November 2007

Coffee news and miscellany

"Fortified" coffee: flim-flam alert

Spava Coffee [which went out of business after this post was published] is organic coffee “fortified” with natural ingredients to “enhance wellness.”  There are currently five varieties, such as “Calm” and “Clarity.” It’s amazing to me the number of news sites and blogs (with the exception of TheShot) that have reported on this, regurgitating press releases and not critically assessing this product. Let’s take a look.

The supplemental ingredients are added to coffee by first being powdered and added to directly to ground coffee, or dissolved in water or propylene glycol and then sprayed on whole beans, according to the patent application.

The nutrition information on the packages indicates that the quantity of the supplements in the coffee are very small, a practice known as “angel dusting.” The labels specify these amounts are as packaged. In other words, before the coffee is prepared. Even if you received the full 20 mg of ginkgo per serving in the “Clarity” coffee, for example, this is far below the dose of greater than 120 mg (used daily for extended periods) that two studies suggested may be effective (although not for mental clarity in healthy adults).

“Fortifying” coffee in this way also assumes that the ingredients are delivered in the form that preserves the potency and properties of the biologically-active compounds (which may not be ground-up powder), that chemical properties of the ingredients remain stable through the coffee brewing process, and that these compounds are not altered by the potent chemical properties of coffee and caffeine itself.

Finally, you have to believe that these supplements actually “enhance wellness.” The health benefits of most of them have little peer-reviewed science behind them. Vitamin B6 has not been proven to help depression as suggested by Spava for their “Calm” coffee, and the 150 micrograms per serving is 9 times less than the 1.3 milligrams or more recommended dietary allowance. Echinacea, an ingredient in the “Immunity” coffee, is unproven in helping bolster the immune system. The other ingredient, Siberian ginseng, is derived from the plant Eleutherococcus senticosus, which is a cheap alternative to Panax ginsengs. It contains none of the active compounds in Panax species that have been scientifically studied.

And so on. Spava Coffee is a feel-good product not from a literal perspective, but a psychological perspective.

Perhaps this is a benign, clever marketing tool, although Spava’s parent company Voyava Republic has received criticism for its plan to improve the nutrition of Mexican children by giving them fortified coffee. The company and the local coffee co-operative, La Selva, believe they can deliver adequate doses of folic acid and iron via coffee, which they say the kids drink anyway. As discussed above, this is dubious to me. If the company wants to help, why not just do the obvious and provide standardized, accepted nutritional supplements? Presumably because under the current deal, Voyava profited by selling La Selva its technology and equipment, and La Selva got a deal where 10% of Voyava’s fortified coffee must be from Chiapas. I also have to wonder if Mexican children typically suffer from folic acid deficiency, given that some of the best sources of folic acid are common foods in tropical regions:  beans, eggs, and citrus fruits in particular.

Update: In a recent announcement, Spava revealed the amount of folic acid in their coffee will be 80 micrograms. This is a third of the RDA, and 20 micrograms less than the amount used in fortified flour. Even the amount in flour has been criticized as being far too little to help prevent birth defects, the reason for flour supplementation. Read more in this New York Times piece.

Overall, the concept of fortified coffee just leaves a bad taste in my mouth.

Certifications / Coffee regions / Organic coffee

Kenya producing more organic coffee

A recent article notes that more producers in central Kenya are turning to organic coffee in order to take advantage of price premiums. This is welcome news, as over the last 15 years or so, Kenya has been one of the heaviest users of pesticides on its export crops, with around 60% of its pesticide use on coffee (primarily the large estates). The FAO reports that in 2001 (last year full data is available) Kenya used 303 metric tons of insecticides on its crops (215 of which were nasty organophosphates) versus 153 in Ethiopia and 69 in Rwanda.

Inadequate training, sanitation, and protective gear meant workers and the environment suffered from contamination. Less than 1% of Kenya’s total agricultural area is now organic, but organic agriculture stakeholders have formed the Kenya Agriculture Organic Network to support the successful growth of the sector.

Coffee-related products / Retail and specialty roasters / Starbucks

Book review: Starbucked

I’ve just finished Starbucked: A Double Tall Tale of Caffeine, Commerce, and Culture by Taylor Clark, just released by Little Brown. It’s an entertaining, well-written and researched “biography” of the genesis and rise of Starbucks, and the concurrent/coincident specialty coffee scene in the U.S. Anyone interested in Starbucks (love, hate, or neutral) or the genius of retail marketing will really get into this book. Those intrigued with American culture will also find ponderable material here, and it will be valuable for readers who want to understand the post-1970s history of coffee in the U.S. (for the most thorough overall history of coffee, you can do no better than Mark Pendergrast’s Uncommon Grounds).

Clark leaves few stones unturned, especially when discussing the evolution of the Starbucks marketing strategy. The one thing that was barely discussed was sustainability. The closest is an entire chapter on Fair Trade which correctly points out that low-quality robusta coffee is the enemy of struggling coffee farmers, whose

“…fortunes rise and fall on the world’s demand for good coffee beans, and no one has done more to generate an insatiable global thirst for high-quality coffee than Starbucks.”

We can quibble about the quality of Starbucks beans, but the distinction here is between the quality of the big grocery store brands versus Starbucks. While exploding the myth that Starbucks harms independent coffee houses, Clark makes a point I have made here several times: that Starbucks has drawn out people who never strayed from Folgers, and these converts go on to explore other coffee venues.  And with any sort of luck, these converts don’t turn back to grocery store brands. Clark also echoes one of my mantras:

Helping lift farmers from poverty, then, isn’t so much a matter of hectoring companies like Starbucks (even if the company isn’t the human rights champion it claims to be) as it is of making sure people never drink the cheap and exploitive coffee offered by conglomerates like the Big Four.

Not only lifting farmers from poverty, but also preserving biodiversity.

Starbucked will help readers understand why we owe Starbucks quite a bit of credit for transforming coffee culture and triggering a chain of events that is helping consumers realize their own transformative power via the choices they make for their daily cup.

Coffee reviews / Latin America

Coffee Review: Brazil’s Daterra Estates

Plainspoken Coffee. A Coffee Review for Ordinary People by Ordinary People, #30.

Daterra Estate — Brazil. Sampled from three roasters: Rowster Coffee, Terroir Coffee Company, and Sweetwater Organic Coffees.

In a previous post, I discussed coffee growing in the cerrado region of Brazil. This area is a biodiversity hotspot, and is being rapidly converted to large-scale agriculture. While coffee growing is a small portion, land converted to coffee in the cerrado is nearly devoid of native biodiversity. This is because the cerrado is primarily savannah. Unlike coffee growing in forested ecosystems, where coffee farms can approximate natural habitats, a coffee farm cannot mimic a grassland. One of the most unique and important aspects of the cerrado’s biodiversity is its high level of endemic plants. These are essentially eliminated when any kind of agriculture takes over. Biodiversity preservation on farms in the cerrado depends on the existence and quality of protected set-asides.

While Brazil produces a large volume of low-quality coffee, the cerrado region is one of the areas that is important to the country’s emerging specialty coffee sector. For this review, we’ll look at Daterra Estate, a company known for its sustainability practices.

About Daterra
Daterra, established in 1974, is not a single farm but five large areas divided into 88 smaller areas, and covers over 6000 ha, of which 2500 are protected (much under Brazilian law). There are further subdivisions that each grow a specific variety of coffee. Some names you may hear associated with Daterra are Boa Vista, Sao Joao, Tabuoes, Santo (or San) Antonio, Santo Buriti, and Santo Ignacio. A number of the units are near Patrocinio in Minas Gerais. The average altitude is 1150 meters. The original crop was avocados, and land was also used for cattle ranching. Coffee was introduced in the mid-1980s.

Much of Daterra’s distinction and acclaim come from the precision in which the farms are managed, intense research into new varieties, use state-of-the-art technology, innovative packaging, traceability of every lot, and so forth. This is very interesting stuff (you can read a great overview at Sweet Marias), but we’ll concentrate on Daterra’s biodiversity and sustainability measures.

Daterra was Rainforest Alliance’s (RA) first certified farm (RA says it certifies just over 3000 ha, in both coffee and avocados). Several Daterra units are also Utz Certified (2754 ha certified). Daterra also has ISO 14001 certification (standards that help organizations minimize environmental impact).

The RA profile notes:

Daterra is located in an area where the natural vegetation is grass, shrubs and low trees. Because the ecosystem does not lend itself to shade coffee, the beans here are grown in sun and planted in tight rows. …certification should promote conservation of the natural ecosystem called cerrado.

Recall from the previous post that 35% of cerrado property must be set aside for wildlife. Specifically, 20% on the property itself, and up to 15% within the same watershed. Because there are multiple units, it’s hard to pin down how many hectares Daterra covers. There are somewhere between 2800 to 3300 ha of coffee and about 3000 to 4000 ha of protected area. Daterra’s web site gives the figure of natural preservation areas as 50%. No source mentions whether this area is contiguous or fragmented. As also noted in the previous post, any type of unused land might be counted in this set-aside.

The RA profile on Daterra states that biologists have found rare macaws (presumably Hyacinth Macaws) and owls, jaguar tracks, and a giant anteater in the Daterra protected areas. These animals indicate there is some forest habitat there. Daterra was kind enough to send me a short list of more typical grassland species found on their protected areas. In addition to a half dozen common trees and shrubs, the list included four animals: the anteater, Pampas deer, Greater Rhea, and the Red-legged Seriema (photo). If these species are represented by healthy, self-sustaining populations it indicates that there are some large, contiguous patches of classic cerrado habitat being preserved.

Further information from Daterra focused on one of the large units, Fazenda Boa Vista in Patrocinio. Purchased in 1987, it is nearly 6900 ha, with over 2800 ha of natural habitat (41%). This property was largely degraded when purchased, and Daterra has restored the rivers, streams, waterfalls, and savannah, and wildlife has returned.

Other sustainability efforts at Daterra include:

  • Water. About 20% of the coffee is irrigated, as is the case in much of this region. Most or all of the water used to wash and process the coffee is recycled and used for irrigation.
  • Areas are reforested using native tree species which are grown on the farms.
  • Recyling. The company minimizes use of consumable products and recycles paper and other similar items. Coffee parchment is compacted into “logs” which are burned in place of firewood.
  • Weed control. The by-products of coffee processing along with other organic matter is composted and returned to the soil as fertilizer and mulch. Herbicides are only used when weeds get too unruly.
  • Daterra supports the use of the farm for environmental restoration and education in
    collaboration with a local college.

Reviews
A wide variety of coffees from Daterra are available as single origins and used in regular and espresso blends. We tried two different types from three roasters.

Terroir Coffee Company. Special reserve. Organic, Rainforest Alliance certified. Light, “full flavored” roast. Catuai and Mundo Novo varieties. Pulped natural process (skin removed, then bean with most of its mucilage dried on a patio, raised bed, and/or with mechanical dryers).

Terroir describes this coffee as clean, smooth, low-acid, and full flavored. “This cup has a California merlot character emphasizing mellow bass notes. It begins with fleeting floral notes of roses while very hot gradually revealing nutty flavors of walnut and pecan with a trace of
cocoa as the cup cools.”

We found it medium-bodied, and agreed it was smooth and uniform. Two people found it a bit too smooth and called it “boring.” Tasters variously detected hints of hazelnut, cinnamon, and butterscotch. Overall, it was good but lacked distinction, rather solidly like a classic Central American, but without the brightness. The final tally was 2.5 motmots.

Rowster Coffee. Sweet yellow bourbon. Rainforest Alliance certified. Full city roast. Pulped Natural. Rowster describes this as a “Round, noble, sensible cup, with touches of light chocolate, vanilla, carmel sweetness, some orange and cinnamon.”

We found this coffee to be just on the light side of medium-bodied, with a nice, smooth mouthfeel. It had a different sort of sweetness than the Terroir Special Reserve, with a faint hint of black licorice and perhaps chocolate, but it was fleeting. Beyond that, it was slightly generic, once again a very classic feel. 3.25

Sweetwater Organic Coffees. Organic Special Reserve. Rainforest Alliance certified. Same bean as Terroir selection, pulped natural, and also a very light roast.

Sweetwater roaster Chris Neumann once worked with Terroir founder George Howell, and uses similar light roasts. Considering this was also the same bean, we thought these might be very much the same. However, the Sweetwater tasted much better than the Terroir. There was still the same medium-bodied smoothness and slight nuttiness, but this selection had a slightly longer finish and seemed more balanced and refined. It was much sweeter, with several tasters all converging on some combination of subtle flavors that reminded them of rum cake, as well as cocoa notes. One taster thought it was a perfect fall coffee, although once again, one person was not impressed.  It ended up with 3.5 motmots.

Bottom line: These were all nice coffees. Looks like Daterra has worked hard to merit their reputation as environmentally-friendly coffee source, in addition to their dedication to many other unique innovations. If you wish to try cerrado coffees, chose them carefully. Hold them to at least Daterra’s sustainability standards. Personally, I still have reservations about buying coffee from any farm in such an ecologically-sensitive area, no matter how good it is. I’ll continue to look at coffee growing in this region, perhaps even visting my friend in the area, and pass on more information as it comes available.


Coffee awards and competitions / Retail and specialty roasters

Roast Magazine’s 2007 Roasters of the Year

The November/December issue of Roast Magazine includes their picks for roaster of the year. (You can check out my posts on previous winners here and here.)

In the micro-roaster category (annual output less than 100,000 pounds) is Higher Ground Roasters.

Last May, C&C reviewed three of their selections and I discussed how impressed I was with their wide-ranging and thoughtful sustainability efforts. Roast was also impressed, especially taking into account the considerable challenges faced by Higher Ground on their home turf in Alabama, where specialty coffee is still a bit of a novelty.

The Roast article notes that because the company doesn’t have a retail location,

“Perhaps the biggest challenge Higher Ground faces is getting the coffee into people’s hands for the first time.”

Let me give them a hand and tell you that this is a great small company that deserves this honor, and you should certainly give them a try.

 

Roast awarded their macro-roaster award to Zoka Coffee Roaster and Tea Co. We have not reviewed any of Zoka’s coffees yet here at C&C, although I have tried a couple of them. Whereas all Higher Ground coffee is certified organic and Fair Trade, and shade-grown, Zoka does not restrict itself to certified coffees. But Zoka does carry a number of certified organic coffees (7 right now), strives for full traceability, and the Roast article goes on to say,

“…the buyers do make a conscious effort to visit farms and verify firsthand that the producers: 1) maintain a diverse and multi-level shade canopy (when appropriate) on their farms; 2) use natural, worm-generated compost made from cherry pulp at a micro-mill; 3) when necessary, use only parabolic dryers fueled by renewable sources rather than timber from surrounding forests; and 4) safely neutralize all the wastewater from wet mills.”

Congratulations to both of these worthy roasters!