Sustainable Harvest

Last week, Portland, Oregon became the center of the specialty coffee world when the Specialty Coffee Association of America (SCAA) brought its annual conference to town. Coffee producers, roasters, and industry representatives traveled from all over the world to attend the show. Members of Sustainable Harvest’s supply chain streamed in all week to visit our offices, cup coffees, and talk about the latest issues in specialty coffee.

We could think of no better time to share with the industry our latest efforts to support the production of high-quality coffee and the lives of coffee farmers. That is why last Friday, in a room full of farmers, co-op leaders, financiers, and NGOs, Sustainable Harvest President David Griswold announced the launch of our newest mobile training app, RITS Ed: Cupping, an iPad app available to download for free in English and Spanish on the iTunes app store.

RITS Ed: Cupping (RITS stands for Relationship Information Tracking System, Sustainable Harvest’s in-house traceability database) houses a library of educational videos in Spanish and English created by Sustainable Harvest’s Q Grader-certified staff to help coffee cooperatives set up and deploy a fully equipped quality control lab, utilize the standard SCAA cupping form, and prepare green coffee samples for shipment.  With the app, training materials are accessible to cuppers in any region of the world, regardless of access to regular electricity or Internet (once downloaded, the app works offline). With these tools in hand, cooperative staff and cuppers can be better prepared to enter and compete in higher-paying specialty coffee markets.

The app includes 10 videos with instructional footage in specialty coffee processing and quality control from experts in:

·         Cupping Rules and Protocols

·         Quality Lab Equipment and Supplies

·         Preparing and performing a cupping session

·         Green coffee grading and defect evaluation

RITS Ed: Cupping is the latest piece of Sustainable Harvests RITS suite of apps which aims to strengthen the coffee supply chain and improve the lives of farmers with training and traceability. It employs the latest mobile technology to extend the reach and impact of our trainings – creating a network of farmers and coffee cooperative leaders who are equipped to pass that training along to their peers, and helping to ensure the future of specialty coffee.

The coffee industry is rife with commentary on raising coffee up to the level of wine, where the final product sells for hundreds of dollars and tiny plots of land are revered for their microclimates and soil characteristics. But few on the grower side are dabbling in the advanced science and experimentation that is commonplace in the wine industry. Enter Emilio Lopez, the beer brewer turned coffee grower from El Salvador who has been wowing North American roasters with his in-depth experiments for the last few years. Last week, Emilio visited Sustainable Harvest in Portland, as part of our presentation series that introduces the most innovative coffee producers to the Portland roasting community.

Emilio explained the difference between the pacamara, yellow bourbon, and red bourbon varieties from his farm Finca el Manzano in El Salvador.

Emilio explained to us his drive for experimentation at the farm. Emilio believes that experimentation is useful for removing the “I hope” from coffee farming. In his mind, any risk factor that he can remove from the production equation gives him one fewer area for problems to arise. For example, determining and eliminating the root of over-fermentation defects means that there is one fewer quality risk in the supply chain. In addition to removing risk, Emilio has a natural curiosity for coffee experimentation and we were lucky to have him here to learn about and taste his latest coffees.

Processing Method Experiments

On day one, three cupping sessions were divided by arabica varietal. Emilio brought samples from one particular area on his farm, Finca el Manzano, where he planted different coffee varietals right next to one another and at the same time. The plot is called El Palmero, and the idea is to create a growing area where the only variable is variety.  El Palmero contains two hectares each of pacamara, red bourbon, and yellow bourbon.

The purpose of these cuppings was to taste the influence that a processing method has on cup quality, as evidenced through four different methods: natural, pulped natural, machine washed (mucilage removed mechanically), and fully washed (mucilage removed by fermentation). We found similarities among the different varietals processed with the same method, and were impressed by how clean and sweet each of the coffees was. Emilio proudly told us that yellow bourbon natural was the coffee used by Daniel Méndez in his winning presentation in the 2012 El Salvador national barista competition.

Enzyme Experiments

Beans in the glass on the left had the enzyme applied to them. The right glass was the control. After an hour, there was barely any mucilage left on the enzyme-treated beans.

Two elements are infamously scarce at many of the world’s coffee farms: water and flat space for drying. In El Salvador, the second half of the coffee harvest is during the dry season, and yet washed coffees are the norm. Emilio told us he has to pay for trucks to come up to his farm, loaded with water to use for processing. So he was especially interested when he discovered he could add wine enzymes to depulped coffee and it would strip off the mucilage without using any water. The enzymes that Emilio tested are pectinase blends that came from the wine industry, where they were developed to break down the cell walls of unripe grapes to neutralize any potential herby taste and to clear the wine of any cloudiness from lingering pectin.

When Emilio applied the enzymes to depulped coffee, they broke down the mucilage layer in about two hours, compared to an average 12 hours in unassisted fermentation. When we cupped the different enzyme-processed coffees next to a control sample, there were marked differences. The enzyme coffees were really bright and somewhat thin, while the control was sweeter and had a bigger body. I asked Emilio if he sees a potential to use enzymes on his coffees to save water and time during the harvest season. He’s going to keep experimenting and tasting to see if he can improve cup quality with the enzyme fermentation. The potential for applying more advanced techniques to coffee processing is great and I’m excited to see what Emilio will explore next.

–Katie Gilmer, Relationship Coffee Manager

Ethiopia: The Legendary Land of Coffee. Where it all began.

That is the theme for the 9th annual African Fine Coffee Conference and Exhibition, taking place this year in Addis Abbaba, Ethiopia, on February 16th-18th. Sustainable Harvest is hosting a booth at the event, and Boss, Laura and I are already in Ethiopia, taking some time to visit producers in the days leading up to the event.

These days no trip to coffee growing regions goes on without some discussion with local folks about the changing weather patterns. Sometimes it may sound like an excuse for a late shipment or the high moisture content in a coffee sample. But during my last trip to Nicaragua I was struck, after having come here regularly since 1996,  to witness firsthand the challenges of ongoing weather uncertainty.

Coffee parchment in the process of drying is covered thanks to another rainy day at the Soppexcca dry mill

In conversations with farmers from Honduras, I learned that their record crop (over 6 million bags) this year may be facing severe quality challenges as they struggle to properly dry and store the massive volume, which is coming into warehouses all at once because of the highly concentrated ripening of coffee cherries. Farmer co-op leaders in Chiapas, Mexico report cooler and cloudier days than in years past, leading to potential quality problems and slower drying. This also means a delay in coffee deliveries with only 20% of parchment being received from members as of the first week of February.

But the most striking scene was in Jinotega, Nicaragua where I barely saw the sun during the entire week, my flimsy windbreaker proved too thin for the cool weather, and every night rain and strong wind pounded the tin roof of my sleeping quarters. Unable to even “orear” (reduce from soaking to simply wet) their coffee parchment at the farm, producers were delivering very wet parchment to the collection stations, adding pressure to the already overflowing dry mills around the town of Sebaco.

Just a few miles north of Sebaco at the Soppexcca Cooperative’s dry mill, I saw the unimaginable. It began to rain as we toured the mill and patios with neatly laid out tarps with drying coffee. Workers scrambled to cover the exposed parchment; this light drizzle would delay drying by another few days. Exactly the worst possible scenario as trucks continued to flow into the mill with soaking wet parchment in need of drying space and some sun. The region around Sebaco has traditionally been a choice location for dry mills in Nicaragua. Its warm and dry conditions combined with relatively flat landscape and close proximity to farms up north allow for ideal drying and storage, until now.

Fortunately, Soppexcca´s mill manager is prepared for these eventualities and has excess drying space readily available. Uneven weather patterns are now compounding the challenges facing coffee farmers, making this uncertainty the New Normal.

Jorge Cuevas
Director of Trade Operations

Para la versión en español, haz clic aqui.

In January, Claudia Rocio and I joined Ed Canty, the green coffee buyer for Green Mountain Coffee, at the 40-year anniversary of the Federacion Campesina de Cauca (FCC), a coffee cooperative based in Popayán, Cauca, Colombia.

Besides being a celebration of the Federation’s longevity, the gathering was also a commemoration for justice, peace, and each producer’s own path towards sustainability. At the event, the organization, which today has 676 members, celebrated the reclamation of their lands in the past and recognized the ethnic diversity and cultural richness of their community.

This was an extraordinary opportunity for me to see the importance of direct and transparent relationships, through which the producers meet and get to know their final buyers and all of the actors in the specialty coffee supply chain. In this model, producers can also see how their coffee is processed and consumed as a final product in the niche markets of North America.

In the middle of the commemorative celebration the members of FCC learned about the popularity of their product in the market and the recognition that the FCC has received for its quality, which puts it at the head of the specialty coffee market. FCC’s 40th anniversary celebration demonstrated to the producers that the unified work of smallholder farmers, along with the work of the staff of the FCC, permits them to reach sustainable markets and obtain special recognition for their product. FCC’s high quality product is a result of the support of all of the actors in the supply chain: producer, exporter, importer, buyer, and coffee development projects.

The producers left the 40th anniversary celebration with a smile on their faces and with a greater motivation to continue working hard to grow quality coffee. I am aware that there is still a lot to do to continue supporting them, but the seeds have already been planted that are giving fruit to a direct, transparent, and trustworthy relationship. Today I also returned to my own office with pride to be participating in the important process of the rural development of families and communities, and to be a part of a chain of great value, feeling sure that this work will continue to bring better harvests in the coming years.

Olga Lucia Cuellar Gomez

Development Manger-Latin America