In the Grinder - Our Daily Coffee Weblog

As most of you know, Guatemala was hit very hard this weekend with the Pacaya Volcano erupting followed by the distasterous Tropical Storm Agatha.  We want to extend our thoughts and prayers with all of our friends in Guatemala and pray for a fast recovery from this unfortunate weekend. 

We are thinking about all of the farms and exporters we work with in Guatemala, as well as all of our friends visiting Guatemala for Origin Trips and The Cup of Excellence.

Due to this event, some of our shipments from Guatemala have been delayed.  If you have coffee under contract from Guatemala, please check in with your sales rep to properly anticipate the delay in delivery. 

 

We wanted to let you guys know that we have decided to test out Grainpro's "Transafeliners" on our upcoming Guatemalan Microlot Arrivals.  What are Transafeliners you ask?  Well imagine a thicker grainpro bag the size of a 50ft container (see pictures below). 

From www.grainpro.com,

"GrainPro’s TranSafelinerTM provides protection against moisture ingress and condensation and simultaneously enables environmentally friendly fumigation of the commodity transported, thus ensuring arrival of the commodity to destination without infestation and without condensation or moisture ingress."

IDs P2569, P2570, and P2571 were all loaded in the container liner prior to shipment.  We are really excited about testing the results once this coffee lands in Minnesota.  We believe that this is a huge step forward in finding cost effective ways to preserve the integrity of coffee beans prior to transport.  We were one of the first to commercially use Grainpro lined burlap bags, and we are really proud to be one of the first to use Grainpro's Transafeliners.  Ccontinually raising the bar in preserving the intergrity of beans before and after travel is a great way to ensure that you guys are recieving the worlds best coffee.  Yay for Grainpro!!  And Yay for you guys who get all nerdy and excited about stuff like this as much as we do!!  Keep your eyes peeled for these lots coming in!

 

   

Tim C and I are in Miraflores Lima Peru right now getting ready for a 4:30 AM departure to Cusco. We are going to visit Quillabmba to see the HVC mill, then off to Quebrada for the rest of the week. We are excited about the possibilities of this trip, knowing their is potential for even more incredible coffee to come out of this region. We hung out with K.C. O'Keefe from Cafe Verde here in Miraflores tonight and enjoyed some awesome Peruvian food. More to come from this exciting trip!

Adios!

Noah

I arrived in Mexico City late last Wednesday night and spent an action filled 4 or 5 days with a variety of different friends I´ve made over the last ten years. I can´t honestly remember the last time I stayed out til 6 but we managed to do so both Friday and Saturday nights. Oops! But it was most definitely worth it. - I´ve traveled to and through Mexico City many a time but have never once gotten the red light when passing through customs. Well, I guess it was my turn this time around. OH the poor security gal had to look through all of my many belongings. She had no shame in commenting on what a pain it was but the best part was when she came across the piles of condoms and the other various items used for cervical exams that I had packed for the clinics I´d be workin with. Her face was priceless and I can only imagine what was going through her mind. I decided to remain quiet instead of trying to explain which worked just fine as her cheeks returned to their normal shade, also choosing to refrain from commenting.

I finally made it today to Jaltenango, Chiapas, Mexico. My entire spring semester´s coursework revolved around Grounds for Health and eventually the project that I would be pursuing here so to actually be here actually feels a long time in coming. I also found out just now that my work here WILL indeed count for field experience credit towards my masters. There was a doubt as Mexico is now on the U.S. government travel warning list which requires an additional very thorough applicaiton to the Office of Int´l Programs at the U.

I visited for a week in March with GFH to do some training with the women here and although the mountains were beautiful, they were nothing compared to the rich, lush view that I found the entire 3.5 hour ride here from the airport. The rains came in May and Chiapas is blooming with new, fresh life!

The craziest thing happened today when I got on the plane from D.F. to Tuxtla Gutierrez. I stood up to move my bag in the overhead bin when I heard a voice from behind call out 'Amanda!' My friends at home tease me because it's hard for me to go anywhere where I won't run into someone I know (I love people and tend to meet new ones all over the place) but frankly, my acquaintances and friends are VERY few in Chiapas. You can imagine how completely blown away I was to turn around and see the familiar face of a doctor from Comitan, Chiapas smiling at me. She was a co-volunteer with us in March, the only Mexican doctor on the team. Upon arriving, she and her boyfriend help me with my embarrassingly large load of luggage (which, in my defense include many medical and educational supplies) and also let me use her cell phone to locate my ride who was waiting for me half an hour away from the airport at a taxi station.

OK, it´s getting a little late and I have a VERY early morning at CESMACH, the coffee coop, tomorrow morning.

Hasta pronto, amiguitos... AE

Tim and I made it back from the Andes mountains in Southern Peru, and we both thought it was a very productive trip. The landscape in southern Peru is truly breathtaking. Rosa Maria from HVC and K.C. O'Keefe from Cafe Verde were our guides on this trip, and they showed us the projects they are working on together in the regions of Quebrada and Quillabamba Peru.

Just to give you a little background into HVC, it is one of the major commercial coffee exporters in Peru. With Rosa Maria behind the wheel, they are now beginning to make a major drive into specialty coffee. Rosa Maria left her cozy lifestyle in Lima to go live in Quillabamba full time in order to oversee the training of farmers in the region of how to properly pick and process specialty coffee. K.C. O'Keefe is acting as her partner in quality control. He (Cafe Verde) is cupping and exporting all of the coffee coming out of this program. This will be "Cafe Verde" branded coffee when it arrives to us at Cafe Imports. She and K.C. are unbelievably dedicated to this project. HVC is certified Organic, and we anticipate some awesome organic Perus to come from them later this year.

 The ride into Quillabamba from Cuzco was filled with switchbacks up and down the Andes mountains. Cuzco is at 11,000 feet in elevation, and the air was very thin to begin the trip. "Water, water, water...and Ibuprofen" as Tim would say. As we traveled down into Quillabamba and Quebrada, most specialty farms are around 6,000 feet or 2,000 meters.

These small farms in the region are typically producing 5-10 quintales (100 lb sacs) of green coffee in parchment per hectare, and most farms are 2 hectares or smaller. HVC has drivers that go every Sunday during harvest season to the farms to pick up the coffee. The parchment is then milled in either Quillabamba or Lima and prepared for shipment. 

K.C and Rosa Maria have developed a payment system for the farmers that is dependent upon cup quality. This gives the farmers an incentive to pick and process the best possible coffee. K.C. has stressed to the farmers the importance of proper drying in parchment. He is introducing things like transparent tarps (for unexpected rains) and raised beds to continue to improve the quality of these farmer's coffee and ultimately help them generate more money for themselves and their families.

We are very excited about Peru. It has more potential coffee farming land than all of Central America combined. We know this country has yet to even get close to reaching it's full potential in capacity and quality.

Adios!

Noah