could last centuries.

When leaving Kaffa, I was thinking that if people knew their history here they might actually know it for a few hundred, if not, thousand years. Working the same plot as their fathers. Dealing with the same challenges. Probably the same neighbors too. Some scientists say Ethiopia was the birth place of humanity. Where we decided to stand up and grow opposable thumbs.

In my near sighted view, this vibe that we sense in Africa is us resonating with ourselves, our true roots. Maybe its been 10,000 years since us whities headed north from Ethiopia, but I'm sure it happened. It was enlightening to see it again.

Ethiopia Photos

2010-07-17T20:00:00.000-07:00

"Near" Jimma. Actually it took every bit of the 4x4 Land Cruiser to get to the above site. They are installing a wet mill. The co-op of 150 members cut 3.5km of road to get there by picks and shovels. The conviction with which they worked was incredible. The mill will be operational in 3 weeks from now.
My first coffee ceremony. She is adding the just roasted coffee and just ground to the pot to be brought to a boil and then served.
Typical Sidama hut.
Solid coffee. Great cups.
"12" A variety of coffee being distribute by the Ethiopian government.

I loved Ethiopia and Uganda. More text on both Uganda and Ethiopia later.

more Uganda Photos

2010-07-17T19:46:00.001-07:00

I did a Barista Training while I was in Uganda.
Notice all the small plots? There were gardens that had coffee. Not pure coffee farms like. They were usually .5 - 2 acres. Coffee is a cash crop.
Most families used some type of wall like is shown, a goat or cow, banana, yucca, sweet potato, and a some coffee.
Uganda was a British colony until 1962. So they still drink and produce tea.
A decent hand picking of Robusta.

Ugand photos

2010-07-17T19:33:00.001-07:00

Robusta produces a lot. This is some of the healthiest coffee I saw in all of my trip.

The dust, diesel exhaust, and burning trash were every where. And they drive on the left.
People were welding every where.
The Bahai Temple. The only one in Africa. Simple, 9 sided, dome. Utterly gorgeous timeless.

photos of Finca La Paz

2010-07-17T19:18:00.001-07:00

It was a short trip. Laura got to meet my other family in the DR. The coffee on my farm is at the stage below. Not full yet but there are lots of green.

Laura, Tongo and Frankeli putting on their tough faces at the Rancho.Nerva roasting coffee to 3rd crack. No, third crack doesn't exist but if it did she would half found it. The oils have completely left the coffee. The typical cafecito has plenty of sugar to bring the sweetness back.
Not quite full yet. We start picking in Sept. With all the rains we have had it might peak early this year.
Antonio and Manuel, his youngest.

Africa is a Country

2010-06-26T23:43:00.000-07:00

Really.

The ignorant masses in the US that refer to Africa as a country might be more right than you think. I currently have had the privilege of watching world cup soccer every night with a Ugandan announcer from my hotel room. When ever an African country plays, they play for all of Africa. The Mobile Phone sponsor MTN's slogan is, "Our Flags are different, but our dream is the same".

Take Uganda for example, one country, 20 tribes, many more clans, probably 15 languages. They all look very different! Some facial structures and skin colors, shades of black, and mannerisms would lead one to think they are not governed by the same body. I have heard that most African nations follow the same trend. Many tribes, languages and cultures under each flag. Some tribes bridge boarders.

Uganda is full of beautiful things and some ugly things as well. They were freed from the British as a colony in 1962. Uganda is the birth place of Robusta coffee and I had a great espresso shot of strictly heirloom varieties and it was delicious! Yes, Robusta can be great. There is a ubiquitous bird that is a cross between a pelican, a teradactyl and the ugly stick. The bird eats trash for breakfast, which seems appropriate. I saw some beautiful antelope in a national park and a wild board that looked like it was wearing a mask to fend off people taking its picture, cause it was funny lookin'.

More to come when the internet is free. Pictures too.

Coffee Planting in Finca La Paz and Cucuyo.org

2010-06-20T06:45:00.000-07:00

Clap-Clap-Clap. My favorite part of any DR flight is the landing because people clap. Loud.

I had two reasons to fly to the DR on this trip 1) check in on my farm: see the coffee planting, check this years harvest volume, introduce my girlfriend to my second home/family and 2) help my girlfriend (she is a lady so I'll call her my lady friend) launch her Non Profit called Cucuyo.org.

Los Frios was awesome. We ate a bunch, Laura and I shared one divine mango from from my farm, Laura got to smell a few coffee flowers, and she also got to meet some of my closest friends on earth Lin, Antonio and Nerva.

There had been a ton of rain of over the last month. The shade trees seem much taller than before and the coffee planting had made some good progress. Three full days without rain and the planting will be complete. Along with some re-planting the farm will be fully planted with coffee by this July. Very exciting. This years harvest will be smaller, my main hope is for little rain during the harvest for controlled drying.

Per Cucuyo.org - After two years of development work in the Peace Corps I know first hand the challenges in organizing community events, it is challenge to get people to meetings, and to get them there on time. . . nearly impossible. Laura Scott Vaughn (my lady friend) along with some local partners has successfully organized an art program in two communities of Bonao, coordinated and selected four amazing artists, and when I left the country she had over 80 kids enrolled. She did that and the fund raising from Athens, Georgia and one visit to Bonao last year! Needless to say I'm super impressed. I helped a little with organizing and logistics. After getting the artists to their host families and oriented I had to leave on the first day of the program.

When I landed at New York/JFK airport I had both hands free for clapping, the turbulence and rough landing made the clapping and praying around me much louder. Flying doesn't scare me, but I do love to clap with everyone it does scare. Good thing because I had 2 eight hour flights before I arrived to Uganda.

ugandan coffee

2010-06-19T10:58:00.000-07:00

Hello friends. I will write a post about my DR experience soon. But I wanted to let you few readers out there know that I'm in Uganda.

I arrived last night with high hopes of tapping in to this "you have to be in Africa to experience it". It is something unique to the continent. Some of my friends have described it as a smell from the red soil, some the people.

Well it is very clear that I'm in Africa, I haven't seen any monkeys or lions yet, but people are dark skinned and have a very different facial structure to African Americans or Dominicans. It is sharp in some areas and soft in others. They drive on the wrong side of the road (yes I'm an United Statesiean), but they give a great head massage when the cut your hair. Or in my case buzz my scalp. Has Africa climbed under my skin and given me this totally unique vibe yet? Not really, but I've only been here 24 hours.

I hear the coffee here has amazing potential. Along with the Ugandan Coffee Development Authority and the Coffee Quality Institute I hope to help them realize some of that potential through cupping lab site selection I will be doing for the next 11 days.

If you are in Atlanta or have a computer

2010-06-07T18:56:00.000-07:00

If you are in Atlanta:

There will be a coffee talk and tasting at Park Grounds on Wednesday 6/9/10 from 7pm to 9pm. I will have many pictures and stories about coffee farming there for everyone. Of course my coffee will be there as well.

If you have a computer:

My most recent article just came out in Barista Magazine. It talks about dry milling, export prep and the some bad smells: dead horses and burning breaks. Page 52.

Brazillian coffee from the prespective of a Domincan farmer

2010-06-05T17:59:00.000-07:00

So I just spent a week in Brazil. I want to be honest and write about my experience without taking up 10 minutes of your time. Dallis Brothers Coffee owns a "small" coffee farm in Brazil. "Small" in Brazil is about 3000 hectares total and 1000 hectares of coffee. I sell their coffee here in the Southeast. Brazil is serious about coffee. The farms are not: happen stance with mixed variety plantings, irregular pruning methods, total dependence on weather, general lack of knowledge of soil and yields, like I've seen in the Dominican Republic. Brazil does use mechanical picking. Brazil does use full sun coffee. Brazil does strip pick. They even use mechanical pruning in some cases.

Is this bad? No. This is a good thing. Before you tell me about small farmers and their families and the virtues of shade, remember that I am a coffee farmer.

First, some of the coffee growing regions are so far from the equator and at 1000 meters altitude, the trees would barely produce WITH shade. Shade would also not allow mechanical picking, which some would say doesn't allow for quality. I disagree. If coffee is mechanically picked then mechanically cleaned, floated in water, then size sorted about 4 times, I'm pretty sure there is another float, then the fully demuscilaged and soaked (for the washed). The result is that from one picking up to 5 different PROCESSES are yielded. Because the farm I visited had variety selections and was divided into about 100 micro-regions each plot of land in production is then kept separate through drying. We were able to cup 8 coffees coming out of the driers all the same Yellow Bourbon variety and process. Lastly, after further sorting in the dry mill, those coffees would clean up beautifully. Hence mechanical processes can yield wonderful coffees. Even a good hand picking requires 10 to 25% of the defects to be sorted out during dry milling!

The farm I visited had patio drying, mechanical drying, resting and milling all on site. The system was very very impressive. All the pictures are from the wet mill at our (Dallis) farm.

I had an absolute blast with my new co-workers at Dallis. We laughed so much I'm pretty sure that I pulled a muscle in my shoulder from laughing. The food in Brazil was cow centric with plenty of beans and rice. So you can imagine I was a huge fan.
The cafe experiences in Sao Paulo were incredible. It was a complete full service I like I haven't experienced before. Each espresso was ground to order and I was waited on by a server. The espresso came with a shot glass of soda water and a small mildly sweet meringue. Again, it was a fully thought out process.

I left feeling like Brazil is the future of coffee. They have systems that make money. And those systems are closely monitored. The cafe experiences were delightful and the coffee solid. How long can farmers in Central America eek out a living on next to nothing while surviving on local credit? If the scale and financing was there Central America would change overnight to the systems I saw there.

So there. I thank you for your 6 minutes. If you have particular questions, please post them here. I will be happy to respond.

New Job. Brazil Visa and much travel to come.

2010-05-28T16:25:00.001-07:00

So my neglect of my blog has been not intentional. I have had several different things in motion for the last several months and well. . . I've been distracted.

1) I am now the Southeast Sales Rep for Dallis Brothers Coffee.

2) We are taking a trip to see the Dallis Brothers coffee farm in Brazil. I board the plane in 2 hours.

3) I will return to Atlanta for 5 days then take off for a 4 week adventure: 7 days in the Dominican Republic (visit the farm and help my wonderful girl friend launch Cucuyo.org), 12 Days in Uganda (Coffee Quality Institute, Coffee Corps - Evaluating cupping lab sites), 7 days in Ethiopia (its my coffee mecca, see the birth place of coffee).

There should be lots of pictures, stories and "movies" to come. Don't let my lack of "!" fool you. I'm super super stoked to be on board with Dallis and all this travel. I need to call a cab (I'm in New York) to make my flight.

my best to all,

DR espresso + DR photos = seed to cup

2010-05-20T05:29:00.000-07:00

For the last couple years I've wanted to orchestrate an event at one of my local favorite coffee shops, Octane in Atlanta.

I did it. For the month of May, which only has a 11 days left, Octane will continue to offer my espresso as the guest espresso at both locations, Westside and Emory. What I'm most proud of is that the coffee taste really really good. The feedback from people has been so positive that I wouldn't believe it if it came from people I know. Just yesterday I was at Octane doing some work and a customer asked Dustin what were the processes in the guest espresso because it tasted so good. Dustin pointed at me and said, he can tell you, its his coffee.

Also for the month of May I have had some of my photography installed at Octane Westside. There are about 30 pictures total. A few portriates, a few landscapes and a seed to cup series. What makes the seed to cup series very relevent is that the actual coffee in the pictures, picking, drying, milling, is the same coffee in the espresso hopper.

So if you are in Atlanta and want to taste and see the coffee, drop in.

If you can't drop in you can see an interview Ben Helfen did of me on Octane's blog.

Atlanta to Los Frios (Finca La Paz) Dominican Republic

2010-05-04T19:42:00.000-07:00

Its about 24 hours. . . covered in 1 minute and 12 seconds. (I miss speak: it was Fort Lauderdale to Santo Domingo, not Miami)

ATL [USA] - SDQ [Dominican Republic] - Los Frios [Dominican Republic] from Byron Holcomb on Vimeo.

Dominican Coffee for Sale from Finca La Paz

2010-04-22T06:08:00.000-07:00

Yes. It is true. My coffee is for sale.
For years now people have asked where they can buy my coffee and I had to tell them to wait. Wait until I had a product. Currently I've been selling my time as a consultant and that is going well, but now after years of effort I actually have coffee for sale from my farm.

I have a great partnership with 1000 Faces Coffee. They exclusively purchased my coffee this year. They also have been very supportive in my barista competitions through sponsorship and roasting my coffee very very well.

Let me cut to the chase. This year I offer two different micro-lots. Full Natural and Fully Washed. The full natural is in very limited supply (only one burlap bag). There is very little full natural process coming out of Latin America that is done in an artisan fashion. This coffee was picked ripe and very carefully dried first on raised beds then finished on a patio. When it was dry milled, I was present to make sure they did a good job without heating up the coffee. The flavor notes are red fruit, chocolate and a big sweet body. There will be a subtle tart finish as well.
The Fully Washed is a more conventional process. Picked ripe, depupled, washed and, like the full natural, started to dry on a raised bed and finished on a patio. The notes that shine through on this coffee are deep chocolate, caramel, and a great silky body.

The coffees offered are both $18 per pound plus shipping from the 1000 Faces website. The coffee is available wholesale as well to local coffee shops. Now if you find this expensive, please let me explain. Artisan coffee is very expensive to produce. I'm actually losing $1,000 on this harvest! 1000 Faces should break even after all is said and done. They had to design a new label, spend time marketing it, upload it to their website, they sponsored me as a barista competitor and pay all their bills along they. So if you take a step back and look at what went into the coffee the price should seem like a bargain.

United States Barist Championship (USBC): results

2010-04-20T17:46:00.000-07:00

I was given the privilege to compete in the USBC in Round 1. I really enjoyed the experience competing at South East Regional Competition.

Just like the regional competition, I had two main goals: become a better barista, and tell my story. Similar to the regional comp, I feel like I was able to accomplish both. A barista competition was a rather new sport a few years ago. Even within the coffee industry it was barely understood. Now after many years of competitions and the winners receiving much recognition, barista comps are well accepted and the level of performance and coffee have gone through the roof. This year was by far the most competitive field I've ever seen.

The coffee I used was from my farm. This makes me the first ever farmer/barista competitor. Most baristas use coffee from the shop they work at. Some work for roasters, some don't even work at a coffee shop. It did make it special for me to take a coffee from before it was flower all the way through picking at red cherry, washing, drying, exporting and finally working directly with the roaster to develop a roast profile that would show the best attributes of the coffee. When I finished the competition one of the prevailing thoughts was worry that I did my coffee justice.

Usually I can stand and deliver a good presentation. This time, I couldn't shake the nervousness in my voice or hands. I don't know if it was the large venue or just an off-day. Oh well. I told my story and served my coffee that I was able to guide through every step of the process, personally.

There were a few different types of processing that went into this coffee, 55% washed - post-fermentation-soak, 15% underwater-ferment, 30% full natural. The blend wasn't intentional, but it was delicious. The blend was actually comprised of the samples I had on hand that were destined for roasters to try my process experiments, but something came up. I had my coffee air shipped so that it would arrive on April 1st to the warehouse. However, the FDA flagged my coffee for a random inspection. No worries, but the the fact that I had a competition coming up and wanted that coffee to compete with did make me worry. In the end after countless phone calls and emails, the FDA released the coffee only to tell me it didn't have Ochra-Toxin days before the comp. Hence, the roast I used was a total one-off. It was simply, about 6.75lbs of coffee I had on hand. So could I prepare like most baristas and taste the coffee as it aged off the roast date? No. Could I even know how my coffee would take milk for the capps? No. Did I know if my coffee would taste good in my sig bev? Nope.

I made plenty of time to dial in the grinder for the comp, which was the problem I ran into during regionals. This time I served some great shots. I received some really good score on those. The notes were red fruit notes and deep chocolate all wrapped around a silky body. The capps were good, but not amazing. And the sig bev could have been better sold. But it seemed like I just couldn't communicate like I wanted to.

It was an awesome experience. Had I made it to the semi-finals, I would probably say that is enough validation on my barista skills and on my coffee to not compete again. Instead I have this feeling in my gut that next year I can do better. . .

Small is beautiful, but . . .

2010-03-28T18:44:00.000-07:00

Well, in the interest in transparency, I don't really support Air Freight because of the environmental and fiscal costs, however I've found it necessary for my coffee this harvest because of timeliness and financial cost. I need the coffee here before I compete in in Anaheim for the US Barista Championship.

Over the last several days I've had several phone calls with my exporter deciding how to get my coffee here. It turns out the price is about the same to air freight the coffee from Santiago DR to Miami FL USA, then put it on a truck and sent it to Athens, GA.

It is probably really boring to most of you, but I've been trying to look at the numbers. Coffee is calculated in a price per pound. i.e. The green transport of my coffee from Santiago to the DR is $0.57 per lb. Then to receive it in Miami and truck it to 1000 Faces in Athens, GA: $0.38 per lb, which total $0.95 per lb arrival cost. Now, if I was moving one container, 37,500lbs, of coffee then it would be about $0.15 per lb of coffee total!

Small is beautiful, but damn, it is expensive.

My coffee should in the air between Santiago and Miami right now. The proposed first roast date is April 20th. Place pre-orders now!

Export prep (hand sorted), done. LTL Export, next.

2010-03-13T09:04:00.000-08:00

Translation: my coffee is almost ready.

The technical details: I just got off the phone with my exporter. My coffee has been hand sorted. It is ready to export. Now he is arranging the logistics: SANTIAGO, DR to PUERTO PLATA, DR (export port) to MIAMI FL to ATHENS GA. Soon my coffee will be a pallet of green LTL (less than container load) en route to Miami on a boat. Then a broker will receive it and put it on a truck to 1000 faces in Athens GA.

Being that it is a LTL I have all the coffee packaged in Grain Pro bags. This way the coffee could be rained on and it wouldn't get wet. It could be on a container with a mildly aromatic cargo and the aromas would not stick on the coffee resulting in funky flavors.

ETA: soonish.

A coffee supply chain battle cry: Coffee As a Baton.

2010-03-03T04:33:00.000-08:00

The article Edwin Martinez wrote about Baristas visiting coffee farms inspired a new analogy for describing the coffee supply chain: coffee as a baton in a race. The farmer does the very best he can to produce coffee that is good enough to pay its own bills, and hands the coffee via exporters then importers to the roaster. The roaster does the very best he can and hands it to the barista. The barista is the anchor in the race and has every chance to make or break all that went before him. I think it is really important that people respect the teammates that ran before them. The reason I like this analogy is that the importance lies in the total transfer of ownership from Farmer to Wet Miller to Dry Miller to Exporter to Importer to Roaster to Barista and finally to the Consumer. Not all coffees follow the hand offs described above. For example, co-ops typically fit in between the Farmer and the Exporter. Coffee is utterly complex and each coffee has its own story. Even Direct Trade coffees often follow those steps above. Remember Roasters are not Millers, Exporters or Importers. They are Coffee Roasters.

It happens often enough that the coffee baton is dropped. For example, the farmer allows some under-ripes through or the wrong Jute bags are used or the green coffee sits in the port too long or the roaster "sleeps" on the roast or the barista doesn't dial in the grind or any number of reasons. At those moments, it is important to realize in this small Specialty Coffee Industry we are all on the same team. We have to deal with what is at hand, not every coffee can be mind blowing-ly good. I personally don't believe in bad people. People do bad things, and sometimes coffee can suffer the consequences. If we are handed a sub-par coffee, we have to deal with what is at hand, no amount of complaining or finger pointing will actually make that coffee better. The coffee supply chain operates in a one-way transfer of ownership. Once a product is sold, the prior owner has no control over it. That would be like selling a bicycle and then telling the new owner how it can be ridden! When I sell my green to a roaster, I have no recourse if he roasts it poorly. Now, if we decided to change the dose weight or shot volume or pick up the phone and call the teammate before us, coffee will get better, and I guess that is the point of Specialty Coffee.

SERBC: Mission accomplished, target missed

2010-02-22T17:58:00.001-08:00

SERBC (South East Regional Barista Championship)

So I had a few intentions entering the SERBC: 1) Get to know my coffee and how it behaves as espresso 2) Tell my story 3) Spend some time behind the espresso machine. I was able to do all of those. I've had the farm for almost three years now, and only in the last week was I able to try my coffee enough to learn a little about how it responds as espresso.

1) I only had enough green coffee to do one roast. So I did some sample roasts and pulled it as espresso. Then I cupped it with Dave Delchamps from 1000 faces. We tasted it and discussed what we wanted to do with the roast to bring out the coffee's best side. With 3 inches of snow on the ground in Athens GA, we roasted it up. From what it looked like, I think he nailed it. With that one roast I pulled the coffee a few different times as espresso. At first is was really fresh and I could taste a carbonic note (fresh coffee). Then it tasted pretty decent a few days later. Then the day before the comp I was able to taste it. . . only then was I able to decide where I should pull the espresso and decide on flavor notes. Turns out, the Full Natural tastes delicious as espresso, but the window of parameters where it shines is small. After pulling 10 or 15 shots at different doses, times, and volumes, Jamie Pair and Danielle Glasky eyes' lite up when I handed them the shot pulled at 17grams, 28 seconds, 1.8oz. Clean, red fruit bright, wild flower honey sweetness, smooth, round finish. Then I pulled a single shot in a 5oz. capp. and as usual the espresso disappeared and the milk over powered. So I up-dosed to 19 grams on the same grind setting and let it run for 36 seconds. It was out of this world good. Danielle finished the capp! I felt confident that my coffee was good as long as I hit those parameters on Friday.

2) Well I was able to tell my coffee's story to the judges and the audience seemed to like the presentation. The feedback was really positive. And I got my picture and a few words in the Atlanta Journal and Constitution.

3) Still know how to use a tamper.

So what happened? Well two things: I forgot a timer to dial in my shots for my 15min setup. Hence, when I set the supplied grinder to the same settings from that morning and the shots ran fast. I pulled two shots, which is all I had time, and they didn't taste all that special but I theory-ed that my palate was off because of the stress. When I saw that I didn't make the finals, I had a chance to look at my score sheets. The first shots were at 20 sec and 27 for the capps. It should have been 27 for the espressos and 35 for the capps. . . so the notes I gave didn't coorespond to the flavors they tasted. I should have adjusted the grind finer and upped the time but that would take a few shots to stabilize before I could feel confident I hit the mark.

So yes, it was a success. Considering I didn't serve what I wanted to, I did pretty well.

if you don't have a subscription to Barista Magazine. . .

2010-02-16T19:04:00.000-08:00

then you can click here: and turn to page 54 to read my most recent article.

ROASTED DOMINICAN COFFEE FOR SALE

2010-02-11T10:53:00.000-08:00

Soon. . .

The coffee from Finca La Paz (yes, that is the name of my farm) is getting a final hand sort right now and will be available for purchase in the very near future (March) from 1000 Faces Coffee.

Dominican Republic Post Haitian Earthquake

2010-02-05T17:51:00.000-08:00

I returned from the DR a couple days ago. Had I been given the chance to go to Haiti and do more good than the resources I would have used, I would have jumped on the opportunity. But that didn't happen. My first concern when I arrived at Los Frios was to make sure that my Haitian friends didn't lose any family. I already knew Los Frios had no damage done. None of my Haitian friends lost immediate family. However, Fredi, the one I wrote about in Barista Magazine, lost a cousin. She was missing but there was a leg with a shoe still on it found in the rubble of her house. Just a leg with a shoe. It is a pretty vivid mental image it conjures up for me. Her husband was outside the house when it happened is fine.

What are Dominicans saying about the quake?

1) First there is obvious lament towards the Sister Country. And general recognition that the second largest and most prized city of the DR Santiago is due for a shake down. There are 11 minor faults that run through the small island.

2) Frustration at the full and overflowing Dominican hospitals full with ill and injured Haitians. If you are Dominican and injured, expect to be at the back of the line because there are more Haitians than beds in some of these DR hospitals and they are worse off. What if there was a disaster in Northern Mexico and all Southern Cali hospitals were flooded with illegal immigrants? I imagine some people from CA would respond the same.

3) Many people "felt" the earthquake as dizziness. I heard one person on the radio say that she didn't feel the quake physically, but did feel it psychologically. As an animal she felt something change in her environment.

4) In typical Dominican-Broadcast-Radio fashion, people were yelling at the top of their lungs, this time about caravans of aid driving through communities in need en route to Port-au-Prince. Arrogant ignorant people yelling in the radio is not something new in the DR. We have plenty of those people here in the US as well. They saw a major problem that people were helping Haiti when there are Dominican communities in need. Well yes. Both of them need help. In my opinion, Haiti needs more help now and they did before the quake as well. Agree to disagree.

5) General concern about an increase in prices in the DR. Supply of water, foodstuffs, medical supplies, and resources went down and demand hasn't changed. . . prices will go up. Not all aid will be shipped directly or via the DR to Port-au-Prince. Much of it will be purchased in the DR and trucked in. This is a small island. We can't turn to a neighbor and receive instant foodstuff and infrastructure to meet the decrease supply lost in the quake. When people like Antonio mentioned the inevitable increase in food price it wasn't with resentment or anger. It was with his gentle farmer things-usually-don't-work-out voice.

6) The addition of 3rd language on customs forms. For the last 7 years I've only seen, Spanish and English. Now French has been added. A very nice political gesture I must say. Haiti's official language is French but everyone speaks Haitian Creol. There were also many more traveling Haitians on DR flights.

7) I heard about 6 or 7 farmers mention that droughts follow earthquakes. A bad drought always follows a quake. These are the types of farmers that don't plant or harvest on the new moon, except Guama which can be planted on the new moon of July, the same farmers that don't allow women in their cycle to be on the farm, the same farmers that can maybe totally illiterate but the can calculate yields of coffee to the pound and costs at each step in their head. I've learned not to bet against these types of farmers, because they almost always are right.

In review, I hope Port-au-Prince take the opportunity to rebuild their city and their nation. I hope through sympathy and understanding the Haitian and Dominican governments and people can work together and relations improve on both sides of the island.

our Sister Nation -Haiti- is hurting

2010-01-18T04:54:00.000-08:00

It is no secret how I feel about Haitians. I published my feelings in articles in my Harvest Journal column in Barista Magazine. When people ask me, "Why is Haiti so poor and the DR so much better off when they seem to have been given similar land?" I get that question a lot. If I had a good answer that I thought fit what I've seen and heard about I would state it here, but I don't have an answer. I love and respect Haitians.

I can only speak from my personal relationships with Haitians that live and work in the Dominican Republic, the few wonderful Haitians I met when I traveled to Haiti, and close Haitian friends here in the US. Americans are known for pronouncing the "R" with our entire mouth, we like hamburgers and pizza. Haiti is the first freed slave nation and they are exceptionally proud of that. When you ask them about how things are they respond, "Well". But the tone and body language tell much more. As a nation they have endured more than their share of abuse, corruption, and terrible luck.

Last harvest trip in the DR, I was sitting at a bus stop waiting for the bus to leave. Two Dominicans were talking about how bad things were economically. They brought up the two usual suspects: the US and Haitians. Because I didn't know the man who said the thing about Haitians and I was not having the best of days I told him what I thought. Using the non-verbal sign for dark skin, I repeated the question, "they are the problem?" " Yes, they are coming over here illegally and taking our jobs. They are dirty and uncivilized." I was in Neyba a town know for sugar production. "Stop," I said rather aggressively. "What would happen if all the Haitians left the only major industry here in this region? What would happen if the Haitians didn't harvest sugar cane, one of the largest exports from the DR? Would you pick up a machete and work like they do for their shitty pay?" He was silent. I continued, "They may come here illegally, but they work harder than you do and their for support a massive industry that this country wouldn't function without." He then nodded in agreement.

I have been able to communicate with most of my major contacts and closest friends in the DR. Antonio called me this morning at 7:15AM. He half way to his garlic farm. It was cold. I could hear in his voice he was near shivering. When the earth quake shook he was on his farm and surely felt the "twisting of the earth". He asked me if there was any damage done here in the US. No damage happened to my farm or anyone's property I talked to in the DR.

The sincere lament expressed by some of my Dominican friends as they said, "Our Sister Nation has been so damaged, our hearts go out to them," was a pleasure to hear. I feel that these two tiny and poor countries which have done so much wrong to each other are starting to forgive. You won't hear it in the streets, but I feel it below the surface in cultural currents. Just maybe this quake will help mend the wounds.

Port-au-Prince, Haiti 5 years ago. . . and today.

2010-01-16T09:49:00.000-08:00

Many thoughtful friends have reached out to me to ask if my farm or friends were effected by the earthquake in Haiti. Thankfully I do not know of any damage done in the DR. I have been in communication with a friend in the Santo Domingo and she said she didn't even feel it.

One good thing about the really rural setting of my farm is that there are no second stories that could fall on any one. There are just wooden frames with tin roofs that flex under heavy winds. In a quake, the houses would probably just dance the same.

I was in Haiti five years ago. I spent a few days in Port-au-Prince. There were UN Peace Keeping Troops everywhere. Their blue helmets marked many street corners and they didn't care batons. They carried machine guns. There were tanks patrolling the streets. Port-au-Prince already looked like a war zone before I got there. It showed in peoples faces' from years of challenges and corrupt governments. People were obviously in self-preservation mode. And when people enter that mode, they will do anything for money. When I was there, it was becoming profitable to kidnap people for ransom, not just political figures, they took professors, they took aid workers, they took high-schoolers on service missions. The pot holes I saw could swallow a dump truck whole. The lack of trash pickup around the open air markets left piles that were 2 stories high. The week before I entered Haiti, a friend of mine bailed on the trip because he heard that there were three Haitian Police decapitated publicly in a poor ghetto of Port-au-Prince

Several friends have expressed the desire to go to Haiti and help. Well, I've been pretty honest in my response, "You don't have what Haiti needs". It isn't like a community trash clean up project with rubber gloves and bottled water. When I was there, the attitude was every-man-for-himself, which is common in capital cities of really poor countries. But now. . . Haiti is not for anyone who isn't protected.

When I left Port-au-Prince, I was able to relax. The fear of getting kidnapped dissipated and I was able to walk around without feeling like a target. I really loved the Norther Capital called Cap Haitian or O' Cap. Over all the Haitian culture, food and people that I met on my one week stay were amazing. The food was more flavorful than the food in the DR, the culture was totally different, and I found that the people were very . . . cool. It is hard to described but they had an understated vibe of wisdom taught through exceptionally hard times.

The loss of life in Haiti is horrific to think about. To lose 100,000 people in a country with only 9 million people is huge. I would imagine every Haitian has lost someone or knows someone who has lost a loved one. I am leaving for the DR in 4 days for a two week trip that I scheduled many months ago. I don't plan on visiting Haiti, I do plan to continuing to pray for them because that is the only service I can really provide. Given the chance to go there an serve the Haitian people that treated me so well when I was there would be an honor, but stepping into a war zone to help everyone with no tools, direction or protection is like stepping in front of a firing squad.

What Haiti needs is prayer or if that word doesn't resonate with you, then they need good thoughts.

How do I pick out a good coffee?

2010-01-09T05:28:00.000-08:00

Over the last few days I've had this conversation several times. Usually I don't know where to start when I attempt to answer this question. In the past, I would recommend a specific coffee or try to tell them an important and interesting fact of coffee that would help them find a good morning brew. Just this week I was at a funeral and a close friend asked me the same question, "I want to learn more about coffee and drink better coffee. Where do I start?"

1) Go to a coffee shop that serves coffee from a good roaster. Many baristas don't know who roasts their coffee, if they know the answer with out asking someone else, you are getting warmer.
2) My favorite answers to this question is: Counter Culture Coffee, Batdorf & Bronson, Intelligentsia, and Stumptown. There are tons of quality local roasters, way too many for me to list here. Google them to find you local roaster.
3) Or, go to a good grocer: Whole Foods, Fresh Market, your local grocer and find the above brands. You can also order them directly online.
4) Buy only Single Origin coffees. Single Origin refers to a coffee sourced from only one place usually one country and ideally only one farm.
5) Don't be afraid to spend money ($12-$23) on a pound of coffee. Brewed at home that should yield 25-45 cups of coffee! Furthermore, if you care about supporting quality driven farmers, then support them buy buying it.
5) Pay attention when you drink it.
6) Try to follow the coffee seasons. Green coffee doesn't parish but it does taste better when it is consumed before 9 months after picking has passed. For example, South American coffees are fresh off the boat right now. The Centrals are starting to age, I wouldn't recommend them past March. Enjoy the East African coffee right now as well because come late spring a good one will be harder to find. But again the above recommend roasters usually follow seasonality so most of what they offer is very tasty.

Below is a PDF that Counter Culture published to keep people in the loop of which coffees are in in season.

How to Brew a Good Cup of Coffee

2010-01-09T05:23:00.000-08:00

This is a special little piece about how to brew a good cup of coffee. I deserve no credit in the editing, writing or anything else. I was just there to watch it happen. . .

How to Brew a Good Cup of Coffee from Ben Helfen on Vimeo.

Seed Prep Theory Part II

2009-12-21T15:21:00.000-08:00

This might seem really obvious but it did strike me as insightful recently.

When you eat an avocado you eat the fruit and discard the seed. When you drink roasted coffee you discard (via de-pulping then fermentation) the fruit almost immediately after it is picked (this of course only refers to de-pulped methods).

Therefore what is important in the coffee cherry is the seed. So like last time, I feel that methods of drying that mimic seed prep techniques should yield superior tasting coffee. Now, this doesn’t follow exactly the natural path of coffee seed prep. In coffees natural life cycle the cherry has two possibilities: eaten and the seed is by an animal or fall of the tree to the ground. Most coffee geeks know what happens to the coffee that is eaten by small cat like animals or monkeys – some people like to pay lots of money to drink the coffee after the feces is cleaned off of the beans! Coffee that is left on the tree usually dries on the tree. The fermentation period is long and slow as the cherry over ripens on the tree. Then the cherry eventually falls to the ground. At this point the coffee is rather dry (probably 25% moisture). Then the leaf litter that traps the coffee keeps the coffee seed moist. The cherry skin either parts or rots off the bean. Then 45 days later the coffee buries its head in the ground and shoots the dry parchment and remaining bean up in the air. According to Illy’s book about espresso, the fruit’s purpose in the life cycle of coffee is for dispersion the coffee seed. The amount of sugars dually encourages animals to eat the cherry and aid in the fermentation.

If you take the seed prep revelation and apply it directly, then the best tasting coffees would be a Brazil natural (aka Raisin or Pasa process dried on tree until they look like little raisins the finished on a patio) or Full Natural (aka Dry Process) because those methods follow the natural life cycle most closely. I enjoy Full natural, I’m actually a big fan of the good Full Naturals. Brazil natural, meh, it can taste really good in espresso.

What am I trying to say? Well it is simply a marriage of cupping with a little agronomic inspiration. I’m not totally convinced at what point coffee should be picked for peak flavor. If you are super strict in picking, your picking cost could easily double. Again it is seeking that balance of two forces quality and economy. So if the coffee is picked at a certain level of ripeness and then processed in ways that encourages the seed to reach its peak potential. For example, if you are processing avocado for seeds it is better to let the fruit over ripen because that allows for better germination (you can also cut off the point before planting). Furthermore we all obsess about ripe cherries, but the cherry skin is removed within eight hours of picking. So it really isn’t the color of the cherry that we find so important. Its in the seed! The real question is at what point of development do we want the coffee picked? Here is a time line aiming for a blood red cherry: a month before the cherry is picked the skin starts to lighten and turn towards yellow, at two weeks out it is yellow with hints of red, at one week it is half red and all the green should be gone at a few days it is red but not blood red, then it turns at striking blood red color. (If you leave it on the tree four or five more days it will turn burgundy). Then, in less than eight hours the cherry skin is removed and the seed rocketed into the fermentation stages. What people don’t talk about is what is happening to the seed as the cherry skin ripens.

Also I recently heard a theory that blood red skin on the cherry produces a more acidic coffee and burgundy produces a sweeter coffee that has little acidity. . . I think bananas provide a good example. A solid yellow banana should be balanced in flavor, (in the US they are rather starchy) little sweet, smidge savory, and a tiny bit lively (acidic). When the banana has a few black spots the flavors have shifted to super sweet and there is no sign of that lively element. Does the production of sugars consume “acidity” (as in flavor) as a it ripens?

So how does a farmer push the coffee seed towards full flavor potential? I don’t know. But I do think that the answer lies in cupping lots of experiments while knowing what buyers and consumers what and provide an environment that is seed prep inspired.

All I want for christmas. . .

2009-12-19T19:45:00.000-08:00

Is a weed-eater like this one.

Dear Santa I want this

or this one would work

Coporino and I chatting in the South of the DR about coffee production techniques

COPORINO
Byron you know what will 'finish off' coffee producers

ME
No what?

COPORINO
Manual Labor. It is so expensive and will only get more expensive in years to come.

ME
Yes, I've see it jump from 150DR pesos per day to 300DR pesos in just five years

COPORINO
[smiles]
There is this machine that does the same work as a man with a machete. Its gas powered. In two days one man can clean 2/3rds of a hectare. . .

ME
REALLY! What does it look like?

COPORINO
It has the engine at one end and the this head that spins really fast on the other. The head cuts with a string or a 'kinfe'.

ME
Ah . . . a weed eater.

2009 Harvest Cupping Notes

2009-12-16T05:05:00.000-08:00

First of all I would like to say thank you to all the people that took time out of their day to cup my coffees. Thank you: David LaMont,Tim Hill, Kim Elena Bullock, Tony Riffle, John Cole, Ben Helfen, Jamie Pair, Brandon Malcom, Ben Myers, Laura Vaughn, and Dave Delchamps. Above is one of the samples that Jamie and I roasted on the IMSA sample roaster.

Fully Washed (17 hour ferment, upper section of the farm, started drying on raised beds and finished on a patio, drying time 17 days): the notes through aromas were vanilla, honey, marshmallow, pleasant, strawberry. The acidity was medium plus and apple like. Flavors ranged from good tropical fruits, raisin, red grape juice, nutty. The body was balance and thin. The aftertaste was described as very drinkable.
Favorites 3

PostFermentation Soak (17 hour ferment, then washed, then place in running water for 24 hours, dried on raised bed for 3 days and finished on a patio, 13 days drying): aromas were sweet, fruit, chocolate, peanut. Acidity was balanced. Flavors were marshmallow, dried fruit and mellow. The body was described as drinkable with a finish that was super clean.
Favorites 4

Underwater Ferment (de-pulped and placed underwater in a clean tank for 24 hours, the water was changed 3 times, dried on raised bed for 3 days and finished on a patio,13 days drying): The aromas ranged from dry spices to chocolate to lemon. The acidity was balanced and flavors nutty, sweet, more chocolate and a hint of veggies. The body was delicate. It finished quick and nutty.

Pulp-natural (depulped and placed on raised bed, after two days the coffee was flipped, days 3-9 the coffee stayed on a raised bed, it took another 9 days on a patio to finish the coffee): Aromas were butterscotch, savory and wine. The acidity was medium. Flavors were sweet, graham cracker, applesauce, floral. The body of this was the crowd favorite heavy, round and coating, The finish was short and sweet.
Favorite 2

Full Natural (picked and placed on a raised bed for 8 days, then finished on a patio): It was in a class of its own, like naturals should be. Aromas were fruit laden descriptors: fruit jam, fruit loops, strawberry, sour apple, tang. Acidity was medium plus. The flavors listed were much like the Aromas: mixed berries, grape, sweet. The body was full, creamy and tart. The finish was clean and short.

Favorite 4

Seed Prep Theory

2009-12-12T06:30:00.000-08:00

On my last trip to the farm I spent a lot of time watching coffee dry. When I had full-time employment obligations in the US I was not able to spend as much time as I like on the farm. A one week trip to the DR would only allow maximum 3 maybe 4 days playing in the dirt. The rest of the time was spent in transport to Los Frios from Santo Domingo.

In the coffee circles that I get my inspiration from, there has been a shift in "appropriate" drying times from a maximum of 10 days up to 30 days. Just two years ago when I was asking all the processing questions to anyone who might know the answer they usually said that washed coffee should be dried between 5-10 days. Just before leaving on this last harvest trip I had a really enlightening conversation with Tim Hill from Counter Culture Coffee. "Yea Byron the Peru - Valley de Santurario and the Burundi - Bwayi from this year were both took up to 30 and 20 days to dry respectively," said Tim. In my opinion, the Peru was tasting super solid at the end of its green lifespan (6-8 months) and the Burundi was one of my favorite CCC coffees of the year. The Bwayi was also the only Burundi that had a post-fermentation-soak after the washing.

Then at SCAA in Atlanta, I had a chance to get a coffee drying tutorial from the owners of Virmax. They recommend that the growers build these raised beds with coffee stacked one over the other. After the coffee is washed the coffee is placed on the lower bed to drip dry. (If you are a grower and want to learn from my mistakes please contact me directly). It is really important that the coffee is spread very thin, no more than 2 beans stacked. Then as the coffee dries it is raised up to the second tier. Then after a week, the coffee can be raised up to the highest bed where it is dried in the sun under the plastic tarp.

This year in Colombia the micro-lot from the La Golindrina project at CCC is the result of an experiment with underwater ferment, done by a couple farmers. When Tim and Kim cupped the coffees from the coop, Organica, there were 3 stand out coffees on the table. All three came from the same farm! When Kim asked what was different the farmers said the only thing they did differently was to ferment the coffee underwater, they had heard that it had good success in other places and wanted to see if it made a difference there.

To prepare coffee seeds for planting: pick the cherries ripe, depulp, ferment, wash the muscilage off and dry the coffee in the shade until it reaches about 20%.

So my seed prep theory came to me when I was drying coffee. All of these new processing techniques are more akin to seed prep than the old theories of coffee prep. Older coffee processing techniques were all about pushing coffee through processing because it is much more cost effective. For example, one wash, as short as possible fermentation times, as short as possible short drying times, and less experimentation. If you follow the Virmax recommendations about coffee drying you could take the coffee off the middle bed and plant it because the processing until the last stage is exactly the same as seed prep. As I've mentioned before Virmax's advice won them First and Seventh last year at SCAA. Then if you look at all the post fermentation soak and underwater ferment that is showing signs of success it only further supports the theory because just prior to planting coffee seed it is ideal to soak them for 24 hours in water.

Act 3

2009-12-06T07:18:00.000-08:00

Scene 1: ¡Manderina! ¡Dos por Cinco Pesos!11/19/09 11:11AM
Two vendadores -sellers- de Manderia and two motoconchisto -motorcycle taxis- and a tiny pickup truck selling Manderian oranges and the driver in the city of Azua Dominican Republic. A tiny pick up truck with two vendadores on the back corner of the truck riding "sidesaddle".

TINY PICKUP TRUCK
[through a loud speaker]
¡Manderina Manderina! ¡Dos por Cinco Pesos! ¡Dos por Cinco pesos!

MOTOCONCHISTO 1
[hands the seller a 5 peso piece and picks out two manderin, no words are spoken]

MOTOCONCHISTO 2
[walks around the truck, then picks out two manderin after some selecting]

SELLER 1
You have to pay for those

MOTOCONCHISTO 2
I already paid the other seller

SELLER 2
No, I made change for you, I didn't collect

MOTOCONCHISTO 2
Yes, I paid you.
[Grabs 2 manderins and turns away]*

SELLER 1
[Squares his shoulders, puts his left fist forward]
You MUST pay for those.

MOTOCONCHIOSTO 2
[puts the manderin oranges back and squares himself as well]
I told you I paid your friend there.

SELLER 2
[shakes is head no]

DRIVER
[steps between the men as they start to shout and wave their fists]
[others step in to separate the near brawl, the driver enters the truck and drives away with both sellers on the back grimacing at the motoconchistos]

TINY PICKUP TRUCK
[through a loud speaker]
¡Manderina Manderina! ¡Dos por Cinco Pesos! ¡Dos por Cinco pesos!

*If I had to judge book by its cover, I wouldn't trust what that book says. No fists were thrown, just chests and words.

5 DR pesos = $0.14 People are hungry. Even though it was "just" 5 DR pesos, it was still business. This is just one example of violence over small amounts of money. I could tell you about a fight over pigeon peas that resulted in a father of a family being killed, but I won't today.

Scene 2: T he Walmart of Coffee 11/19/09 12:30pm
Coffee Buyer -for Santo Domingo, countless workers -moving coffee often on their head in 130lb bags, countless coffee farmers sitting on their coffee waiting for their turn to sell it to Santo Domingo, Eloy -truck driver from Los Frios and good friend of mine, Fabio -coffee farmer from La Cucarita, me -selling about 500 lbs of coffee that isn't export quality.

COFFEE BUYER

[to a few coffee farmers]

Here we are all about transparency, clarity, and honesty. We have good scales and pay good prices for good coffee. I don't tolerate any other type of politics.

COFFEE FARMERS
[nod in agreement]
We are happy to do business with you.

COUNTLESS WORKERS
[moving coffee on to a 53 foot trailer, one bag at a time on their heads, they wear only sandals, one man is barefoot, the energy is positive]

COFFEE BUYER
How many bags so far on the truck?

WORKER
28

COFFEE BUYER
OK all of this must go.
[pointing to the right, a stack of coffee that is 8 ft. tall, 15 ft wide, and 30 ft. deep]

COUNTLESS WORKERS
[spring in to action as if coming off a break, even though none of them were idle before]

ELOY
When are you going to get to our coffee?

COFFEE BUYER
We will get to it today, it might be tonight though, there are two trucks in front of you.

ELOY
We should sell at parchment. It is the same price as pealed. I trust these guys.

ME
How does that work?

ELOY
They peal a small sample of the coffee look at the defects, weight the parchment coffee, discount for defects and humidity, and pay us. It could be really late before they get to us. What do you want to do?

ME
I'm going to wait for my coffee to be pealed. I'm going to stay in Padres Las Casas so there is no rush.

FABIO
I'll sell at parchment as well.
[he is obviously hungry even after I brought him some bread, he is one of those small town people who is visibly out of place in the big city of Azua until now his eyes only show hunger and lack of energy from our 6:30AM departure from Los Frios]

COFFEE BUYER
Pull samples and weigh the coffee of Eloy and his friend.

COUNTLESS WORKERS
[pull a samples to be pealed]

FABIO
[hovers over his coffee like a small boy waiting to hit the pinata, they weigh his coffee, he is in the way of the workers]

COUNTLESS WORKERS
Give us some space.

FABIO
That is my coffee.
[he says with pride and steps to the side]

COUNTLESS WORKERS
Here is the sample of that guys coffee.

COFFEE BUYER
[buries his nose in the green coffee, flips the coffee like a chef flipping onions in a pan]
Looks good.

ME
[his coffee did look good. possibly the best I'd seen that day. there were a fair amount of black beans and broca, but it had great color]

COFFEE BUYER
219kg parchment . . . 3.47quintales . . . $16,017 pesos
[he smiles as he writes up the receipt and looks at Fabio]
What to you think?

FABIO
I guess I have to take it. I don't really have other options.

COFFEE BUYER
That is what is there.
FABIO

[takes his receipt and walk towards the cashier. relieved to be paid for his product.]

ME
[I'm sure Fabio is returning to debts in Los Frios, I wonder if he will make much money, with the internal price so high $1.41 for good C-grade coffee in parchment, he probably did make money this year, come next year he will do the same thing, but he has no control over the coffee price]

Eloy and Fabio leave to Los Frios. I sit on someone else coffee and wait my turn.

ME
[This is the Walmart of coffee. They have wonderful systems that make money. This one of the most organized operations I've ever seen in the DR: it is a total numbers game, there is no free lunch here, or coffee even. I saw Eloy drink some coffee, but none was offered to me or anyone else. My only gripe with what I saw is that it was never made clear to the farmers the percent discount taken off for defects and most didn't seem to even ask. When they did ask, they had little room to negotiate. Santo Domingo is not about driving the quality up in DR coffee. They are concerned with what the buyer said at the beginning: Here we are all about transparency, clarity, and honesty. We have good scales and pay good prices for good coffee. I don't tolerate any other type of politics. Santo Domingo is concerned with obtaining C-market grade coffee to roast and sell internally. The good stuff is exported.]

tasting God

2009-12-05T07:22:00.000-08:00

It is rare, but sometime I think I taste God in food. When a coffee makes me feel or tells me a story. When Nerva (my Dominican mom) makes a meal that satisfies more than hunger. When sushi seems to transfer the life force of the fish to me.

Dominicans can't live with out rice. I can't live with out rice. Every single day of the week I must eat rice. In a rather homogeneous society like the DR, you find yourself having the same conversation with many different people. Dominicans talk about food, they sing about food in songs, the typical meal of the day is also called, la bandera, the flag. Food is culture and patriotism. Me siento vacio hasta que yo como arro', e' como no he comido nada, I feel empty until I eat rice, it is as if I haven't eaten all day.

Above was lunch about 5 weeks ago: arro' blanco, huevo frito, aguacate, habichuela' guisa'o con taiota y cafe - white rice, fried eggs, avocado, stewed beans with chayote, and coffee.

why farming is so messy:

2009-12-03T04:54:00.000-08:00

These are not my words, “A farm is a lot like a lover, there is no template to follow, you can’t change every thing at once, it is a lot of give and take, and getting to know one another”. Joe from Love is Love Farm, an organic veggie farm in Dalton GA, said that. Both of us acquired our farms about the same time two plus years ago. Joe is a dear friend of mine and a talented farmer. When he said that, it really resonated with me. There is no Coffee Farming for Dummies for me to read, and if there was it would have to be a few thousand pages long. After two plus years of effort this project is only starting to take a personality. I like who it is becoming. And to keep the relationship analogy alive, the novelty has completely worn off. I’m committed and it isn’t always fun. I used to love talking about it with everyone. Now it is just something I do. I used to feel cool wiring money to the DR. I used to feel cool buying phone cards in bulk at this place that gave me a discount. I used to feel cool just walking the farm. I used to like cooking with firewood. Our honeymoon is over.

Now that my "cash cow" named Employment with Counter Culture Coffee has died, I'm in a position to invest more in the farm. There is a much better chance that I will get closer to profitability with the increased attention on the farm. With the more attention that is focused on the farm, I'm open to new ideas and advice. Per usual, it comes rushing in, but I usually have to filter all of it and most of the advice doesn't apply to my farm. Let me explain.

In an industry that makes widgets, production problems are solved by buying new machinery or hardware. The cogs in the system are replaceable. Industrialization is effective because the whole operation fits like a puzzle. With city utilities one can build the same puzzle just about anywhere. And when you loose a puzzle piece, you can buy a new one. And your results are usually seen immediately or at least quickly.

I was recently talking to a man from Mexico who's family owns a coffee farm. His silver bullet advice for my lack of intermediate shade: papaya. I'd never seen or thought of papaya as a way to provide intermediate shade and income. Beautiful thought, but papaya doesn't grow in my region. I can count on one hand the number of papaya trees that I've seen in Los Frios.

If the farm was in the the low valley and shared the same water source, soil type, weather and aspect as neighbors, then I could just copy my neighbors. I tried one bit of advice to use pigeon peas as an intermediate shade tree and nitrogen fixer. Pigeon peas do well in Los Frios as long as the soil is rather loose. When I told Antonio about the idea he didn't think it was such a bright idea. We planted pigeon peas last year, most didn't germinate because of the soil on the farm is dark and dense. Those that did germinate were cut down in the following cleaning.

The point of this post is an attempt to illustrate the uniqueness of each farm especially in the mountains. Farmers have to plant what will thrive in their micro climate.

coffee quintal and container revisited

2009-11-27T05:20:00.000-08:00

As I continue to learn how this industry works, I wanted to correct my first post about 'what is a quintal?'.

When discussing green coffee, farmers, exporters and importers all talk about the price of 100lbs of coffee en oro, ready to be exported and roasted. 1 quintal (qq) is 100lbs. Coffee is exported in burlap bags and certain regions export in different bag weights: Colombia 70kg, Dominican Republic 60kg, East Africa and Indonesia 50kg (I think). The bags are all piled into a sealed container, put on a large boat, and shipped to consuming countries. Containers range from 320, 250, and 200 bags of 60kg. Moving coffee is expensive, so people try to decrease the price per pound of transport through volume.

In my experience in the DR, we talk about qq's as the measure of a production of a farm and buying and selling unit. The qq in the DR is a little different because the internal quintal is 110lbs, while the most of the world buys green coffee discuss a 100lb quintal. The weight changes on the coffee because of the level of water lost in drying in the coffee.

Here is the break down:
Humid Parchment Coffee - 100kg or 220lbs (low quality pictured)
Dry Parchment Coffee - 63kg or 139lbs (below the picture with my hand)
Green Coffee - 45kg or 100lbs

If one buys 100kg of wet parchment it should yield 45kg of green coffee. That is one of the maddening things about coffee processing. You start with a really heavy product and it yields about half the weight and size.

Those large bags behind the kids each have 1.2qq of coffee in dry parchment.

Act 2

2009-11-25T19:16:00.000-08:00

11/13/09 8:03AM Me. I'm waiting for yucca and fried eggs. I'm traveling to talk to some coffee coops.

ME
[I read in the newspaper about the crack down on a human trafficking operation involving Dominican and Haitians that bring in Haitian children to beg in the streets of Santo Domingo and Santiago]

11/13/09 3:23PM Me: arriving unannounced to talk with a coffee association. Guy at the bus stop: happened to have the phone number of the guy I wanted to meet. All in the back of a tiny truck with a steel frame to hold people on small benches facing each other. The "roof" of this transport is wooden branches and a tarp for rain. On top of the roof are several rice bags each weighing 125 lbs. With each speed bump and pot hole, the wooden "supports" flex downward about 1 inch. I turn to the Guy at the bus stop.

ME
What is the bus fare?

GUY AT THE BUS STOP
80. . .100

ME
To where I'm going

GUY AT THE BUS STOP
50

11/13/09 7:53PM Me: hungry. Coporino: the man I wanted to meet (above). Eva: his strikingly beautiful daughter. Eva's three boys: boys. Dinner: spaghetti and boiled green bananas. My second meal of the day. After eating all of mine and what Coporino didn't eat.

EVA
Are you sure you don't want more?

ME
No, but thank you. I've just killed what was killing me. I'm fine now.

EVA'S THREE BOYS
[running in and out of the kitchen and bedroom yelling and pulling on the curtins/doors]

COPORINO
How do you keep up with those little tigers?

EVA
I was made for this. This and two more. Two girls.

11/13/09 9:25PM Me. The MSG in the spaghetti leaves me tasting my mouth and craving water.

ME
[My mouth tastes delicious thanks to the MSG]
[I smile]

Act 1

2009-11-25T18:50:00.000-08:00

11/11/09 at 11:01AM Nemo: 3 yr old, Atta: 3 yr old, Me: 29 yr old on a drying patio watching coffee dry.

NEMO
Bairon . . . caca
ME
Go home and shit in your latrine
NEMO
[looks like he doesn't understand, then reluctantly waddles towards his house]
[he makes a pit stop at the bushes]
ME
GO HOME NEMO!
ATTA
[plays on the patio and asks me lots of questions]
NEMO
[while shitting] I'm going to slap you Atta if you take my my 5 peso piece!
ATTA & ME
[we ignore him]
NEMO
[nearly shouting]
DID YOU HEAR ME? I'M GOIN' SLAP YOU IF YOU TAKE MY MONEY!
ATTA
[starts to play with the money and smiles]

11/11/09 2:07PM Diomedis and I watching clouds post big rice and bean lunch pre cafecito

ME
Do those clouds offer rain?
DIOMEDIS
Rain doesn't fall from clouds that high.

Explanation

2009-11-25T18:14:00.000-08:00

I'm not a fan of disclaimers. They sound like excuses to me. But when used as an explanation they add meaning. Reading back over my blog it might sound like whining. DISCLAIMER: writing is my coping mechanism. So please know the doom and gloom you might read here is just me coping.

Part of the point of this blog is to illustrate the realities of origin life. So I have a new format that read as quick easy snapshots. It will read like a play the 'life' entry.

I'm back in Atlanta. It is nice. I will eat lots of turkey tomorrow. It is most likely that I'll be back in the DR in January for another month long trip. For now, I leave the next two pickings in the more-able-than-mine hands of Antonio.

life

2009-11-16T05:17:00.000-08:00

11-14-09 3:41PM
My coffee exporter and I are in his Mitsubishi Montero en route to his dry mill.

ME: You know some buyers in the US don´t like to see bananas as intermediate shade on coffee farms. But they don´t own farms.
EXPORTER: You know Byron everyone has to have an opinion.
ME: Yup.
EXPORTER: And 50% of it is bull shit
ME: Opinions?
EXPORTER: Life. . . nothing ever seems to work.
ME: I like that. We are all living in eachothers´realities.

11-14-09 7:39PM
Post cupping some DR coffees that I´m sourcing, the rain is dumping, his Montero is plowing through puddles and we are on our way to eat pizza.

ME: You know what my beautiful problem is?
EXPORTER: No.
ME: I have no obligations to anyone. I can go anywhere with coffee. I don´t have to live on the farm. I´m single. All the advice I get from coffee people sounds really cool. And I´ve yet to get any clarity from my 6 weeks here!

some time last week

2009-10-31T13:07:00.000-07:00

Here is the short version: my farm is in the Arroyon - about 35min from Los Frios on foot. I've decided to finish drying the coffee here in Los Frios on a borrowed patio for 2 reasons. 1) The tiered beds we constructed take too long to dry coffee before the next picking would demand space on the 17 raised beds we made. 2) Coffee is at a high price internally = valuable. If I leave the coffee unattended on the farm and someone comes at night to steal the coffee, "El Dominicano compra el candado despues el robo", as the saying goes -"the Dominican buys the lock only after the robbery". No one is willing to sleep down there unarmed. I'm not willing to encourage (buy a gun for the farm) people to shoot each other over my coffee.

So, on the patio of Polo, who is not a coffee farmer, he is a cock fighter, I dry my coffee.

It is technically winter so the sun only really is out with enough intensity to dry coffee from 9am to 2pm = 5hrs. So I spread my coffee thin in hope it will drop 2-3% points a day. Aiming to fully dry coffee between 12-17 days.

Things were going according to plan. All of my third picking was between 14.6 %and 13.5% which is about 1 or 2 days away from being done at 12.5% humidity. Everyday we have to spread the coffee out on the patio turn it several times then collect it. It was 2 o'clock, a few dark clouds started to blow by but they didn't seem threatening and the sun came out strong again. With the coffee so close and the weather rather predictable we took our time pushing the coffee into piles. Of the four tiny lots three were in piles.

Drop. Drop. I feel one on my back. Antonio and I lock eyes. Then we both look North East (where most of the wind comes from), it was black and we could hear a sheet of solid water running towards us. I ran to one of the ready piles and started stuffing coffee into the sack. 20 minutes later me and 10 friends were soaked to the bone. Some of the coffee damp, some of the coffee soaked. It shouldn't be too damaged if it is clear tomorrow.

I was really stuck by how many people were willing to stand out in the rain to help get the coffee out of the rain, just another sign of Dominican generosity.

-The following day the coffee that was damp wasn't too bad the coffee reaches almost 100 degrees (F) while drying on the patio and I think the heat pushed off some the water. The coffee that was wettest was actually what I'm going to sell here so I'm not too worried about its quality.

Barista Magazine: Harvest Journal

2009-10-31T12:47:00.000-07:00

page 50.

same story different author

2009-10-31T12:45:00.000-07:00

Tim Borrego: cuppingatlanta.com

He wrote a great peice with his snapshots his Finca La Paz experience.

small clean waves and a long board

2009-10-30T14:16:00.000-07:00

I walked up to the same surf board rental place I frequent at Playa Encuentro. I didn't recognize any body yet so they offered me a long board for $25USD. Within about 20 seconds of negotiating it was $10USD. Then I told him I only had pesos, 300RD pesos. Told him I wanted to see the surf so I walked to the beach. Then I was approached, a kid who couldn't have been older than 12. How much did he say. . . I can do 200RD pesos, the young kid said. Well, I returned to the first guy who lowered his price for the 4th time to match the other offer. With the same price I decided to look at the boards and go with the better board. The first place had big boards that looked like the would take on water. The second place and shorter boards that were in better shape. So I went with the second place.

Surfing is like mowing the lawn, it is great time to think. I much prefer surfing to mowing the lawn, for the record. It was funny to think about the board rental situation as it relates to selling coffee to US importers. If a higher demanded Nicaraguan coffee has just one point better than my DR coffee for the same price. . . I know who I would buy, the Nica.

These last couple months have been a lot like surfing: hard work with real obstacles, and some absolutely beautiful moments interspersed. I'm just a beginner surfer, so my work to fun ratio is pretty low. I have work to get past the breakers and hopefully catch a good wave. I'm also a beginner coffee farmer.

The physical labor cost of rural processed coffee is absolutely beyond explanation. For example, I've had to finish my coffee drying on a patio of a friend (see the "some time last week post"). So each morning we carry the coffee 50 yards from Antonio's house to the patio to lay it out. That means close to 800lbs of parchment coffee carried over the shoulder in bags of about 70lbs. By the 3rd bag I'm usually sweating through my shirt. Turning the coffee is a nice. When it reaches 12.5% humidity, that is a beautiful moment. Then it is time to get it off the patio and haul it back to Antonio's house, again over the shoulder.

When I stop and think about the utter uncertainty of my current position: unemployed, farm obligations, big goals, kinda homeless, I feel stressed. I say homeless because I no longer have work ties to Atlanta and moving here (DR) seems like an easy out of the high cost of living in the US. I would miss my family and friends in Atlanta, but again these big goals of mine seem to set my compass elsewhere. But like Tim Borrego says in his Young Tree Coffee post, I have a certain amount of faith in what I'm doing and that is what I'm living on right now.

Tomorrow, my Dad leaves the DR and the two day beach-excursion will come to an end. I will be back on the farm for the next picking on Monday PM (11/2/09).

Till soon,

Coffee Pioneer. Tiered Raised Beds

2009-10-21T08:34:00.000-07:00

I felt really cool writing that I was pioneering new coffee techniques in the DR on my resume. Like most pioneers I´m lured by stories of big money, cheap labor, and busty women. And like most pioneers I only go half the story. There is no template that works in all farms. There are no silver bullet techniques. I´ve been following pictures, advice and conversations from several different people. The blanks that show up when theory becomes reality, I fill in myself. Coffee needs an amazing amount of attention, work and love to even have the chance of producing a high quality product. Am I chasing gold dust or have I struck a solid vein?

Every morning I wake at 6AM. By 7AM I´ve donned my work clothes and made an aeropress of good coffee then walked the 15min to Antonio´s house. We pick coffee, wash coffee, dry coffee and spend the majority of the day sweating and grunting. The workers (as many as 20) clock at 4PM. At 5PM we are usually done depulping the coffee and starting to put the tools away and make the 35 to 45min hike back to town. By 630PM I usually have taken my cold shower and settled into small dinner. By 9PM Los Frios is quite except for a few roosters and I´m asleep. This is not a game. It is hard work. Today is Friday and Saturday will be the same work schedule. Sunday should could very well hold the same routine.

These tiered beds aren´t drying the coffee fast enough and my nose is telling me that notes of over ferment might show up in the cupping notes. It can be hard to relax. This picking was big and expensive and now looking at the chance of losing a few hundred pounds of my coffee to improper drying, well it doesn´t feel good. On top of all this the farmers default excuse, weather, doesn´t apply becuase it has been brilliant. I guess hard times are good for me. And to be honest a steep learning curve is better because there are fewer mistakes later. There is time to make adjustments for the next picking.

I´ve found coffee to be an unforgiving and relentless teacher of patience and resolve.

Your current plans are going to succeed.

2009-10-07T20:27:00.000-07:00

Hello friends. My current plans are to spend the next seven weeks on the farm. We have only had two pickings, and the third picking will be a couple days after I arrive. The majority of the harvest will be processed fully washed with 12 hour open ferment, but as usual I plan on doing many processing experiments: couple full natural, a few varietaions on underwater ferment and post-fermentation soak. I arrive to the DR on 10/9/09 at 8AM and return on 11/24/09.

Stay tuned for updates.

help needed

2009-09-25T17:16:00.000-07:00

Well. Due to the current financial situation, Counter Culture Coffee has decided to eliminate four positions. The Atlanta Sales Rep. was one of those. I'm not angry or bitter. This is business and some hard decisions had to be made.

I am looking for employment in coffee. If you have any leads and would like to share those, I'm all ears. I would like to work with an exporter, importer or roaster. I understand that is more than half of the supply chain, but in these times I need to keep my options open. There is nothing holding me in Atlanta and I'm willing to move.

Coffee Harvest Season

2009-09-14T20:00:00.000-07:00

Yup. I just got back from a pre-harvest trip. The coffee is coming in a bit early this year. That picture was taken by Tim Borrego, he knows how to use a camera. We were de-pulping Tuesdays days picking, late on Tuesday afternoon. That hand crank antique is how coffee cherries become muscliage coffee.

door-lock

2009-08-22T10:31:00.000-07:00

In American terms this van could hold about 10 people. In Dominican terms they fit as many as are physically possible, which could mean 25. I was the last one in. We sat 4 deep in a row that should fit 2. My right foot was on the runner board and only half my butt fit on the seat. the sliding door didn't have a latch or a lock. So that piece of twine was for that purpose. I cinched it down and did my best not to put weight on the door, if I had shifted right in a turn. . . that twine door-lock was my safety net.

photo bloging

2009-08-19T16:59:00.000-07:00

From bottom to top: habichelas negras - black beans, bosque silvestre para protejer un arroyo - "wild forest" to protect a stream, guineo con cafe de 2 años - bananas with 2 yr. old coffee trees, regido para lechuga - veggie plot for lettuce, lomas peladas - deforested mountains, cielo - sky.

Diones

2009-08-15T06:00:00.000-07:00

Antonio's First Grandson. He is a cool little man.

more bull tails

2009-08-11T17:45:00.000-07:00

That's Max, we met when Tonka Trucks were too big for our little hands so we played with off brand Hot Wheels. He is responsible for my website looking so beautiful in every version.

Thanks brother!

Much love,

b.

Lessons from Peace Corps. . . mellow out

2009-08-04T18:01:00.000-07:00

Tis almost that time of year. Harvest time. The DR is a small country on a small island shared with Haiti, the DR calls the island Hispaniola and Haiti calls it Quisqueya. In the South of the DR, we harvest coffee from late September to mid December. On the other side of the same mountain range, the North, they harvest from February to May.

It is early August, and the stress sits just on top of my shoulders. In early September, when I make my pre-harvest prep trip, I'm sure the stress will sit closer to my neck. I've made enough trips to know how I react by now. There is always so much to do on these short trips, many phone calls and follow ups precede my departure. If I were to list my to do's, it would look pretty lame: walk the entire farm, spend a few days playin' in the dirt, balance the farm money books, possibly build some more raised beds, check in with all my friends, visit the Nuclio de Cafecultores de Monte Bonito, meet with my lawyers in the capital and stuff. Lots of little things, but not 9 days worth . . . .

If I had a helicopter and good weather, that could all happen in 4 days. But I travel like any non-vehicle owning Dominican: bus - guagua, mule - mulo, truck - camion, on foot - a pie, and my favorite public taxi - carro publico. I learned after my first year of Peace Corps service to: have faith that I will arrive at my destination before night fall (and if you don't, ehh [shoulder shrug] you will find a bed or not), leave a little wiggle room in all my plans, focus on the fundamental point of it all not the task at hand and mellow out.

Almost always at some point, I wonder if I should take my return flight home. . . then I realize that I have bills to pay and the point of it all is bigger than me playing in the dirt.

[in the picture I have a bull's tail as a goatee]

como se monte una carga en mulo

2009-07-28T19:31:00.000-07:00

How to load stuff on a mule.

One needs:
un mulo - mule
parejo - Dominican seat
zarones - saddle bags
jaquima - bridal
boca'o - reins
pajezeha - pad under the parejo
soga - rope
y sogita de pampano de guineo - little rope pieces from twisted banana "bark". This is fabricated on the spot.

Any self respecting farmer has all of this for his mules ready to go at a moments notice. But some farmers, like Antonio, have more work animals than gear. So his mules usually carry a patch work of gear with sewn reinforcements and little strings that hold everything together. Then, something breaks at a different place and more string is found and woven in place.

I love Antonio. Depending on your definition of love that might sound weird for a guy to say such a thing about another guy who isn't family. Antonio has redefined what friendship is for me, taught me about humility in so many ways, how to be the same person when no one is watching, how to work at a slow steady never ceasing pace and then take a day off completely every now and then (OK, I don't know how to do that yet), how to be stern without raising your voice. I'm serious when I tell Antonio that I want my kids to grow up with his kids and under his watch.

Another thing Antonio has taught me is the how to work with what is at arms length. When we are loading up the mules with firewood, bananas, plantains, tubers, coffee, beans and stuff, he never leaves a 5 foot radius to load up the cargo. He some how finds everything he needs in a 3 step range. A little bit of nylon rope to secure a zeron. Part of a plastic bag to seal a leaky top to a glass bottle with cooking oil. A whole plastic bag to carry uneaten food up for his pigs. It is a beautiful image. Like one of his sons, I'm inspired to help and just like his sons, the scraps I find usually are inferior to Antonio's.

So on Sunday we were talking on the phone. Usual catch up stuff: family, health, any events in the community. The workers workers clearing fields needed to be paid. The money wire was sitting in a bank waiting for Antonio to make the long trip down the hill. He needed to copy down the reference number to withdrawal the money wire. To call him, I use prepaid phone cards and it cost about .25cents a minute. I had run out of them and had to call him direct ($1.50 per minute!). Antonio doesn't get cell service in his house so when he calls me there is no chance for me call him back except immediately. I asked him over the blowing wind and his kids playing in the back ground if he had a pen to write down the reference number. No tengo como notarlo pero puedo escribirlo aqui en el suelo mientras tanto - I don't have a way to write it down now, but I will mark it here in the ground for now. I read him the numbers once, he reads them back to me and didn't miss one. Antonio knows his numbers, and only a few letters. I smile as I write this knowing exactly where he stands when he calls me and where those numbers were marked in that red clay soil in Los Frios.

Before I can teach you how to load a mule I should learn myself. At least be able to do it without having Antonio redo all my ignorant efforts.

well then pay him for 2 chickens. . .

2009-06-30T18:45:00.000-07:00

So today went well. I was able to call at a good time and got the Fical de Bohechio on the phone. He said I wasn't to be involved because I wasn't accused of killing the chickens, Antonio was. I said, "I'm responsible for that land and farm." He said it was simple and not to worry, we are still doing our investigation and looking for proof. To which I said, "yes you need proof: witnesses, lab results from poisoned chickens and 54 dead chickens". I went back to Antonio's defense and started to express my frustration in the situation. As I continued, Antonio's soft humble voice greeted me - the phone was pass from the Fical to Antonio. I said when you are done please call me.

He did.

Turns out they don't have proof. Then they said that the damages must be paid and Antonio should pay for at least 2 chickens. Antonio said, "I'm not paying you one peso". Said Neighbor was apparently pretty irritated. The Local Mayor didn't show so they plan to have another meeting. . .

3 + what = 54

2009-06-29T19:35:00.000-07:00

There are many things I'm not good at, math is one of them, but I can solve the above equation.

The chicken saga continues. Last I understood, The Chicken Incident of 2009 was on hold until I could physically defend Antonio and myself in "court". So I told Antonio that he should, per direct instructions to me, go down to Bohechio and put out an order on the remaining chickens. Said Neighbor bought a new rooster and has placed it with his remaining chickens. With a legal order in place, Said Neighbor would have to do something about his chickens (funny, so many survived the poisoning).

Antonio was greeted with a simple but hostile statement from the Regional Mayor, "if you weren't traveling alone you would spend the night here for killing all those chickens". Here is a holding cell in Bohechio. Antonio stood his ground and defended us. There are, to my knowledge, 3 dead chickens as evidence that showed up in the hands of the Said Neighbor, however they insist there are 54.

Tomorrow there is a meeting with Antonio, Said Neighbor, Local Mayor and Regional Mayor. Yes, that is 3 against 1. I will be there in spirit. From my legal council, no laws have been upheld in this process and no real evidence exists. The 3 people against us are all family.

I talked to Antonio tonight. He is sick as a dog with a cold, fever, chills, and congested. He gave his word in the prior meeting and will up hold that. Please note the trip from Los Frios to Bohechio is an exhausting 2 hour trip in the back of a truck that doesn't cover 10 feet of asphalt, but only rutted and rocky trail.

3 + family ties = 54

what friends are for

2009-06-22T08:38:00.000-07:00

Abbot Placid the is one of the most virtuous and wonderful men I have ever met. Hence, when he gives me advice I pay close attention. He is a humble, brilliant monk at the Belmont Abbey Monastery. One time during my Peace Corps service he accompanied an alternative spring break trip from Belmont Abbey College. The students funded and built a bank for the savings co-op: COMPASEMUCE in Los Frios.

I expressed my worry about this one Dominican guy who always gave me dirty looks and wouldn't shake my hand or look me in the eye. In Dominican culture, this is beyond passive aggression, this is out right aggressive hateful behavior. He simply said, "Byron, if everyone is your friend what do you stand for? Some people will not like you because of some of the things you do, regardless if they are good things."

As the "Chicken Incident" continues, I have lost "friends"; Antonio has made enemies*. The neighbor who I've been dealing with for the last 2 years has strong family ties with people who have political power. Those people still say hi to me. They don't even greet Antonio any more, and haven't for almost a year, since the last chicken poisoning. I have no intention to slander said neighbor, but only to relate the current events on the farm.

I have a pretty good network in that region of the DR. So I called some one who might know the Fical - Regional Mayor because the Local Mayor is family of the said neighbor and is not upholding the law. Bingo, one phone call later, I have ear with the Fical now. He has put the situation on hold till I go down there. At least they won't touch Antonio, at least they are being reasonable. I still have a lawyer on call, I will still cross my fingers that nothing happens to my farm in retaliation.

As some of my bridges are tested and strengthened, others are marked for destruction. My solace comes from Abbot's words. It is natural to want to be everyone's friend, but it isn't natural to be everyone's friend.

*If I haven't made it clear, Antonio is one of the best friends I could ever have. He is willing to draw lines in the dirt and stand up for us.

who done it?

2009-06-10T19:48:00.000-07:00

So I get a panicked phone call from Antonio a few weeks ago. "Byron, the chickens showed up dead I'm being accused of poisoning them!" Last year about the same time, as the black beans were flowering, Antonio had enough of the a neighbors chickens roaming my farm and eating everything in sight, so he poisoned them after countless warnings. I told the said neighbor a couple times directly, still he did nothing to control his chickens. Last year I paid for the chickens: 5,000DR pesos ($140).

On my last trip I saw the said neighbor in the road as I walked out of town because of rains kept the trucks from running. I told him, control the chickens or I will.

He did. I get mad about once a year. My fuse is really really long, but if it goes clear the room. The lieutenant that had me on the phone didn't think this gringo would be quite so aggressive. It was simple. Mr. Lieutenant says, "the owner of the chickens needs you to pay him they are dead, I have them here". I responded, "The owner has every right to be paid for the chickens from the person that killed them." I ask, "who killed the chickens?" Ummm I have 3 chickens and 1 rooster poisoned here. At this point I'm at 6000 RPM. "Who KILLED the CHICKENS?!" OK, deep breath. "DID YOU GO DOWN TO MY FARM AND SEE THE DEAD CHICKENS WITHIN MY BARBWIRE?" "No, they showed up on said neighbors hand". Approaching 9000 RPM. "OK WHEN YOU FINISH YOUR INVESTIGATION AND CAN ACCUSE ME OF POISONING THOSE CHICKENS, THEN YOU CONTACT ME." He realized he would make no progress and handed the phone back to Antonio.

Now I have a lawyer involved, several community members and it is not over yet. Had I killed the chickens, I would pay con gusto. Antonio and I discussed in mid May that we would use a shot-gun to take care of the chickens if they continued to do damage to the beans, bananas, and lettuce. This is obviously more than a couple dead chickens. This is about my family and about precedent.

1) Don't fuck with my Dominican family
2) I will not pay said neighbor a single peso because that sets the stage for him to take advantage of me later

Now you know one example of what its like to own a farm abroad.

Chapter 2

2009-05-24T19:15:00.001-07:00

Friends always ask about the farm. I always tell them it is beautiful and things are good. In true farmer-speak I then often tell them how is doesn't make money and may never make money. Sometimes I tell them my new joke, "What do you call a hole in the ground you throw money into? -a farm."

So please excuse my normal response and allow room for a little more optimism. I realized over dinner with some friends recently that I don't usually volunteer my best stories, unless I'm prompted by someone else to tell said story. So lets pretend that you prompted me to tell you about cooking with firewood, trying to kill chickens, and seeing Lin. If you believe in leading through service, this story might make sense.

I spent 2 of my 3 days on the farm cooking with firewood. There are several crops currently planted on my farm: bananas, plantains, yucca, taro root (all food for work days and intermediate shade for coffee), coffee (rather obvious), lettuce, carrots, eggplant, beets, black beans (Antonio's veggie crops) and taiota (most recent permanent addition). When there are just a few workers and people need food to work then it makes more sense to not bring some one just to cook. The veggie plot (where the garlic failed) needed to be cleared, tilled and planted with lettuce. So I take an overnight lay-over in Miami, a taxi, a bus, and a motorcycle to get to Los Frios the same day I arrived so that I can cook with fire wood. . . leading through service. On my way down the mountain to the farm I did the math: two paid workers + Antonio + me = 3 workers and one cook. I suppose it is up to me to cook today, I said to Antonio, he smiled and said yes. I don't like cooking with firewood. The novelty doesn't exist on small trips like these. When I have 6 weeks in the DR, coffee drying and two crews picking coffee etc, cooking is a low impact filler for a day. When I have just a few days, I want to sweat and grunt my way through my farm days, basically play in the dirt.
I pealed green bananas with my machete, built the fire, washed the dishes, seasoned the food, and fried salami. Then when it was lunch time, I added beans to a big bowl, added more wood to the fire, prepared the seasonings, added the seasonings, added rice more wood then, washed dishes. Day two repeat. I felt like a smoke breathing dragon by day two and had a productive cough. How to women do this every day of their lives? My lower back was sore because there is no sink or counter to work on, my hands stained black with banana sap. Like most things, I did learn from it. It felt good to become better at pealing green bananas, if felt good to serve other people technically below me on the totem pole. I had less patients for it on day two, which means I still have lessons to learn.

I look to July with optimism. The 250lbs of black beans we have planted should be harvested, now will the rains be untimely? will the price fall through the floor? will the bugs eat more than their share of the harvest? probably. Will slugs destroy Antonio's (Byron financed) lettuce crop? Probably. Will the $850 I invested into the taiota pay me back? Probably not. At least taiota is only planted once, requires almost no maintenance and can be transported on mule after no processing (sounds like the best crop ever!). The market price isn't wonderful, but at least is doesn't really require many more inputs. I planted about 10 taiota my self and Tongo (Antonio's son) dug the holes for me. This is farmer optimism. Note my new joke up top.

To be honest it seems like I'm on Chapter 2 of my farm story. The farm has enough crops in motion that one might actually pay for itself fully (this would be a first). We are planting pigeon peas as a new type of additional intermediate shade. So come this December, costs should drop and there might even be a few months that don't require me sending money. But don't worry I'm not actually expecting any of this to go according to plan.

Chickens:
I have over 1,000 banana trees. I didn't even eat one single ripe banana from my farm on this trip. While I was cooking, the neighbors chickens (the chickens we eliminated once already;) came by three times looking for food. When I would see them, I would slowly pick up rock about the size of a golf ball and . . . throw it as hard as possible at their little heads. Please let me explain what chickens do to vegetables and other crops, like bananas, beans and lettuce. Chickens that are not feed corn look for food where they find it. A simple bar wire fence means nothing to them. They eat the flowers of the beans, all 250lbs of my beans should be flowering within the next 4-7 days. They eat ripe bananas, their lame wings can get them to the tops of banana trees. They peck at fresh young lettuce. Furthermore, we have warned the owner of said chickens several times to control his flock. On this trip, I told him personally, in my best Clint Eastwood. "When I say no chickens on my land I mean no chickens". If I find them on my land again, I will eliminate them. I have a friend that might lend me a shot gun so I can make pollo guisado next lunch time. . .
Lin:
Lin is my newest hero. He is doing so so well. He has 10 metal rods in this right leg holding shin together. I can't tell you how much he glowed when he saw me. I'm sure he saw my radiance too. This man of 65 has broken more horses and mules than most cowboys in a rodeo. He has lead red-faced community meetings calling out the truth. He has been a community leader for years in Los Frios, plenty talk smack about him but never to his face. Father of 15 kids. A man of his word. He said I am more son to him than his son that lives in New York because of my constant phone calls and wiring money to him post accident. Lin has accepted that he may never walk again. There is no such thing as handicap access in a dirt road community. If the break doesn't heal he will have his right food amputated, until he knows otherwise he will be a one footed fraction of the man he used to be. People have poured out to see him. They have sent money. Spent time. Given what they could to see Lin get better. I wonder what those that talk so much smack about him would receive in the same situation? I wonder what I would receive in that situation? Some day I should tell you blog readers Lin and my first real interaction (I thought he was going to shoot me). I should also tell you about Zuna, his sister and translating during a biopsy of a tumor on her neck when she was willing to endure with barely any anesthetic. And her husband Nilo, one of those uber-wise millionare Dominican farmers. But not tonight.

a smidge more press

2009-05-11T04:05:00.000-07:00

Greenville News: Coffee & Crema

a little more press

2009-05-10T18:00:00.000-07:00

Coffee Review: May 2009 - Espresso: Tasting Super-Heroes by Byron Holcomb

Coffee Review: May 2009 - American Espresso Blends: Boutique and Bigger by Kenneth Davids; reviews by Kenneth Davids and Byron Holcomb

When I first entered the coffee industry, my homework from my first trainer was to read Ken's book Coffee: A Guide to Buying, Brewing and Enjoying. In short, Ken told me the coffee story for the first time in 2006, which provided the frame work for me to learn about coffee. With each new sector of coffee that I explore, I build on the frame he illustrated. Now I have completed another chapter with Ken. It was an honor to score 32 espressos with him.

Bent's response:

2009-05-07T18:51:00.000-07:00

Bent, owner of Karoma Estate, is a friend and my coffee exporter. In response to the article he said:

I don't know where they get 1,120 liters from to produce 1 liter of coffee!!!??

When you research the numbers on the production side, traditional washed coffee does use about 17 - 20 liters of water per 1 kilos of dry parchment coffee. In our system, we reduce that amount to about 1 liter per kilos of dry parchment. From there on, I don't know where anybody would use a lot of water. One kilo of dry parchment would mean about 1.5 lbs of roasted coffee from which you can produce many liters of coffee. On the farm, we don't actually pump the coffee, we just use the re-circulated water as a means of transport and as you said, the washer used a small amount of clean, fresh water for the actual washing, which is also recuperated.

Further, the decomposition of the organic matter in the washing and pulping water takes place anaerobically, meaning that no oxygen is used for that process.

a better defense of coffee and water

2009-05-01T18:24:00.001-07:00

Coffea arabica is an understory shrub, but most people call it a tree.

How to protect a watershed: plant trees.

Coffee farms with diverse shade have biodiversity equal to native forests (sorry no citation). Coffee farms are tree farms. Hence they protect water sources. They also produce billions of tons of oxygen (they are plants, and again no citation).

How much water does wine protect?

How much water does beer protect?

It takes a little thinking, but coffee as an agroforestry system maintains or increases water tables. Coffee farms are [forests = shade trees + under story shrub (coffee) + quality wood species planted around the perimeter + birds (the only place I see bird diversity is on or near coffee farms in the DR) + other plants that don't effect coffee production (bromliads)]. Ask any hydrologist how to protect a spring in the mountains. Springs become rivers | rivers lead to lakes | you need water.

Even if the coffee is low quality robusta, at least it is a tree that is planted. I vote for a mono crop of trees over a mono crop of corn any day of the week.

in defense of coffee and water

2009-04-28T19:19:00.000-07:00

Many many people read the article in The Economist - Excess Liquidity (online version). I personally didn't, I heard about it from many different people. I should have read it, but everything else in my life distracted me from reading the article myself. Then today I read another article about"Excess Liquidity" article. It was basically a visit to the same topic with other Specialty Coffee industry leaders speaking to the "water issue". It was a good article, but I found the language inflamatory. It seemed the author was advocating for The Economist's stance by passively shaking his finger at coffee farmers.

The premise is this, coffee uses the most water for beverage consumption, 1,120 liters of water to produce 1 liter of coffee. I have inserted the graph for easy reading. When 54% (ncausa.org) of adult Americans drink coffee, bad news about coffee sells. I'm not accusing The Economist of slandering coffee for the sake of magazine sales, I just want to point out how appealing it is to share [read sell] bad news about something that is so close to all of us. "You mean that thing I drink every morning is drying up water sources throughout the Tropics?" Another example, comes to mind: the gentelman who told me that he doesn't drink French Pressed coffee because it contains more cholesterol. Only to ask for sugar and cream when I serve him a cup of Chemex-ed coffee. !? Bad news about coffee strikes again!

Here is my point: I can only speak to water use in coffee that I have seen directly and personally. I know nothing about water usage in production of coffee packaging materials, which I'm sure there is much waters used, but I do know how a tiny farm in the DR (mine) and a very large farm in the DR use water in coffee production. I hate to think that people reading that article are doing the math and extrapolating the quoted amount of water per how many liters of coffee to feel guilty about their morning brew. One common mission to all of us in the Specialty Coffee industry is differentiation from the large scale commercial production of coffee. We are different. We are special. We do care a lot. And quality of life and the cup drive us to separate ourselves from massive coffee plantations that treat coffee and workers like little machines.

On my farm last harvest, I processed the majority of my coffee pulp-natural [a process defined by de-pulping the coffee cherries and drying them directly on raised beds without washing (no water)]. I didn't chose this method because of water usage issues, I chose it because of cup quality issues. In my manual [hand powered] depulper, we use a little tiny jug of water per 5 gallon bucket of coffee cherries. I do not irrigate any part of the coffee sections of my farm. The small amout of coffee that is washed is washed in next to the de-pulper and the run off waters the vegetable plot. I would estimate my total water usage for this last harvest of 600lbs of coffee to be less than 15o gallons of water.

On Karoma Estate, they do wash their coffee. It is a huge farm that produces many containers of coffee a year. Just last year they installed a beneficado ecologico, which massively reduces water usage. First, coffee is heavy. In order to move it through the systems, pumps and channels it must be suspended. Water is that medium. The system that Bent uses actually uses used water for the pumping of the coffee. Second, the mechanical washing of the coffee happens with clean water. In the fermentation tanks, some of the depulp water is used which has actually reduces the time needed to ferment the coffee, more water recycling. Eventually his system releases the water from depulping and washing coffee. Third, the water travels down a channel and into a series of two massive tanks: one is round the other egg shaped. When the water reaches the egg shaped tank the sugars are digested and methane is produced as a by product. That methane is captured pressurized and sent in two directions: the kitchen and dry mill. The kitchen uses methane for cooking. The dry mill, in this case, only involves mechanically pealing dried coffee. When the water leaves the egg shaped tank it is collected in a pond that can hold fish or water other plants. Bent has spent a lot of money and time on this system. Does he use 112o liters of water to produce one liter of coffee? No. What about his off set carbon foot print by using methane instead of gasoline?

Unless an article is written by an expert in the field, they typically get it wrong. Some times just barely, some times journalist miss the mark completely. I should read the article to see that there are sufficient disclaimers for small farmers like Bent and myself. But really, we are just drops in the bucket, albeit striving to be sustainable drops, we are just drops.

here is the suprise good news:

2009-04-10T18:47:00.000-07:00

I've been offered a column in Barista Magazine!
To read it yourself: Click here | Current Issue | Pages 66-70

so much to say

2009-03-29T10:36:00.000-07:00

Hello friends.

I have much good news. Some bad news. And plenty of news that is humbling.

The very good news is a surprise. The obvious good news is that I still have a job and coffee sales are good. And I tasted the coffee from the Nulio de Cafecultores de Monte Bonito and it was very good. I will release the very good news in April.

The bad news is that Lin's leg is still suspended and they are getting quotes on how much it will cost to fix it. They found some blood for the surgery (the family members are given prescriptions of his blood type and they have to go find it on their own and bring it back to the hospital before the surgery!) The other news is my coffee cupping results.

This is the humbling news. After all the work we put into better coffee processing (modified drying tunnels, strict picking, more raised beds in Los Frios, hermetically sealed coffee bags) the coffees were about the same as last year. Actually the washed samples tasted better than the pulp-natural which is the opposite of last year. This year the washed coffee was awesome last year it tasted lifeless. The pulp-natural had potential in the aroma, but it didn't hold up in the cup. Now, if you are comparing my 2nd harvest to world class American coffees, my harvest wouldn't have the body or acidity. By itself, it is not bad coffee. There is no defect. My coffees scored in the high 70's to low 80's by some very descriminating palets. There is plenty of potential I just hope I can make my coffee much, much better. The crux is not in the potential, but realizing the potentail.

ani difranco

2009-03-21T21:05:00.000-07:00

I just had the privilege of seeing Ani at the Variety Playhouse in Atlanta. While I can't share the music with you I can try to tell you what she looked like.

Ani DiFranco - take a wooden match, strike it on the box, point the match down, the burst of flame has settled and crawls up the white balsa wood with gaining speed, before it reaches your fingers turn the match back up, the rhythm isn't what you expected, it is what you sense, the flame dances as white becomes black and black light, count 3 breaths, the room opens up, the flame pushes light on you so that you see yourself in a new light, then try to blow out the match, then really take a deep breath and blow it out.

Lin

2009-03-19T20:31:00.000-07:00

Lin is one of my closest friends. He is one of the most respected men in Los Frios. Lin taught has taught me volumes about leadership, people, money, business, life, and society. Just today I talked to him on the phone. He is in the hospital with a badly infected foot. The first surgery to fix the break left the foot bones not exactly in the right places. Now they are looking at the options. . . and there is a medical strike. Medical strike: when doctors and nurse leave their stations to protest pay or benefits. I talked to his wife as well and they are doing their best in the hospital.

If you read this please send him a thought of recovery and if you pray, say a prayer for him.

DR-CAFTA

2009-02-16T13:41:00.000-08:00

When people in the US ask me about the farm, the questions are usually: how? when? why? where? and have you made any money yet?

On this last trip to the DR I met a group of Peace Corps Volunteers (PCV) in the Capital at the usual Pension that I stayed in as a PCV. Usually I can answer the questions that people ask me in the states. A PCV asked me the implications of DR-CAFTA on coffee. "To be honest, I'm not really sure," was my answer. So I have started to do some research on the issue. [The picture is of Antonio and his 500lbs of garlic and a little bit of beans in the lower left] I came across this:

The four Central American countries being discussed are primarily agricultural countries that have raised particular products for import into the United States. Traditionally these have been “dessert” foods: bananas, coffee, sugar, but have also included cotton and beef. More recently, they include niche items, from flowers to snow peas. Two years after passage of the Central American Free Trade Agreement (DR-CAFTA—the Dominican Republic also signed on), the treaty’s promises of development have not been realized in any of four countries. Frequently a lack of infrastructure prevents the rural farmer from being able to participate in international trade. For example, in Nicaragua only 10% of the roads are paved. While electricity doubles the farmers’ productive capacity, only half of Nicaragua has electricity. Another disadvantage for the Nicaraguan farmer is the inability to complete the paperwork and buy the licenses necessary to carry out trade across borders.

Just as DR-CAFTA was implemented the cost of inputs increased dramatically, while the price of the agricultural product did not. Between January 2006 and March 2008, food prices rose 68%, the price of rice doubled, corn rose 128% and wheat rose 168%. Most small- and medium-sized Central American farmers were unable to obtain credit. On the other hand, U.S. agriculture was able to move into these countries’ markets with corn, rice, meat, wheat and dairy products, thus undermining local production. Employment did not expand, although the larger foreign corporations did employ more people; generally these workers came from rural and urban areas where farms and business were unable to make a living. Thus jobs may be created, but they are frequently low paying. Migration out of each country hasn’t been halted either.

Intellectual property under DR-CAFTA extended any U.S. patent on drugs for twenty years, thus staving off a country’s ability to produce generic drugs. Lastly, DR-CAFTA has opened the door to foreign-owned companies setting up megaprojects such as large-scale mining and hydroelectric dams. Most often these lead to kicking people, particularly indigenous communities, off their land or threatening to poison the water, air and land surrounding their farms.
From: http://internationalviewpoint.org/spip.php?article1612

I didn't quote the above to be inflammatory. I just wanted to share economic numbers that support my assumption on DR-CAFTA. -That small scale farmers with no level of automation can not compete in a free market. Furthermore, it makes no sense to me that it is helpful on a global economic scale to discourage local food production.

The best example for me are the bananas on my farm. Half of them usually rot. Sell bananas, make money; it sounds so simple. I have tried to find a market for them to no avail. The cost to get them to market, not including cost of production, does not pay its own costs. My farm is a 45min walk from the road, so a load of bananas needs to be loaded on the back of a mule and sent to the road before it is loaded on a truck for two hours to San Juan where it would be sold. In San Juan people pay up to 3 pesos per banana; in Los Frios there are plenty of them and no one is willing to pay for them. I don't own any vehicles in the DR (no trucks, no motorbikes, not even a mule), so I'm at the mercy of other truck owners and intermediaries to get my product to market. If I have a viable product IN Los Frios and can't sell it, what economic scale allows US produced beans, milk, and rice to be sold in the DR?

This system of free trade does force efficiency into econmic systems, which is a good thing. I guess the reality is that all the farmers producing products included in the DR-CAFTA that are also produced in the US need to change their crops, which is about as easy as selling bananas in Los Frios.

Serious Coffee

2009-02-07T08:27:00.000-08:00

Amado Martinez, Coffee Farmer, Miembro de Nulcio de Cafecultores de Monte Bonito, Dominican Republic. His farm has about 50/50 Typico and Caturra varietals and sits at an elevation of 1150 meters, which has been organic for the last 8 years.

I have known Amado since 2003 when we would be invited to the same meetings for the Fundacion Sur Futuro. He was always a vocal member of the community and speaks with such sincerity you know he is speaking the truth. Next week I will get to cup his coffee for the first time!

almost back to my other home

2009-01-31T10:52:00.000-08:00

Currently I'm sitting in Bent's office to discuss export options for the tiny amount of coffee I have from my farm.

This trip has been pretty amazing. Antonio was happy with how the farm looked and he is caught up on his own garlic crop on his farm. So it was pretty low pressure. We just walked the farm to check the progress. Later we picked out a place to plant taiota. I did some pruning of the shade trees on the second day. Quite peacefull as usual.

There were some great moments when I stopped thinking so much about the-next-step and was actually present. More on that later. Now if I can just learn to do that in the States. . .

best,

home again

2009-01-25T05:28:00.000-08:00

My M.O. for entering or leaving the Dominican Republic usually involves the heaviest Dominican accented Spanish I can muster. It usually leads to nice converstaions and less grilling ¨How long are you staying? What are you doing here?¨. Yesterday the immigration offical saw all the DR stamps in my passport and asked if I had a girl friend here, nope I answered. She stamped my passport and tossed it back to me.

Per usuall I have loft goals of things to accomplish and little time to do it.

Yesterday I went to visit two of Antonio´s kids, Diokin and Bella, who live just outside Santo Domingo, Quita Sueño. Most people would describe it a as a shanty town or poverty stricken barrio. Most of the housing seemed imporvised and there where pot holes every where. And there were a couple homeless people. But the barrio felt alive with community. Nobody approached us. This vibe of ´life is hard but we are going to stick together´resondated from the loud speakers blaring reggaeton. I´m sure plenty of bad things happen in Quita Sueño, but bad things happen everywhere.

My DR cell phone for this week is 829.719.1323

till soon.

2009-01-12T19:00:00.000-08:00

coffee is a virtue, not a vice - me.

Noche Buena + Harvest Updates

2009-01-03T06:21:00.000-08:00

I talked to Antonio over the Holidays. Things are well in Los Frios. It seems there is always gripe, a cold, being passed around his family.

Dominicans don't do much for Christmas it is Noche Buena, Christmas Eve, that they get excited about. Usually the entire family gets together and they feast. Some of the seasonal foods are: habichuelas con dulce (sweetened bean drink) cha-ka (sweetened corn porridge) both are really tasty! They are best when cooked over firewood for long periods of time. You can taste a little bit of smoke in the sweet dishes.

In Los Frios where there is no power, hence no refrigeration; it is hard to do anything too fancy. So the rest of the meal is all about the usual foods: rice & beans (cooked together: moro, cooked seperate: guisa'o), tubers (yucca, platano, yautia, rabano, guineo, ayuma) and something fried (chicken, soft salami, tostones, beringjena). [To the right is a hearty breakfast on the farm: Yauita-taro root, guineo-green banana, yucca and sardines.]

The last picking of coffee already happened. Last week the pulp-natural or cafe miel was being moved up from the raised beds on the farm to the raised beds in town with more sun exposure.

I'm traveling to Los Frios from Jan. 24-Feb. 1. The plan is to gather up my coffee and 1,000 lbs that a co-op owes me and send it to my dry miller/exporter-Bent. He will process it and send it to me. Anybody wanna buy it?

Harvest Update

2008-12-13T09:27:00.000-08:00

When I was on the farm from Aug. 15th - Oct. 9th, I was able to be there for the prepena and first pickings. The rest of the harvest has been picked and processed by Antonio.

The coffee harvest progresses like a bell curve: first a trickle (prepena is the cleaning of random ripe and over ripes), a couple small pickings, then a few large pickings then, then a couple smaller pickings and finally the repela (final cleaning pick to get all the stragglers, ideally this includes cleaning the ground of fallen cherries because they harbor the la broca). All of the good pickings are being processed pulp-natural (honey-ed) because the honey-ed coffee from last year cupped the best. [I personally feel that honey-ed or café miel is a better describer than pulp-natural for this processing style becasue the coffee looks like honey, smells like honey as it dries, and tastes like wild honey in the cup. See the picture above of Antonio sorting at pergamino]

It was probably 3+ weeks ago that Antonio called to ask about a problem on the farm. This was a good problem. During the biggest picking we ran out of space on the raised beds and there was still coffee to pick! Ripening coffee isn't patient. In a hurried phone conversation, I told him to pick the remaining coffee, de-pulp it, ferment it underwater for 72 hours, then fully wash it! [Huge thanks to Peter G. and friends from Counter Culture for telling me how to do this]

The 3 days of underwater fermentation should have allowed time for the pulp-natual coffee to be moved to the raised beds in town and make room for the washed coffee to initally dry on the farm.

Now it looks like we are approaching the repela. I should only have about 200lbs. of honey-ed coffee and about 50lbs. washed for this harvest. It is tiny, but it should represent the quality potential of Finca La Paz. Antonio is sorting the coffee at cherry and pergamino. And this is all before it hits the dry mill. I will have Bent, my exporter, run strict density and optical sorts to have some really clean coffee. When I calculate the final cost, per pound, of this harvest I will be sure to publish the number - no matter how depressing it is.

Fredi*

2008-11-29T19:38:00.000-08:00

Journal entry 10/3/08

A boy by his size; a man by his story. Fredi has black skin (Haitian black), a strong farmers back, and round soft features. He is an 18 yr. old Haitian that left school at 16. I have always had a soft spot in my heart for Haitians. I try to stick up for them when they are blatantly discriminated against by Dominicans.

Ajusto: (paid contract) Fredi is the 'point man' and doles out the money to his friends to do the work (he is the cook and manager). People pay one lump sum, and the workers work at their own rate. Un ajusto is favorable for most farmers because the farmer doesn't have to manage the workdays, they just check the progress.

I see Fredi as a boy faced into manhood through economic necessity. He lives in a country where he is not wanted; hence he has the demeanor of such a person: shy, timid and tries to be invisible when there are lots of people around. He has won over many Dominicans, he is known, liked and trusted, yet he keeps himself at arms length.

Dominicans are physical and affectionate: men hold hands and do this double forearm hug. It is custom to shake every one's hand when you see someone you know. Haitians are a usually cultural exception. Fredi reads the demeanor of those around him before he extends his hand. Even at Antonio's house he was the last to be served coffee, even after the little kids got theirs', and I consider them progressive.

I, being white and liking to greet everyone by shaking hands [including Haitians], met Fredi. As we walked through town he told me his story: 14 siblings = one father who had 4 kids with his mom and 9 with another. I didn't pressure him to explain the math [4+9=14], there are more important questions. How does he get around as an illegal immigrant worker? How do people treat him in Los Frios? Why did he leave Haiti?

Fredi speaks Spanish very well and knows some English phrases: "What’s up? Kiss me baby!" among others. He told me that he left school because you have to pay for it in Haiti, shaking his head he said, "There is no president".

For the last couple years he has been traveling to Los Frios for work. His travel is completely clandestine. He crosses the boarder at night, stays the night not far from there with a friend, the next night, he hides in the back seat of a car for a 3 hour drive [the military check points are less attended], to a point where he has to walk, from there up to Los Frios [between 14-35km]. At any point, he could be deported or held until he produces a healthy bribe. His travel has gotten easier because people know and trust him, but it is still risky.

Fredi makes the trip home to Haiti when he has money saved or there is an emergency. I traveled in Haiti for one week in 2005. Haiti is so poor that it makes the DR feel like Disney Land in comparison. Travel in DR is not for the week at heart, but at least nobody is going to do me harm if I'm found. Travel in Haiti seemed like an exaggerated version of Dominican travel: same shitty buses and trucks just faster, more people, more dust and more danger. Put Fredi's trip home together: clandestine DR travel with real consequences + uncomfortable dangerous Haitian travel. . . And people constantly complain about the horrible traffic in Atlanta?

Next time I complain about any trip anywhere, I will try to remember Fredi's trip home.

After all Fredi has been through, he is still a easy to make laugh, willing to smile and someone who inspires me.

*I have changed his name to protect his identity

Urides: Ur -e- des

2008-11-22T06:59:00.000-08:00

Journal entry: 10.9.08

Many of my heroes come from Los Fríos, they are humble, poor, often illiterate, fatalistic and exceptionally moral and wise. Urides fits the definition to a "t". Probably about 19, son of several, can't sign his own name and to me a beacon of light.

Next time you have the chance to use a pick to break up hard soil let Urides set the bar. With the broad side of the pick strike the ground about once a second, loosen the soil, and proceed. Leave about 130+ lbs. of soil in your wake, don't complain or stop until the crew behind you with two wheel borrows and 2 shovels asks you to stop.

Picking is all about efficiency and finesse, two of my favorite words. I would coach Gray, and Max about the finer techniques involved in picking in an attempt to save their lower backs. As I watched them, I thought about some of the skills I learned in Los Fríos. As I watched Urides I thought about how far I have to grow.

My Los Fríoños friends often use truck analogys while working. For example if a walking trail is slippery we would say, "Ponga el doble!" [engage the 4x4]. While washing our black rubber boots in a stream, we would say, "Llavando la guagua" [washing the truck]. Of course our stomaches represented fuel tanks. A paid work day usually follows this agreement: 7am-4pm + breakfast and lunch = 300 pesos. La guagua vacia no camina [the truck with an empty tank doesn't run]

Using a pick burns lots and lots of fuel. Every time I worked with Urides the math went as follows: Urides would work twice as hard as me, sweat half as much, and give half of his food away. His cousins would show up about lunch time, not necessarily to beg but they had nothing else to do. Less than half way through his rice and beans meal Urides would pass the entire plate to one of his cousins. I always tried to be discrete when I reminded him that there was more food. A man who gives half of one of two meals he would get that day. . . that is a true man.

Not everyone is Los Fríos is a saint. They just constantly set my bar higher.

how much are you willing to pay for coffee?

2008-11-02T07:27:00.000-08:00

really. how much are you willing and able to pay for one pound of coffee*?

*coffee that is truly high quality, sustainability produced and pays respectable prices through the supply chain (from farmer, to millers, to exporter, to broker, to importer, to roaster, to retail, to the consumer [you])

they are pushing me out of the nest

2008-11-02T07:23:00.000-08:00

after 3 weeks of training at World Headquarters in Durham, NC, USA Planet Earth, Counter Culture coffee is willing to let me sell their coffee to the Atlanta GA.

truth be told, i feel this position is a great fit. i'm excited to be part of such a well founded company that is based in quality, transparency and sustainability.

old meets new

2008-10-13T19:15:00.001-07:00

So I made it home. My short version of how my trip went goes as follows: it rained the first month - got very little done, the remaining 3 weeks it only rained a little - got a little done. Overall it was great.

Claire, Gray and Max are wonderful travel companions. We agreed that the time when all 4 of us were there was the best. To have people to show around, this was new for me. To focus mainly on tangible goals, this was old for me. Sure I was only able to: cut a road, pour a foundation for the earth-bag house, get some pulp natural processing and modify a 4 raised beds to act like a drying tunnel.

The reality is that I got a lot done in terms of bonding with my community. Yes I lived in Los Frios for 2 years and have been traveling there often for the last 3 years, but quality bonding doesn't happen over business phone calls when I call from the States. It happens over rice and beans, tubers, countless trips to the farm and rain days when we run out of things to talk about so we just make each other laugh.

Whenever I show Los Frios to Americans, it always refreshes my perspective of my chosen second life in the DR. Because of the time I have spent in Los Frios I've become blind to many things my Gringo Friends see. As Max said, "Byron you are crazy, this is like the wild west and ridiculously remote. . . that truck ride [he makes a scary face]. . . and yet you call this home?" "Sure people ride mules, sure the truck ride sucks, sure some disputes are settled in machete fights. . . ," I responded. "Machete fights!!!!!" (it seems that I forgot to tell him about the occasional machete fight).

I could have done more networking with other coffee co-ops. But that is really the only thing I physically could have done, but wait I just remembered that the trucks didn't run for 2+ weeks = no transport off the mountain. And how did we get off the mountain to pick up Gray? Claire and I had to ride 14Km down the mountain on mules. And a couple of the towns I wanted to visit were isolated because of uncrossable rivers.

More later. . .

good by, hello

2008-09-29T06:38:00.000-07:00

[welcome to my kitchen on the farm: breakfast=banana + taro root + sardines]
clarie thomas and gray reilly have just left the country. they were here to investigate the opportunities for development work in los frios. we made some great progress and claire might start working as a english and computer teacher in the school system. gray might return in a year to do some development work. they will be missed.

my life long friend max is here with me until we leave on oct. 9th. it is different traveling with company as i usually travel here alone. everyone has been wonderful and let me see my home in a other light.

hello coffee. the coffee harvest is just now getting started. hence i will miss most of it, therefore i will get antonio processing a few bags pulp natural. speaking of which, i must run to buy some more chicken wire for some raised beds.

till soon

shades of red

2008-09-19T08:28:00.000-07:00

first: i´m alive, in health and doing well.

second: with all the rain i´ve tried to do what i can. when it rains here things don´t get done; water logged soil can´t be shoveled; the road we cut can´t be driven on because of a muddy section; coffee shouldn´t be picked because the pezón(where the coffee bean attaches to the branch) gets soft and even green coffee falls off the tree when one lowers it to pick the ripe cherries. hence the house only has the trench for the foundation dug and our first real coffee picking started last week.

antonio and i argue about what is truly ripe in terms of red cherries. is it fully ripe when the skin has only a little bit of yellow and mostly red? is it fully ripe only when skin has that deep red-purple color? if we pick super strictly, we will have to pick the same tree every 3 days. how is that sustainable? i still try to hold the quality line, but i also want to have a few bags to show for effort here. . .

i must run to visit a coffee coop in Monte Bonito.

be well friends.

holding the line

2008-08-22T15:15:00.000-07:00

i´m currently in the dominican repubilc for the coffee harvest. i knew i might arrive earlier than the ripe coffee, so it is a good thing i have other things to do.

coffee tends to produce a lot one year and a little the next. this is a big year. antonio, claire and i picked all the ripe cherries. it only took an few hours becasue there were only few and all of them had ´la broca´or bean borer. we boiled the cherries for a couple minutes (to kill the la broca) and then depulped them. that coffee will probably be roasted over fire wood and drunk here in los frios.

today i purchased a few tiny house-lots of land in town so that i can have a space to build some drying tunnels and an earthbag construction house. when i leave, the house will be used by the eco-tourism mountain guides to store gear, have meetings and host tourists. if claire decides to move here, she will also use it as a house and a center for a public health trainings.

claire is intersted in development work and has decieded to travel with me for the next 5 weeks. i really enjoy teaching or guiding people through this country. half the time i´m translating spaish for her the other have i´m translating culture. claire loves los frios and the farm. she has a great attitude and doesnt´mind the rough conditions. i have two more friends coming down in the next weeks. first is gray reilly, who wants to work in sustainable agriculture then max an old friend of mine since child hood.

if you heard about the storms they weren´t that bad. just lots of rain.

this trip has been great so far. it seems it will be a test of balance. most of my education has taught me to go organic, to make money, and business isn´t charity. yet everything else seems to be currrently against these theories: agro-chemicals save a ton of money and time, do they do that much damage? with current labor costs, even our bumper crop of black beans didn´t cover its own costs. should i keep investing myself into this? if these harvests (coffee included) can´t cover its own costs is this charity or sustainable agricutlure? i currently straddle the line.

i have no answers, just more questions.

Travel dates

2008-08-09T12:24:00.000-07:00

(my wet-mill)
Aug. 15th - Oct. 9th I will be in the Dominican Republic.

As usual, I have a to-do list longer than my time in country, but with lots of luck and good weather I might get most of it done. Here is my list: process a few micro-lots of coffee three different ways (washed, pulp-natural, and natual), buy a small property lot (a place to build drying tunnel and build a earth bag house), build a drying tunnel, build a earth bag house, resolve "the chicken incident" - again, visit my exporter, find some quality green coffee samples from other co-ops, attend a wet-mill inauguration (I purchased the land for the co-op and they will repay me with coffee), introduce Gray and Claire to Los Frios as counter parts/project directors for Young Tree Community, eat my weight in rice and beans, go surfing, and of course catch up with all my friends in the DR!

I can't wait: to eat arroz con habicuelas verdes con pollo guisa'o cooked over firewood by Nerva (by far the best cook in the entire country!), to give Antonio a hug and talk to his wife and 9 kids, drink bad coffee with all my neighbors, to wake up every day with the sun - tie on my machete - and walk down the hill to my farm, to live in Spanish (think it, speak it, barter it, discuss it, teach it), catchup on the town gossip (who had kids, who left, who came back, who made money, who died), catchup on politics, and hear how all the prices have increased again. I can't wait to go to my other home again.

please visit. . .

2008-08-05T07:31:00.000-07:00

Young Tree Community

You'd better start swimming or you'll sink like a stone because times they are a changin'

2008-08-05T06:58:00.000-07:00

So yes. Much has changed in the last couple weeks: job, harvest schedule and harvest plans. Change is constants in our lives. Change is good. But lots of change at once doesn't always feel good.

I have accepted an offer with Counter Culture Coffee to be their Atlanta Sales Rep. I will be starting in mid October after the harvest. The phrase I use to describe my feeling about this new opportunity is, "stoked out of my mind". In the same breath, I can't help but say how awesome my prior employer was to me. Batdorf & Bronson taught me everything I know about roasted coffee: cupping, describing, selling, brewing, barista-ing, delivering, packaging, and more. They gave me space to grow as a coffee professional and let me be part of their team. I couldn't have asked for more. We are parting on good terms. The quality coffee industry is small, really small. So I look forward to seeing my old B&B co-workers, now friends, at trade shows and around town in Atlanta.

My harvest schedule has been moved forward by a month, so I have had to slim down a some of my plans. There will be no farm tour. I leave Aug. 15 and return Oct. 9.

Claire and Gray will be traveling with me for most of the trip. They are the Project Directors of Young Tree Community and will be working to design and start a few development projects in Los Frios. I'm really stoked to have them on board. They bring energy, passion and talent. We have a stellar team to make long term changes in Los Frios. I would work mostly with coffee and they would work with sustainable development projects to answer the Los Frios' expressed needs, kinda like dynamic-duo. We hope to build a drying tunnel, two earth-bag houses, all while processing about 1,500 lbs of quality coffee. We hope to get most of that done but time will tell.

Young Tree Community

2008-07-19T12:45:00.000-07:00

One common debate in the Quality Coffee Industry is: should importers and roasters do development work? It is nearly impossible not to do some development work on some level when you see the state in which coffee farmers live. The best answer that I have found to the debate is that: non-government organizations (NGO) and non-profits should do development work and importers and roasters should do quality oriented coffee work. Each is a unique work with a different skill set and goal. Just because a roaster can source quality beans and roast them well doesn't mean they can build schools in increase the literacy rate at origin.

Now, I lived in Los Frios (the town where my farm is) for two years as a Peace Corps Volunteer. I was a community development worker whom worked between NGO's and the community. Two of my projects are still up an running: family planning and eco-tourism mountain guides.

Therefore, I'm starting a NGO non-profit called Young Tree Community to continue my Peace Corps projects while adding more projects this harvest season. The newest project will be a sand bag construction housing project. And we will amplify the Education Fund, which I started last year. The young man to the right is Tony, Antonio's son, and one of the coolest 7 year-olds in town.

I feel qualified to do run both my for-profit and my non-profit, but I so firmly believe that they must be run independently I'm sharing ownership of the non-profit with some experienced people. More details to come later. . .

Java-Nica

2008-06-26T09:04:00.000-07:00

A friend of mine, Erwin, from Nicaragua sent me some seeds of a varietal that I've never heard of, Java-Nica in March. There are two stories in circulation about its origins, but not a whole lot is known. It should be an old Java varietal, long-berry to be precise.

And what varietal won 2nd in the Nica. Cup of Excellence? Java-Nica!

It's early for me to count on $18.55 a pound green. October is the best coffee planting season in the Southern DR and I plan on planting it then. But check with me in 3 years and I can you how it cups.

i love coffee

2008-06-26T06:10:00.000-07:00

really, i do.

Home-trip

2008-06-08T06:53:00.000-07:00

Last week, my closest friend from childhood, Max, and I took a trip up the West coast from San Fransisco to Seattle. I was born and raised in Northern California, Weaverville, to be precise. I hadn't been back to my 'home-town' in 18 years, so we called the road trip a home-trip. It was amazing!

We followed a break in the clouds all the way up the coast, I must have had some good-karma points to cash in because that region is typically overcast and rainy. On to coffee. . . my first stop in San Fran was Ritual Coffee Roasters. I had a great chance to catchup with Chris Owens and M'lissa Muckerman. They have recently left ATL and moved to San Fran to work with Ritual, M'lissa with training (of course) and Chris the with the roasters. It had only been a couple weeks since we last talked, but we had plenty to catch up on. The Atlanta coffee people will miss them dearly as their excitement, passion and knowledge of coffee is contagious.

Back to the black stuff in the cup! Gabe, a Ritual barista, pulled me the best shot of my entire trip, which says a lot considering the amount of quality coffee I consumed en route to Seattle. The shot was fruity with a sweet walnut body. The nutty body then mellowed a little and gave way to a green finish. It was by far the most unique shot I have had in a long time. The fruity bright flavors weren't typical acidic tongue attacks commonly found in bright shots, but balanced clean notes off the cupping table.

Blue Bottle Coffee Company: I ordered a Ethiopian - Misty Valley Ididio from the Siphon Bar. A.J. was the siphon barista and was great to talk to. Was the coffee worth the 12 dollars they charge? Yes. The first few sips of the natural processed Ethiopian were divine: sweet, heavy, round, blue-berry milkshake, and balanced acidity. Then as the coffee quickly cooled in the thin glass they served me, the coffee lost some of its balance. I tasted black tea, dirt and molasses. It could have been the age of the green coffee. A.J. said the Misty Valley has been showing some more earthy notes lately. I'm pretty sure that it was the same Misty Valley that a few other quality roasters have, and the green coffee is past its golden age. Would I order another one? Of course. One cup and one coffee is not a representation of a roaster. I would have to try a few different coffees and methods to truly evaluate Blue Bottle and its halogen powered vac-press.

Home-trip! Weaverville CA hasn't really changed much in the 18 years since I left - Population: 3,500, Industries: lumber, government, and other, Supermarket: same, Park: same, Elementary school: same [Max and I swung on the old monkey bars for old times sake]. The whole experience seemed like a lucid dream because my memories as a 10 yr. old were meshing with my 28 yr. old reality.We went to Portland via the coast and yes, Redwoods are huge. . .

Portland: HAIR BENDER - Every other shot I drank on my way up the coast was Stumptown's Hair Bender. (There were a few others but not very memorable). I had a wonderful Capp. at the new Albina Press on Hawthorne Street, but the best Hair Bender shot was at the original Stumptown location on 49th and Division. The staff was on point and the shot was delicious: like 60% cocoa, hints of mint, dark, herbal zest tingle, just a hint of hickory; basically it was a long pull and short volume of goodness.

I also attended one of the Stumptown's twice daily cuppings. The coffees were diverse and stellar. There were two Pacamara varietals from El Salvador, a wonderfully sweet Columbian , a great typical Kenya AA, and Misty Valley natural process from Ethiopian. I was really excited about the Pacamaras because I have some of that varietal (but Nicaraguan source) to plant on my farm! It is a hard season to cup coffees because most Centrals and the Columbian have seen better days (at least 12 month old green coffee). So the coffees were good, but not at their peak. I was fully impressed at the diligence that Glen (Stumptown employee leading the cupping) used in prepping the coffees. The grinder was flushed for every coffee and the pouring pitchers brought to temperature before filling.

Now I know what all the Stumptown talk is about. They have great espresso, amazing coffees, and wonderful employees!

I have many more stories about cold rivers, break failures, amazing food, and more, but you will have to ask me about those in person.

Finca la Paz

2008-05-26T10:04:00.000-07:00

I was talking with some Dominican friends this weekend about the name of my farm. We think we should update the name a little. A very close friend of mine said, "People don't give enough credit to drafts". True. I see business and life a constant evolution and progression.

When I shared my two name ideas: Finca de Paz and Finca la Paz with my Dominican friends they told me that Finca la Paz translates better. Done. The English translation would be 'Farm the Peace', but direct translation usually misses the point. So 'Farm of Peace' would be the best English translation.

Le doy su nombre

2008-05-21T15:13:00.000-07:00

Young Tree Coffee is a company. The actual farm didn't have a name. When I talk to my farm manager, Antonio, we refer to parts of the farm by the prior owners' names. Nobody where I live in the DR actually names their farms. Farms are known by the owners names'. Everyone knows Julian has one of the best farms Monte Bonito and Juan Nila has one of the most beautiful, but the Farms are known as Finca de Julian (Julian's farm) and Finca de Juan Nila.

In Los Frios, my farm is known as Finca de Bairo. Your farm is a direct representative of yourself. Is it well maintained? Is it productive? I have spent many an hour pondering names, but none actually represented the farm. I even asked Antonio about what I should call the farm (because that is what Americans do, we give everything a name). Antonio being a respectful and humble man said, "Anything you want to call it is fine by us".

My coffee journey started with Peace Corps (Cuerpo de Paz) and that won't change. My coffee farm is much larger than just me. I don't live there full time and another name makes sense because it is not just mine, it is a model farm for the community. So I've decided on Finca de Paz (Farm of Peace). It is a beautiful, peaceful place and the name is short. Furthermore, both Dominicans and Americans can say it without feeling silly. There you have it.

overheard at SCAA

2008-05-09T10:16:00.000-07:00

With a disgusted look on his face, "We are living in the 1960's of coffee technology." - Phillip Search, 49th Parallel. This is a common theme in the quality coffee industry. "We can send people into space and we can't pull quality shots all the time!" - Me

With his big smile "I'm changing the world". - George Howell, Terroir Coffee. When he says it he means it; most of us just try to change the world for the better.

Everyone said, "the level of the barista competitors has raised so drastically that a flawless performance might not make the semi-finals. "

"Most Kenya AA is blended with UG1 or UG2 (Un Graded - less dense Kenyan Coffee) and sold as AA, but if people actually cupped some of the UG1's and UG2's they would find some gems" - Kenyan Importer.

SCAA

2008-05-01T09:19:00.000-07:00

I will be a SCAA in Minneapolis MN from May 2-5. If you guys want to find me call my cell and lets meet up 678.431.3341.

I don't have a booth, but will be on the floor. So many coffee people have given me detailed how-to-process coffee information, and I want to thank them personally as I haven't met them yet. This industry tends to be open book with sharing information, which is yet another reason I love coffee so much. The whole quality coffee community is quiet small and I have felt amazing support as a newbie, grower, importer, and barista.

respect,

b.

On Corn

2008-04-29T15:02:00.000-07:00

Towards the end of my Peace Corps service, I made a punching bag . . . to punch. The cheapest grain at the time was corn. It was only about 17 DR pesos a pound (about . So I filled the bag with the dried corn. Dominicans eat corn seasonally. For example, Cha-ka is boiled and sweetened corn seasoned with cinnamon and cloves. It's really good during the 'colder' months. But corn is not a staple in their diet.

Last week Antonio, my coffee farm manager, called me. We talked about all the usual stuff. Progress of our crops: coffee - in 4th flower, avocado - ok, garlic - lost every plant so we planted beans. I like to check on local prices of things. Dominicans say the old price was yesterdays' price. Basic needs rise at about the same rate as petrol as they depend on each other. Antonio told me the price of corn has spiked to 100 DR pesos a pound. It was sitting at about 30 pesos several months ago, and now its over 3X that!

Now you can run your vehicle on bio-diesel and drink your coffee. Therefore if we are fueling ourselves on corn, what does that do to communities that subsist on corn? Their food just got 3X more expensive. I just wanted to give you a real life example of 'green' growing pains with understandable numbers.

How to become a farmer without getting your hands dirty!

2008-04-21T16:18:00.001-07:00

Coffee farms are good for the environment; they have bio-diversity levels comparable to native forests; they don't require chemicals; they maintain the water table; shade and coffee trees convert CO2 to O2; they produce a healthy product that happens to be the second largest commodity in the world; and the quality coffee market is growing at about 20% a year.

I purchased my coffee farm in the Dominican Republic in July '07 and manage the farm from Atlanta GA. I have quality legal counsel, a surveyor I can trust, relationships with local governments and non-profits, and I know the quality coffee industry well enough to answer basic questions. Did I mention that I work for one of the most respected coffee roasters in the US - Batdorf & Bronson, dancinggoats.com?

Investors would be protected from liability because they would own a land holding company and I would manage the farm. Once the land is secure the investor has a hands free asset. Did I mention how beautiful this land is? Selling the coffee is not an issue because I would buy every bean and manage the harvest!

Depending on how much land you want, neighboring farms are for sale. I already sold the neighboring farm to the east. Investments would start at about $20,000USD to own your own coffee farm! Interested? Shoot me an email. इ

New Program Directors

2008-04-15T07:01:00.000-07:00

It is funny how things come together. A few weeks ago two soon-to-be college grads approached me looking for opportunities to work abroad. Their names are Gray and Claire. They are both receivers of more genes than most people as they are smart, driven, ambitious, nice, healthy and attractive! I have known Gray for a couple years, but Claire was in the Dancing Goats Cafe and we happened to strike up a conversation.

With all the business aspects of my coffee farm and now import business, I'm not able to dedicate much time to the development projects I started (Education Fund, Eco-tourism Guides, Family Planning, Coffee Co-op Development). Gray and Claire are considering Peace Corps, but aren't sure about the 2 year commitment. I have all the contacts and projects to create a Peace Corps experience for them.

So we are talking of starting a non-profit managed, driven and directed by Gray and Claire. I only asked them to involve me in project design. Claire is excited to get the Education Fund established and Gray is going to help with forming the non-profit/foundation.