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Home  Articles Growing Closer: Roasters Blend Results with Altruism
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Growing Closer: Roasters Blend Results with Altruism |
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Friday, 29 July 2005 |
by Nick Obourn
Courtesy of Fresh Cup Magazine
That hunt for the perfect coffee is vitally important to
every coffee roaster. To offer customers a prized bean, roasted
to perfection, is the ultimate goal of dedicated craft
roasting. The treasure hunt for perfect and undiscovered green
beans takes roasters to some of the most remote places on Earth.
They endure hardships and brave dangers in this quest. The payoff
is gratification and profit. But along the way, relationships are
formed. In many cases, roasters are becoming altruistic links
along the coffee chain, taking steps to ensure the future of specialty
coffee even in the worst of times.
Fair trade certified coffee has garnered a swarm of media
attention in recent years, and for good reason. It has, on a
global scale, changed the coffee industry.
But beyond fair trade and the large network of growers it
encompasses exist a smaller framework of relationships keeping
the coffee industry afloat. These direct relationships between
roasters and growers play a smaller part, yet are an equally
notable life raft for growers. These relationships often have
more negotiable terms, and often result in the attainment of more
personal goals than the institutionally-certified variety. The
transparent relationships between roasters and growers keep
productive trade at the forefront of the growers’ mind. For their
part, coffee roasters know this beneficial relationship can not
only gain them great beans, but, in small increments, alter the
state of coffee as well.
These humanitarian programs, however, can be complex and
require a series of steps and negotiations before completion. The
journey often begins with a cupping, either at origin or at the
home roasting location. Cupping, in fact, is one of the major
issues at the center of these humanitarian efforts because
cupping is the indicator for taste, and consequently, price.
Farmers at origin, most of whom have never tasted their own
product, are in dire need of cupping education. Support for
origin cupping is one way for roasters to put their money where
their mouths are on the issue of coffee quality.
Geoff Watts, green coffee buyer and roaster for Chicago,
Ill- based Intelligentsia Coffee Roasters & Tea Blenders,
instructed cupping classes for the Partnership for Enhancing
Agriculture in Rwanda through Linkages (PEARL). “A lot of them
have never even drunk coffee,” says Watts. Each area co-op
was able to send one person to attend the cupping school-
funded by the United States Agency for International Development
(USAID) and headed by Tim Schilling- to then bring that knowledge
back to the farm. In August, Watts returned to Rwanda for the
final week of the school. Before his trip Schilling had been
sending him e-mails informing him he wouldn’t even recognize
the students anymore because of their increased cupping skills.
The project has been the profile of many articles, the most
high- profile of which was a feature in the World Business
section of The New York Times on July 27, 2004. The article
discussed Rwanda against the backdrop of the coffee crisis and
highlighted the financial backing behind PEARL. “ In addition to
its own direct aid, which costs a total of $10 million, Project
PEARL has facilitated grants from the World Bank, help from
nongovernmental organizations, free advice from local
universities, and in- kind help from the Rwandan government…”
writes reporter Carter Dougherty. Through PEARL, Rwandan farmers
are now able to grow to their highest potential, therefore,
fetching the highest price on the market.
Through a program initiated by Paul Katzeff, CEO of Fort
Bragg, Calif.- based Thanksgiving Coffee Co., a series of nine
cupping laboratories was recently completed for co-ops in
northern Nicaragua. Funded by a $300,000 grant fro USAID and
through an agreement with the Cooperative League of the United
States of America (CLUSA), the cupping labs furthered the nine
co-ops, which represent 6000 Nicaraguan coffee farmers and 15 percents
of all coffee farmers in the country. These co-ops are now able
to compete in the market by knowing the quality of what they
sell, what price should be affixed to it, and how to taste
differences according to conditions in the environment. For
roasters, this means that growers are getting as savvy as
consumers.
Building Bridges
Once a coffee is cupped and interest is sparked, the
roaster begins to search for that particular coffee. It is easy
to purchase the coffee through a broker and call it a deal, but
so-called relationship coffee is much more tangible. Traveling to
the farm is usually the next step. At the farm, a roaster can
meet with the co-op’s head and board of directors, or, if the
other party is not a co-op, with the owner of the farm.
When a roaster visits the farm itself, he or she is always
looking at the farm, the condition of the fields, the washing
facilities, how the coffee is processed, what conditions the
workers are living in, if they have health care, if they have
schools. Steve Lanphier, roast manager for Portland, Ore.- based
Portland Roasting, says he tries to gauge how willing they might
be to accept new ideas. Lately, and perhaps most importantly, a
roaster looks for how theses factors, in their current condition,
affect the taste in the cup, and how the grower and the roaster can
from a relationship to improve the farm and the taste of its
coffee.
“ What needs to happen is that people really need to ask
the co-op what (the co-op members) want,” says Kern Cebreros,
owner of the San Diego, Calif.- based Elan Organic coffees. And
this often varies. “ Well, I really need a donkey. I really
need a road. I really need a pick-up truck,” Cebreros says. “ You start
putting all these things on the drawing board, but it does take
years.” Forming relationships with farmers is a long process, and
it works best if both parties are well aware of their ideal
parameters and expectations.
In 1989, Whitefish, Mont.- based Montana Coffee Traders
first began traveling to origin farms, and R.C. Beall, the
company’s owner, was introduced to the co-op manager of
Coopesanta Elena, located in the cloud forests of Monte Verde,
Costa Rica. A discussion ensued, which grew into an agreement to
purchase coffee, and in turn help the farm during the dipping
cost of coffee.
“ Prior to that time the co-op was selling its coffee to
the general Costa Rican coffee market,” says Scott Brant, sales
manager for the company. “ I think [the cost] was around 80
cents a pound. The concern was that, [then], as now, farmers
would be leaving the farm or selling the farms or converting
their farms to something else that may even have more of an
ecological impact on the cloud forest and in that region.
Brant says the agreement struck with Coopensanta Elena let
the co-op name its own price, which came to $1.25 per pound, a
considerable sum to pay a farmer in 1989. The company also
markets the co-ops coffee under the name Café Monte Verde and one
dollar of every pound sold goes back to the origin community to
fund different projects.
Cebreros admits difficulties can arise with relationships
between growers and roasters. “ It’s a marriage,” she says.
“ It takes a long time to build trust with small community
growers. I’ve been working in some of my co-ops since 1991 and
’92, and we’re still renegotiating and trying to gain trust.”
Both parties have to benefit from the agreement, and that has to
be communicated in the clearest possible terms, whether it involves a
lawyer, a notary or some other kind of third party. Cebreros has
discovered that “ origins are big on ritual and formality,” and
they are more inclined to take something seriously if it has been
documented, stamped or sealed in the country of origin.
Certain origin countries seem particularly reticent to
become involved in a relationship with a U.S. roaster. For
centuries, dating from the days of colonialism to the present
expansion of transnational corporations, many in Central America
and South America have felt exploited. This legacy of injustice
can make it difficult for a coffee roaster’s intentions to be
welcomed. Watts often finds himself “having to explain the idea
that better quality means better prices” to growers. Many
of them have been using the same techniques for growing,
processing, and pricing for generations. “There’s a cultural
disconnect,” says Cebreros, and this often leads to intensive
negotiations.
“ A lot of people don’t understand that coffee farmers are
not necessarily set up well to deal with American bureaucracy,”
says Randy Wirth, co-owner and roast master of Logan, Utah-
based Caffe Ibis, “ and so a certain amount of hand-holding
is very useful.” Caffe Ibis works with growers to assist in
the certification process, whether for Fair trade, organic, or
Smithsonian Bird Friendly certification. Recently Caffe Ibis
worked with Federacion Indigena Ecologica de Chiapas (FIECH), an
organization in Chiapas, Mexico, to find a co-op that was
interested in gaining certification, but unable to achieve it
alone. “We were able to work to see that the quality standards
would meet specialty standards, and our standards, and once that
was done we helped make the arrangements to see that Smithsonian
was able to get an inspector there who could verify the
conditions and help them through the certification process,” says
Wirth.
Caffe Ibis now buys half a container of coffee each year
from the farm as a result f the arrangements. Like most
roasters, Cebreros tries to write contracts for several years in
advance. “My goal is to try to partner up with communities that
will at least allow me to write contracts five years forward,”
she says. These agreements can prove to be turbulent with co-ops
especially, as they are constantly in managerial flux. Cebreros
recounts contracts that had to be renegotiated due to the
election of a new co-op head. In these circumstances, having
agreements in writing always helps.
An Apple for the Teacher
Many altruistic projects, such as those launched by
Portland Roasting, Intelligentsia and Portland, Ore.- based
Bridgetown Coffee Roasters, have been directed at the foundation
or improvement of schools for farmers’ children, training new
teachers for schools and offering scholarships to children who
show exceptional talent.
The children who live on the Las Brumas co-op in Nicaragua
have always had to walk two hours to school. But Intelligentsia
is seeking to change that with the erection of a school on the
co-op. The school was a result of visiting the farm and inquiring
about its needs. Intelligentsia is also in the process of
establishing a fund for the Las Brumas co-op, which will allow
customers in the states to set money aside and contribute
directly to the farming area in Nicaragua. Customers will be able
to track their contributions to fully make the process transparent.
Don Jensen, owner of Bridgetown Coffee Roasters, first
traveled to Malawi in 1996. There, Bridgetown Coffee Roasters
helped growers understand the intricacies and importance of
proper washing and processing and over the years have helped to build
two schools.
Portland Roasting works closely with the Kinjibi tribe of
Papua New Guinea, and has boosted the quality of the
tribe’s coffee and created a tight-knit business relationship
concurrently. In May of 2004, Steve Lanphier traveled to Papua
New Guinea to meet the farmers who supply his company with
coffee. Until this visit, nobody who purchased Kinjibi tribe
coffee had ever been to the farm in all its 70 years of
operation. “When we first encountered the Kinjibi tribe we tried
their coffee and realized what a superior product they had,” says
Lanphier. “The story behind the tribe was right up our alley with
their focus on education and looking towards the future.”
Lanphier recounts with great kindness with which the tribe
treated him. The farm’s manager, Paul Pora, and his grandfather,
Koi Mund, showed Lanphier the farm and the facilities and a
project was born.
“ Their schoolhouses are basically thatch huts without
windows, and very primitive, so Portland Roasting is putting in a
permanent school structure,” says Lanphier. When it comes to
funding these projects in foreign countries, Portland Roasting
utilizes a method that allows both parties to contribute.
“What we do is pay a couple of pennies per pound over the asking
price, and they in turn match our donation either in procuring
the building materials or in cash,” says Lanphier. “This way
they play an important part in their own development. It’s
not like we’re coming in and handing them something, they
have to step up as well.” Portland Roasting is also working
in Costa Rican schools to hire and train computer teachers.
Promotion of the Product
A relationship has been forged, the contracts signed and
trade based on trust is born. But the roaster must still sell
coffee. For many roasters, this seems easy because they
personally know the importance of the product. But customers are
not always aware of this importance and they can’t necessarily
feel the moral weight of a bag of relationship coffee. Without
this understanding, they are unlikely to pay a premium.
So promotion is the follow-through. “We want to buy your
coffee because we’re going to tell your story,” says Cebreros.
She also stresses the importance of branding as roasters created
individualized labels and promotional materials to market these
special coffees.
Perhaps two of the best examples of storytelling through
packaging is Thanksgiving Coffee Company’s “End the Embargo”
coffee, which proudly projects a high-contract image of Che
Guevara and donates 50 percent of the profit of each bag to
Global Exchange, and the company’s Gorilla Fund Coffee, which
donates two dollars of every bag sold to the Dian Fossey Gorilla
Fund International (DFGFI) to help protect Rwanda’s gorillas.
Portland Roasting begins promotion of its relationship
coffees by notifying appropriate parties. “We start off with
a press release and we’ll send out bags of this coffee to
various people: chefs, coffeehouses, periodicals. Then we create
promotional things, things like counter talkers or little pamphlets,”
says Lanphier.
The object of promoting these coffees obtained by such
unique means is to convey the importance of the coffee, and in
doing so, support the importance of the entire coffee industry.
No specialty coffee is morally more important than any other,
and so every story deserves to be told.
Caffe Ibis finds that promotion through certification seals
has helped tell the story origin farms and at the same time
offers something to the farms. Letting customers purchase a
Smithsonian Certified Bird Friendly coffee actually know what the
certification means has helped Caffé Ibis develop a reputation as
one of the most reliable triple-certified coffee sellers in the
country.
Happily Ever After
The future of specialty coffee hangs in the unbalanced
nature of today’s coffee industry. Chipping away at the
surplus of mass-market coffee is only the beginning. Lanphier
believes it is “establishing these relationships now that will
ensure a steady long term supply of high-quality coffee.”
The roaster gets that sought-after diamond-in-the-rough, and
“producing countries will have a to produce, because they are
working directly with people who are willing to pay them a living
wage to get what they want. It’s really the only sensible
solution down the road.” |
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