September 2007

Retail and specialty roasters / Starbucks

Starbucks and Ethiopia: investigative report

The Sacramento Bee has published an in-depth report by Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Tom Knudson exploring Starbucks and its Ethiopian relationships.

Of particular interest to C&C readers will be the information on Ethiopia’s Gemadro Estate, the source of one of their Black Apron exclusive coffees. I reported on the Gemadro Black Apron when it was being offered (Starbucks Ethiopia Gemadro Estate: Corporate greenwashing?). One thing I discussed was the extent of the land clearing on the estate and its implications for the environment.

Knudson goes over this point (and many others) in greater detail. He interviewed Tadesse Gole, an Ethiopian ecologist who did his PhD work on the preservation of wild coffee and the author of a study on the environmental and cultural impacts of coffee and tea plantations in Ethiopia, including Gemadro. He found an annual deforestation rate of 12.2% in the Gemadro area, the highest in the Sheka Zone. A spokesman at Ethio-Agri CEFT, which manages the estate, says that much of the land was cleared before Gemadro obtained it, and that conservation practices include reducing erosion by planting grasses and reeds, establishing shade trees over the coffee, and leaving 3,200 acres untouched for wildlife.

Gole countered this by pointing out that many of the plants and trees are not native to Ethiopia, which changes forest composition. Knudson points out confirmation on Gemadro’s web site (which says crops planted there include some from South America, Mexico and India).

Finally, Knudson uncovered the fact that the estate was certified under Starbucks’ own CAFE Practices but that nobody from Starbucks or their certification auditor (Scientific Certification Systems, SCS) had actually visited the estate. The inspector at another firm employed by SCS was fired for poor performance, and SCS would not release the inspection report to the Sacramento Bee. This demonstrates a weakness in certification schemes in general, which often rely on third parties for inspections.

While the article comes down hard on Starbucks, it does offer some pros along with the cons, and admits,

“No coffee company claims to do more for the environment and Third World farmers…In places, Starbucks delivers on those promises, certainly more so than other multinational coffee companies.”

I will add that Starbucks has also been the forerunner in waking up Americans to “specialty” coffee, or at least that there is an alternative to Folgers and Maxwell House. Frankly, every former grocery store/big four coffee drinker that converts to Starbucks is a step in the right direction towards sustainability. And no other company has spawned more converts than Starbucks.

The article is Investigative Report: Promises and poverty. Check out the sidebar: a large aerial photo showing the estate and surrounding area, highlighting areas of forest and development. The article has also been reprinted in its entirety at the web site of the Organic Consumers Association.

Coffee news and miscellany

Guatemalan green power project

There was an interesting article in the new issue of Fresh Cup Magazine [no longer available on the web site], Green Power to the People — Alternative energy brings greater independence to coffee growers. It focuses on the 40-family cooperative, the Union of Independent Workers of Alianza Property (STIAP), in Nueva Alianza, located south of Huehuetenango, well west of Lake Atitlan, and more or less in the coffee growing region known as “San Marcos.” In addition to coffee, the co-op grows macadamia nuts. Locally available waste oil and unsellable nuts are used to fuel a biodiesel reactor that helps provide electricity to this remote town. The biodiesel project has been made possible through funding and support by the University of San Carlos, Barefoot Coffee Roasters, Sweetwater Organic Coffee, and Matthew Rudolf, a recent college graduate from North Carolina. What a great partnership!

In addition to the article, you can read more about Comunidad Nueva Alianza at their web site, this blog post, and this Flickr photo set.

Caribou Coffee / Coffee reviews / Latin America / Retail and specialty roasters

Coffee review: Caribou Coffee Roastmaster Reserve Panama Maunier

Plainspoken Coffee. A Coffee Review for Ordinary People by Ordinary People, #27.

Caribou Coffee’s latest Roastmaster Reserve is Panama Maunier, from Panama’s Boquette region in Chirqui province.

Caribou indicates this is an estate coffee, named for French flower grower and former owner Monsieur Gilbert Maunier de La Espriella. Things have become a bit more complicated since Maunier sold the farm in 1985 to Plinio Ruiz, founder of Casa Ruiz SA, a well-known producer, processor, and coffee exporter in Panama.  Other Casa Ruiz brands include La Berlina or Finca Berlina and Panamaria.

Ruiz added more land adjoining the Maunier Estate, as well as processing beans from neighboring farms. From the multiple sources I consulted, including the Casa Ruiz site itself, “Maunier Estate” coffee comes from a number of farms, not just one estate. The last several years, Maunier Estate coffee has placed in the Best of Panama competition. It’s possible these competition/auction lots are isolated from the original Maunier farm, but given Caribou’s volume, the Roastmaster’s Reserve is no doubt the standard multi-farm blend sold under the “Maunier Estate” brand.

Maunier grows 40% caturra, 30% bourbon, and 25% typica at 1400 to 1700 meters. Much of Panama’s coffee is grown in a fairly sustainable manner. Another Casa Ruiz web site states that their coffees are grown in an environmentally-friendly manner under shade with little or no chemicals (several of their brands are, in fact, organic). I was not able to unearth any specific further details on their growing methods.

On to the coffee. This is a light roast (a “3” on Caribou’s 1-10 scale), a wise choice for Central American coffees, whose delicate flavors are easily erased by more aggressive dark roasts. Even so, I braced myself to distinguish and describe yet another mild-mannered Central American. Other than the crazy geisha, we haven’t had much to say about most Panamanian coffees, which have the “classic” coffee profile.

Caribou’s Maunier is no exception. In a nutshell, it was actually more boring than many other Centrals; I would describe it as fairly one-dimensional. It wasn’t bad, really, it just didn’t have any spark to speak of and not many sweet chocolately tones one usually finds in these coffees.

Also unlike any Central I can recall, rather than a bright, light body, the Maunier seemed much heavier, nearly syrupy when prepared in a French press. Clearly, this wasn’t a result of a dark roast. We thought perhaps instead we’d been a little careless in preparation, but this was one characteristic that stood out over repeated tastings. Later, I reviewed the various cup profiles on Maunier, which described it as floral, herbal, somewhat spicy or winey, and acidic — and with heavy body. While we got some interesting floral and “bubble gum” aromas from the beans and ground coffee, in the cup the Maunier was rather generic, save for this full-bodied mouthfeel.

It is this rich body that I think will appeal to many ordinary American coffee drinkers, who tend to not appreciate subtlety and seem to like sturdier coffees. There’s nothing offensive about the Maunier. Folks not looking for anything intriguing or unique will find Caribou’s Maunier to be a classic, straightforward coffee with a body that will stand up to cream, sugar, or other additives. We were a little uninspired, and gave it 2.5 motmots.

Birds and other biodiversity / Research on coffee growing

Research: Mammals in coffee plantations in India’s Western Ghats

The mammalian communities in coffee plantations around a protected area in the Western Ghats, India. A. Balia, A. Kumarb, and J. Krishnaswamy. 2007. Biological Conservation 139: 93-102.
This study looked at the number of mammal species found in 15 coffee plantations around the Bhadra Wildlife Sanctuary in the Western Ghats of India, and any correlation between the number of species and distance from the park or vegetation characteristics.

First, a bit of background. Climate conditions in India — monsoon seasons followed by long dry periods — require coffee to be grown under a protective canopy of shade trees, usually under a three-tier system. Although coffee plantations have replaced much of the mid-elevation moist deciduous and evergreen forests in India, coffee has at least traditionally used native forest tree species for shade, such as Ficus glomerata (Doomar, Gular, or Cluster Fig), Dalbergia latifolia (Rosewood), Sapindus laurifolius (Soapnut), and Artocarpus integrifolia (Jackfruit tree).

More recently, non-native species have been used in Indian coffee plantations. In the lowest layer, nitrogen fixing species such as Erythrina lithosperma (Dadap; native to the Philippines and Java) and Gliricidia maculata/sepium (native to Mexico and Central America) are planted. The middle layer, trees that shed their leaves in the monsoon and maintain a dense canopy during the summer, are often native Ficus species. For the canopy layer of hardwood, many coffee farmers are now planting a fast-growing, sparse shade timber species from Australia, Grevillea robusta, often called silver oak although not related to North American oak species.

Twenty-eight species of mammals were recorded in the plantations; this included a number of large carnivores (e.g., tigers and leopards) and herbivores (e.g., elephants and deer). Not surprisingly, more species were found in plantations nearer to the sanctuary. The authors concluded that coffee estates act as a buffer around the park for large mammals, protecting them from the direct effects of more intensive agriculture and higher-density human settlements.

The study did not find any negative correlation with Grevillea abundance, but the fact that the estates with the highest proportion of Grevillea were the closest to the sanctuary may have diluted the effect. The percentage of Grevillea was about 30%; a high percentage of this species is usually avoided, because they drop their leaves during the monsoon, a situation which can cause rot.

Nonetheless, the authors noted that the non-native timber species provide few or no resources for resident wildlife and cautioned that “Such conversions not only lead to the loss of biodiversity values of these plantations, but also severely affect the integrity of the adjoining protected areas.”