By Jamin HaddoxOur trip continued to Popayan where we were met with the gracious hospitality of Jairo Ruiz, co-owner of Banexport, a specialty coffee exporter based in Bogota. Jairo gave us a tour of the dry mill where they prepare and export some of the best coffee in Colombia. They employ a large bank of color sorters and use a unique double-pass method to ensure ultra-clean prep which is the hallmark of high-grade specialty coffee. The real treat for me was a peek at a pair of 250k Probat roasters. These incredible machines can be loaded with parchment and chaff from the adjacent dry mill to help fire the roaster and bring it to temp, no small feat in a roaster of this size. The trier is the biggest I’ve seen and the utter mass of cast iron was a formidable sight.
Anyone who’s traveled in the coffee lands knows that the best green is exported, so drinking bad coffee at origin comes with the territory (I like to substitute Coca-Cola--a real treat when made with cane sugar instead of HFCS). Much cream and sugar are key to getting your morning cafe negro down the hatch. I’m reminded of how spoiled we are in the U.S. for good coffee and how coffee that is considered un-exportable still can taste pretty darn good when shared with good company and the beautiful mountain scenery of a cool Colombian morning. Fortunately for Piero and I, after our tour of the dry mill, Jairo and his father served us the best coffee we’d had yet on this trip while Jairo filled us in on a little company background. Mr. Ruiz has been in the coffee business for over 25 years. Jairo explained that he wasn’t very interested in following in his father’s footsteps until he returned to Colombia after studying abroad and got excited about the specialty revolution. That’s when he started Banexport with his brother about 10 years ago.
We continued our conversation over lunch at a local restaurant which also doubles as an amusement park and petting zoo. Jairo says these are common all over Colombia (he used to own and manage one himself!). The concept seems incredibly tacky, but I have to admit that feeding ostrich sugar cane leaves while you wait for your meal was actually kind of fun. I found myself reflecting on the farm-to-table movement popular now in many restaurants in the U.S as we consumed grilled baby cow not 100 feet from a group of children petting a group of penned-in baby cows. Something so completely natural to them seemed odd to this Minnesotan who was raised on a diet of bloodless shrink-wrapped meat, carefully removed from the messy business of livestock.
After dinner, we said goodbye to Jairo’s father and traveled to meet Don Miguel, owner of La Esperanza. La Esperanza is a progressive and highly experimental farm just outside of Trujillo, a small town of about 5,000. His estate is sprawling and beautiful, and has been in his family for 3 generations. About 12 years ago, while working for the FNC, Miguel noticed that the Japanese market was looking for high quality and unique types of coffee, and were willing to pay for them. He attempted to start some of this work while still employed by the Federation, but became restless with the lack of support for his suggestions. Eventually, he would leave the FNC altogether. He later traveled to Panama to meet with the Peterson family of La Esmeralda fame. Seeds in hand, he returned to Colombia and began to plant Geisha at some of his highest altitude land. After years of hard-earned lessons and careful plant selection, he is now producing Geisha in Colombia, and it is of exceptional quality. In my opinion, Geisha expresses its characteristic "citrus tea" profile differently in Colombia than in Panama. While the Peterson’s coffee is a fireworks display of bergamot and stone fruit with delicate body, Miguel’s coffees express their "Geisha-ness" in a more restrained and balanced way, with heavier body, more caramel, and rounder mouth feel. Miguel has been carefully planting and tracking the genetic characteristics of his Geisha trees and says that with 3-4 more years of plant selection his coffees will continue to improve. Just a week before we left on this trip, we cupped a pre-shipment of his Geisha at 91 points. It’s hard to imagine what he means!
In a country where almost all the coffee seedlings grown are distributed, managed, and exported by the FNC, what Miguel is trying to do here is very risky. The FNC has been developing rust and pest-resistant varieties almost since its inception, the most common being variedad Colombia or their newly touted hybrid Castillo. From a yield and risk management point of view, these high-tech seedlings offer some appealing advantages. These advantages, however, don’t come without cost. The best Castillo lot I’ve ever cupped scored an 83, and some Colombian coffee experts outside of the FNC say that my experience represents about the peak possible cup for this variety that shares some of its genetic roots with Robusta. Some may remember the scandal at last year’s Cup of Excellence when the FNC claimed that the winning lot was in fact Castillo. Most experienced cuppers think that it is impossible for a lot of 100% Castillo to cup equivalent to the more traditional varieties such as Typica.
The politics of Colombian coffee are complex and nuanced. Most people outside of the FNC will speak positively about many of the FNC’s accomplishments, including the unparalleled consumer image Colombian coffee enjoys worldwide. Some, however, are skeptical that the FNC’s model of high yield input-dependent monoculture cultivation favors short-term financial prosperity at the expense of the environment and farmer health--a lesson we’re just beginning to realize here in the U.S. Castillo was developed for dense planting in full sun, so the current FNC recommendations are to cut and burn any existing vegetation and replace it with coffee alone. Traditionally, coffee in Colombia was grown amongst all kind of other food crops and these crops were used for on-farm consumption and in some cases (like bananas) for sale as a cash crop to local markets. Under the current recommendations, farmers who grow Castillo become more dependent on local markets and currency to sustain their livelihood.
Don Miguel’s vision of responsible farming isn’t for himself alone. He plans to share what he learns on his farm with other farmers in Colombia and will supply seed as well. As we climbed through his many plots of coffee, we talked about his interest in cultivating other old varieties like Bourbon, about the work he is doing to expand and improve the organic sections of his farm, and the challenge and expense of training pickers in a country where selective harvesting is not common.
Later that evening, we climbed back into the truck and headed for Caicedonia. The next morning, we awoke and headed to Miguel’s warehouse where he stores his coffee in parchment until it’s rested and ready for export. Miguel’s dedication to quality is evidenced by the professionalism of his staff and the cleanliness of his warehouse. The warehouse looks more like a coffee museum than a warehouse. It is immaculate, with bags of pergamino carefully stacked and individually tagged with every tidbit of information imaginable. La Esperanza dries their coffee to around 10.6% MC then keeps the pergamino in dated Grainpro bags until Hernando determines they are rested, stable, and ready for export. In contrast, most coffee in the world is dried to 12% (sometimes higher) to avoid the loss of any precious weight loss. Because coffee is sold on weight, removing moisture costs real money, and most exporters and farmers are unwilling to assume that loss. Coffee which is dried to around 10.8% has been proven in numerous studies to be more flavor-stable and enjoy a substantially longer shelf life compared coffees of different moisture. This detail may seem minor, but it’s evidence of La Esperanza’s commitment to quality over quantity. A truly progressive operation considering most importers and roasters neglect to take this much care in protecting their green.
Included in the warehouse is a modern cupping lab, where Hernando, also an ex-FNC employee, manages all things quality, from harvest to export. Together with Hernando, his co-coffee geek and barista Pedro, and Jairo, Piero and I cupped three tables of La Esperanza coffee including some novel fermentation experiments that Hernando had executed.
We cupped many lots, including an experimental lot of Laurina - a variety naturally low in alkaloids, and thus low in caffeine as well. (picture with description) We had seen the planting of these unique trees the previous day. The trees are small and dense, and resemble small Christmas trees with their fruit almost totally concealed by thick foliage. Miguel managed to get some seeds from an undisclosed project before it was abandoned and the trees destroyed. He has been testing caffeine content and selecting only the lowest caffeine trees for propagation. The results are coffee seeds which are naturally low in caffeine (around .04%). Decaffeinated coffee has always been irritating for me, since my personal opinion is that it’s an adulterated product of dubious quality. Laurina, on the other hand, was the biggest surprise of the trip. The tiny emerald seeds are elongated and look very similar to good-quality washed Ethiopian Sidamo. The size makes it a challenge to roast, but once you master the profile, you are rewarded with a coffee experience like none I’ve tasted before. The cup is floral and lemony, syrupy and round, strangely sweet, with caramel and rich chocolate notes. Surely this can’t be decaf! The only characteristic that betrays its heritage is a noticeable lack of bitterness. Alkaloids (a chemical group to which caffeine belongs) are responsible for many of the bittering compounds which give coffee its unique flavor. Because Laurina is low in many of these compounds, its flavor is noticeably round, and the sugars--unmodulated by bittering agents--take center stage, giving it a honey-like sweetness. If Laurina represents the future of decaffeinated coffee, then I must reluctantly put aside my prejudice and admit that I may actually enjoy decaf!
Piero and I spent the rest of the day talking shop with Hernando (though his English is much better than my Spanish), swapping roasting strategies and learning from each other. A perfect ending to a fascinating and enjoyable trip!
I've uploaded pictures here: http://www.cafeimports.com/gallery/thumbnails.php?album=82
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This past weekend I traveled to Tacoma Washington to help judge the 2012 NW Regional Barista Competition.
Elaborating on this topic a bit more, I had some really interesting conversations with Devin Chapman of Coava about this very thing. In his routine, Devin didn't even mention which coffee he was actually using. He gave the judges three cards with different coffees Coava has on bar right now, and had them guess which one he used throughout the competition. Devin spoke to me about introducing people to unbelievable flavor experiences first, then support that with origin information, only if they want to learn more. I got the feeling that he feels like extremely specific origin information doesn't always need to be beaten over customer's heads, instead, lets let them come to us to find out more if and when they choose to.
View from Las Brumas
Healthy coffee shrub
