The Coffee in Your Cup

The Coffee in Your Cup
Shedding light on how it gets
from there to here by Hanna Neuschwander
PHOTO BY John Valls
Twenty-five
million
people
around
the world
grow coffee.
Guzman Inga
is one.
PHOTOS BY Phil beattie
Guzman Inga farms a remote plot of land in Peru’s lush
highland rainforests. If Inga were a typical coffee farmer, the
journey of his coffee following the harvest would be marked
by obscurity. Once coffee enters the global marketplace, it
disappears into a vast, dark, undifferentiated void. Until
two years ago, even Inga had never laid eyes on a person who
had taken the time to roast, grind and drink his coffee. Most
farmers haven’t.
But these days, Inga is not a typical coffee farmer. The
story of his coffee is exceptionally clear. After the harvest,
his coffee cherries—the fruit containing the seeds we know as
coffee beans—are processed and carried by mule on a fourhour trek down a steep, muddy path to a central town where
the beans can be sorted, dried and evaluated for quality. They
are then ferried to a second town, where the beans are milled
for export. At every step, Inga’s coffee is kept separate from
other farmers’ beans. From the mill, it enters containers
and traverses the Pacific, finally coming to rest in an awardwinning Northwest coffee roaster.
In October 2010, Phil Beattie, director of coffee for
Dillanos Coffee Roasters, based in Sumner, Washington,
traveled to Inga’s remote farm in north-central Peru, tracing
the usual path of coffee in reverse. To get there, he crossed
the churning muddy waters of the Rio Mayo, a tributary of the
Amazon, and battled thick sinks of mud to climb 3,000 feet up
the side of a mountain. Beattie undertook the 50-hour journey
because he was searching for something very particular: A
high-quality Peruvian coffee with room for improvement and,
most important of all, a story.
Beattie was the first coffee buyer to visit the farm. When
he arrived, he was greeted by a large group of Inga’s extended
family. On that first meeting, Beattie showed the family how
he would make a French press of their coffee, just as it might
be made in a café in the United States.
“The most impactful moment of meeting Guzman for the
first time was drinking his coffee with him,” says Beattie. “The
coffee represents so much value to these farmers; they don’t
want to waste any by drinking it themselves—ironically, they
usually drink instant.”
Beattie continues, “As a coffee roaster, I roast the coffee,
see it in a bag, and go to a coffee shop and see it made into
espresso. I see the entire process right in front of me. But
a farmer spends all year pruning and working the soil and
fertilizing—a lot of hard work, skill, dedication—and then the
coffee disappears down the road. They don’t know if it was
enjoyed, or where it went to.”
38 l edible portland WINTER 2012
This ritual of drinking coffee together had further symbolic
importance. Beattie had already tasted Inga’s coffee and knew
he liked its slightly unusual flavor profile—chocolatey, but
more fruity and floral than most Peruvian coffees. He already
knew the coffee’s quality is solid. (It scores an 84 out of 100
points on the standard coffee quality grading scale.) This
ceremony was about something different. Beattie traveled all
this way as a signal to Inga that he’s serious about his interest
in a long-term relationship with the farmer. It’s important
to him that Inga taste what he tastes, and what Beattie’s
customers will taste. Beattie didn’t just want to sell Inga’s
coffee; he wanted to put his face on the bag.
This is the new
reality of specialty
coffee: Stories sell.
It’s a lesson that Dillanos Coffee Roasters takes to heart.
A medium-size wholesale roaster, Dillanos sells coffee
to grocery stores, coffee shop franchises, roadside drivethroughs and mom-and-pop cafés across the country. In 2011,
they were named Roast Magazine’s “Macro-Roaster of the
Year,” an award given annually to a roaster producing more
than 100,000 pounds of coffee in a year. (In 2010, Dillanos
roasted 3.2 million pounds of coffee.)
Beattie is marketing Inga’s coffee under a special line
called One Harvest. All of the coffees in the One Harvest
program are built on long-term relationships with coffee
farmers. Beattie pays more for them than other coffees
because they are of a high enough quality that he can feature
them as stand-alone, or single origin, coffees, which enables
him to tell a story about the farmer. American coffee drinkers
are willing to pay more for that story.
Coffee is no exception to the growing interest in knowing
where our food comes from. Stories seem to signal that
certain values are embodied in a product. A few years ago, it
was enough that a coffee bag was labeled with a sticker that
said “Fair Trade” or “Rainforest Alliance” or “Organic.”
Increasingly, this is not sufficient for consumers. There is a
movement afoot to trace coffee back to its origin—especially to
a person, someone you can put a face and a name to.
As a result, traceability is rapidly becoming a core value of
the specialty coffee industry, and especially to a passionate
corps of young roasters like Beattie. Coffee that has a story to
tell promises something special—that it’s more fair, better
tasting, even more environmentally sound. Yet the linkages
between transparency, quality, fairness and sustainability are
not one to one, the way we are sometimes led to believe.
When a storied coffee does possess some or all of these
qualities, it’s often because there is a genuine, transparent,
long-term relationship between a coffee roaster, a grower and
an importer.
An especially important link in that chain is the importer.
“I never would have found Guzman on my own,” says Beattie.
“I can’t just fly off into the middle of Peru and start hiking
around the jungle talking to random farmers.” Beattie turned
to the Portland, Oregon-based importer Sustainable Harvest
for guidance.
Sustainable Harvest
has purchased more
than $150 million
worth of coffee
from farmers in Latin America and East Africa since 1997.
That money ultimately makes its way to more than 200,000
farmers in 15 countries. With an explicit mission to help
coffee farmers build long-lasting, sustainable relationships
with coffee buyers, their most important function is to act as
a “matchmaker”—connecting farmers with roasters.
But unlike many other for-profit importers, Sustainable
Harvest is a social enterprise company. They reinvest more
than 50 percent of their operating expenses in training for
co-ops, which are central mills for cooperative groups of
farmers, where coffee is sorted, evaluated and prepared
for export. The company also works with grant agencies to
improve quality of life in farming communities, addressing
issues like food security in the lean months after the harvest.
edible portland WINTER 2012 l 39
Sustainable Harvest’s founder, David Griswold, coined
the term “relationship coffee” to describe this approach. It
seems to be working: With offices in Portland; Oaxaca, Mexico;
Lima, Peru; and Moshi and Kigoma, Tanzania, the company
has grown to import 20 percent of all organic, Fair Trade coffee
in the United States. Some of Sustainable Harvest’s most
recognizable clients are Green Mountain Coffee Roasting and
Whole Foods Market.
In 2010, Sustainable Harvest went to ADISA (a small
Peruvian co-op) with Beattie’s request. Inga, a farmer with
great quality and room for improvement, immediately came
up.
Inga’s story is a parable of the challenges of modern coffee
farming. In the years since he began farming for ADISA, the
global commodity price of coffee has skyrocketed, which
ironically puts quality-focused growers at a disadvantage. A
few years ago, a roaster might have paid $2 per pound for a
high-quality coffee on a day when the commodity market price
was $1. The $1 premium over the commodity price represents
a 100 percent bonus for the farmer or co-op for their extra
work. Early this year, as the commodity price soared over $3,
that same high-quality coffee might have fetched $3.75—a
bonus of only 25 percent. Farmers receive record-high prices
for their crops regardless of the quality. That puts those who
take the extra time and invest the extra money to produce a
higher-quality crop at a relative disadvantage.
40 l edible portland WINTER 2012
Inga was in just such a position, and he was disillusioned.
He considered leaving the co-op and possibly coffee farming
altogether. ADISA’s leadership saw that connecting Inga with
Beattie would reassure the farmer his efforts were valued, and
give him an extremely rare opportunity—to see the clear path
of his coffee, from farm to cup.
In return, Dillanos would offer ADISA a premium for
Inga’s beans of $.65 above the commodity price, even when
other buyers were willing to pay only a $.60 premium. The
additional $.05 was a signal of good faith from Dillanos, as
well as compensation for the extra effort it took the co-op
to keep Inga’s coffees separate from the others. Dillanos’s
first purchase from ADISA in 2011 was for one 37,500-pound
container. The $.65 premium nets the co-op $24,000 more
than they would earn selling the coffee in the commodity
market. When the contracts were paid out, Inga received $2.52
per pound.
Sustainable Harvest has worked with ADISA for half a
decade, beginning in 2005, when the co-op was young and
struggling to survive.
Coffee Walnut Shortbread
The coffee comes through strongly, giving this crumbly shortbread intense flavor and caffeine buzz. Beware—don’t eat them too close
to bedtime.
2 cups flour
1 cup walnuts
3/4 cup sugar
1/4 tsp fine sea salt
2 tsp finely ground medium-roast coffee beans
3/4
cup plus 2 Tbsp (1 3/4 sticks) unsalted butter, firm, cut in several pieces
Tbsp plus 1 tsp brandy (optional)
1
1 1/2
tsp vanilla extract
70 whole coffee beans for garnish
1. Combine the flour, walnuts, sugar and salt in the bowl of a food processor and pulse until the walnuts are finely ground.
Add the coffee grounds and pulse to mix. Add the butter and pulse until the mixture looks damp and crumbly. Drizzle in
the brandy and vanilla extract and pulse until the dough begins to clump up around the blade. Remove the dough, press it
into a ball and knead by hand a few times.
2. Form the dough into a 12-inch-long log about 2 inches in diameter. Wrap the dough in plastic wrap and refrigerate for
at least 2 hours, overnight, or up to 3 days.
3. Position oven racks in the upper and lower thirds of the oven and heat to 350 degrees. Unwrap dough log, and cut into
1/4-inch-thick slices using a sharp knife. (If the dough crumbles when cutting into it, let it soften for several minutes.)
Place the cookies at least 1 inch apart on greased or parchment-lined baking sheets. Press a coffee bean into the center of
each cookie.
4. Bake the cookies 12 to 15 minutes, or until light golden brown at the edges, rotating the sheets from top to bottom and
front to back halfway through. Remove from oven, let sit for 1 minute, then transfer to a cooling rack. Cool completely.
These cookies are delicious fresh but even better the next day. They can be stored in an airtight container for up to one
month.
Makes 5 1/2 dozen
Adapted from Alice Medrich’s Pure Dessert, Artisan, 2007
PHOTO by
leah2012
harb
edible portland WINTER
l 41
The Flow of Money
Tracing the dollars from specialty
coffee drinker to farmer
GLOBAL COFFEE PRICES
The commodity price of coffee forms a baseline for specialty coffee, to which premiums are added
for quality and certifications, such as organic, Fair Trade, or Rainforest Alliance. Companies like
Folgers and Nescafé often purchase coffee at or near the commodity price; by contrast, specialty
coffee companies, like Starbucks, Green Mountain and innumerable small, quality-focused
roasters, will pay premiums well above the commodity price.
THE COFFEE CHAIN: WHO PAYS WHOM?
A complicated but transparent dance occurs between many players, each offering an important
service to the others. All prices below are estimated and based on a sample commodity price on
the date that a roaster purchases coffee from an importer.
Coffee Drinker to Roaster
$10.90 What you pay for 1-pound bag of Dillanos’s One Harvest coffee
$5.47What Dillanos spends to roast, package, market and distribute the coffee
$3.35What Dillanos pays Sustainable Harvest
$2.08What Dillanos receives as profit
Roaster to Importer
Dillanos purchases coffee from importers like Sustainable Harvest. The importer charges
the roaster a modest premium that goes back to supporting on-the-ground efforts to help
farmers improve coffee quality and yields.
$3.35 What Dillanos pays Sustainable Harvest
$2.40Commodity price of coffee on date of purchase
$.20Fair Trade premium
$.40 Quality premium
$.05Keeping Inga’s coffee separate from other coffees
$.30What Sustainable Harvest receives
Importer to Co-op
Sustainable Harvest purchases coffee from ADISA, the co-op. The importer provides
invaluable advice to the co-op on the quality standards that roasters use to decide whether
to buy a coffee or not. They help train the co-op to evaluate coffee quality and thoughtfully
invest in new or improved processing equipment.
$3.05 What Sustainable Harvest pays the ADISA Co-op
$.20Fair Trade premium
$2.52What ADISA pays Inga, the coffee farmer
$.33What ADISA receives
Co-op to Coffee Farmer
ADISA helps farmers like Inga process, sort and separate the coffee cherries to be sold.
Co-ops provide technical assistance, agronomic advice and access to expensive equipment
that most farmers can’t afford on their own. As a certified Fair Trade co-op, ADISA also
manages the certification paperwork, which ensures that farmers will receive a premium
over commodity prices for their beans.
$2.52 What ADISA pays Inga, the coffee farmer
ADISA is relatively
small, with fewer
than 100 members
who are spread over an unusually wide, remote geographic
area. That makes communication, transport and other logistics
difficult. In addition, there is no historical tradition of coffee
farming in this region of Peru. The farmers began arriving two
decades ago, when the government offered settlement rights to
anyone who farmed unused land using organic methods. They
were also required to maintain the protected forest canopy.
Belonging to a co-op like ADISA can provide invaluable
benefits for coffee farmers in Peru, where the average farm
is both remote and small—less than three hectares. Most
importantly, it provides direct access to coffee buyers, which
in turn means much more stability for farmers. Co-ops that
are certified (organic, Fair Trade, Rainforest Alliance or
otherwise) fetch a premium for their coffees, and Peru is the
world’s leading producer of organic coffees.
One of ADISA’s greatest challenges early on was that
its members produced a relatively small amount of coffee.
Sustainable Harvest set to work helping the co-op improve
yields and make basic improvements that might allow
them to form a direct business partnership with a roaster.
When roasters are willing to pay more for coffee, it’s usually
because of the caliber of coffee. Translators can take care of
language differences, but nothing can replace having a shared
vocabulary for quality. “Cupping training is one of the main
things we’ve done with ADISA,” explains Adam McClelland,
Sustainable Harvest’s relationship coffee manager.
No matter where you go in the world, coffee quality is
evaluated the same way, by “cupping.” It’s a professional ritual
that involves slurping coffee prepared according to a strict set
of parameters. Cupping forms the basis for all negotiations
between buyers and sellers. If a roaster wants a specific flavor
profile out of a coffee, a well-trained co-op with cupping
facilities can work much more effectively to get the roasting
company what it needs—and is in a much stronger negotiating
position when it comes to price. Sustainable Harvest’s team
in Peru has extensively trained ADISA’s employees in cupping
procedures; without this, it’s unlikely that Dillanos would be
buying ADISA’s coffee today.
edible portland WINTER 2012 l 43
In September 2011,
Inga’s coffee arrived
in the United States.
If all goes well, Beattie and Inga—and ADISA and Sustainable
Harvest—will work together in the coming years to make
gradual improvements to Inga’s farm, and Dillanos will reward
those improvements with higher prices. When coffee drinkers
are willing to pay more for a compelling and authentic
story, then the money—in the best circumstances, as with
Inga—makes its way back to the farmer, and can be reinvested
to improve the coffee’s quality and the quality of life for the
farmer and his family.
When Beattie last visited Inga’s farm, in July 2011, he saw
that critical improvements to the farm had already been made.
There was better housing for the family and workers who lived
on the land during harvest: A two-story building with a roof,
doors and a kitchen had replaced the lean-to he saw on his
first visit.
“That’s the great thing,” says Beattie, “when you see the
flow of money based on coffee going back to the farmer,
when our purchasing can have positive impacts on living
44 l edible portland WINTER 2012
conditions.” According to Beattie, Inga has plans to build a
small hydroelectric plant on a creek by the house and a small
fish pond to feed his family year-round.
But Inga and Beattie may go further. The farm currently
uses wooden tanks to ferment the newly picked coffee (a
standard step in the “washing” process, which helps remove
the fruit of the coffee cherry that surrounds the bean). Tile
tanks generally produce coffee with a better, cleaner taste,
with fewer opportunities for bacteria to impart flavors to the
beans. A discussion about upgrading to tile tanks could be on
the horizon—but only once Inga and Beattie have established a
solid trust in their partnership.
“I have to be careful to not be paternalistic,” says Beattie
cautiously. “I have to build trust based on years of doing
business together. Down the road, they could switch the
wooden tanks out for concrete or tile tanks, or get a more
precise milling machine. But it takes time, patience. That’s the
important thing about making these relationships long-term.”
Sometimes that patience pays off, with stunning results.
Another of Dillanos’s One Harvest coffees, from the Kanyovu
cooperative in Tanzania (also sourced through Sustainable
Harvest), is a good example. When the global price of coffee
had hit bottom, the co-op was selling its coffee on the
commodity market and earning $.50 per pound. Working
with Sustainable Harvest on training in coffee production,
processing and improved infrastructure led to a relationship
forming between the co-op and Dillanos. As a result, the
co-op was paid more than any other farm in Tanzania in
2008—$1.96 per pound (after fees for milling and exporting,
farmers earned $1.18). In 2010, the coffee won the prestigious
Taste of Harvest competition, which spans east, south and
sub-Saharan Africa.
Beattie sees similar potential for Inga’s coffee, though it
may take years to realize. In the meantime, he’s counting on
Inga’s story to move you.
ep
Hanna Neuschwander is a Portland-based writer who covers coffee for local
and national publications. She is finishing a book about coffee roasters on
the West Coast, which will be published by Timber Press in August 2012.
[
Edible Portland congratulates Portland Roasting
Coffee on being awarded Roaster of the Year for
2012! Find out more about this great local roaster
by watching KATU’s Edible Portland on AM
Northwest segment on January 11.
]
edible portland WINTER 2012 l 45