- One of the best parts of the Guardian’s article “A better future is percolating for Vietnam’s coffee” is the reasonably thoughtful discussion in the comments.
- If I understand this correctly, Nespresso has created a coffee from over-ripe cherries.
- Wal-Mart is planning to introduce the Esio Beverage System as a less-expensive alternative to Keurig K-Cup and Vue brewers in the race to the bottom of the single-serve market.
- Cars, electronics, and … coffee? Mitsubishi has purchased a 20 percent stake in Ipanema Coffees, one of Brazil’s largest coffee producing farms.
- Meanwhile in China, Starbucks is working on cultivating employees and developing career opportunities.
Month: April 2012
The Rainforest Alliance Cupping for Quality award is designed to recognize coffees carrying the Rainforest Alliance seal and to highlight the linkage between sustainable farm management practices and cup quality. There are now two annual cuppings and awards, divided by geography. In December, coffees from the southern hemisphere compete. The April cupping covers countries in Latin America, as well as Ethiopia and India. The following results were announced this morning at the annual Rainforest Alliance Sustainable Coffee Breakfast at the Specialty Coffee Association of America’s annual event in Portland, Oregon.
This year, the April cupping evaluated 90 coffee samples (highest yet!) from 9 origins. Here are the top ten:
- Idido (Yirgacheffe) Ethiopia — 86.13
- Wottona Buituma (Sidama), Ethiopia — 84.88. This co-op is one of the Sidama Coffee Farmers Cooperative Union. Also certified organic.
- Grupo Supia Zona La Quiebra, Colombia — 84.85
- Gidibona Sheicha, Ethiopia — 84.83. Another member of the Sidama Coffee Farmers Cooperative Union. Also certified organic.
- Green Coffee Agro Industry, Ethiopia — 84.75
- Grupo Aguadas Zona Viboral, Colombia — 84.70
- Manantiales del Frontino, Colombia — 84.48. Part of the Colombian Mountain Coffee group, with 138 ha in the Valle de Cauca that includes a number of varietals, including Geisha/Gesha.
- El Injerto, Guatemala — 84.45
- Adame Gorbota, Ethiopia — 84.18
- Las Mercedes, El Salvador — 84.13
That’s a pretty tight pack, with an average score of 84.74. Weird weather made it kind of a tough year in Central America, which may account for the fact that the winning score and the top ten average were both lower than the previous five-year averages (88.28 and 85.20). The winning scores for each country except the Dominican Republic (see the rest below) were also below average.
The top scorers from the other countries represented were:
- Nicaragua — La Laguna, 83.65
- Mexico — Grupo de Productores AAA, 83.35
- Costa Rica — Finca Santa Anita, 83.93
- Honduras — Platanares, 82.60
- Dominican Republic — Spirit Mountain Ecological Reserve & Organic Coffee Plantation, 82.05
Previous results are available here in the archives in the Coffee Awards and Competitions category.
Landscape context and scale differentially impact coffee leaf rust, coffee berry borer, and coffee root-knot nematodes. Avelino, Romero-Gurdian, Cruz-Cuellar, and DeClerk. 2012. Ecological Applications.
In ecology, context is important. Ecosystems are comprised of many interdependent organisms, and those interactions are influenced by the environment at different scales. In the case of coffee pests, that can mean the conditions on an individual coffee plant, in a particular patch of coffee, or on one or many neighboring farms. This study looked at how the surrounding landscape — up to 1500 m around coffee plots — impacted the incidence of several coffee pests.
The authors looked at 29 small plots of coffee within larger plantings in Costa Rica. They wanted to see how different land use practices at different scales might influence coffee leaf rust (Hemileia vastatrix), the coffee berry borer (Hypothenemus hampei), and root-knot nematodes (in the genus Meloidogyne).
Populations of the virtually immobile root-knot nematodes did not appear to be correlated with landscape. Not surprisingly, coffee plots embedded in a landscape with a high proportion of other coffee plots facilitated the movement and spread of coffee berry borers.
I found the response of coffee leaf rust to be the most interesting: there were increased epidemics of coffee leaf rust in areas where coffee plots were in a landscape that had open uses such as pasture. The rust spores are spread by wind. The air turbulence produced by gaps of pasture among plots of coffee promoted the release of the rust spores which then dispersed in the landscape. When the wind turbulence released clusters of spores, they did not travel as far and resulted in locally intense outbreaks of rust.
The landscape-scale effects on the rust and borer varied depending on the distance of the plots from the various landscape features, and also fluctuated during the season, so the effects of landscape are not simple; these are outlined in the paper. However, the results suggest that growing coffee in plots that are separated from others by native forest could hinder the spread of both the borer and the rust, as well as act as reserves and corridors for other biodiversity.
Avelino, J., Romero-GurdiÁ¡n, A., Cruz-Cuellar, H., & Declerck, F. (2012). Landscape context and scale differentially impact coffee leaf rust, coffee berry borer, and coffee root-knot nematodes Ecological Applications, 22 (2), 584-596 DOI: 10.1890/11-0869.1
When you think of endangered species, I’ll bet you don’t think about Matschie’s Tree Kangaroos. Tree kangaroos and coffee also make an unlikely pairing. But I’m here to tell you that Seattle-based Caffe Vita has brought them together. We’ll start with the ‘roo.
A kangaroo…
Matschie’s Tree Kangaroo (Dendrolagus matschiei) is one of about 10 species of tree kangaroo, most of which are found in Papua New Guinea. The Matschie’s Tree Kangaroo is only found on PNG’s Huon Peninsula, located in Morobe Province in the northeastern part of the island. Matschie’s Tree Kangaroos live in cloud forests, and look nothing like the upright, savannah-bounding Australian animals with which they share a name. These arboreal animals more resemble red pandas, although like more conventional kangaroos they do raise young in pouches and have impressive leaping abilities. They weigh about 10 kg and eat mostly leaves.
A conservation area…
In 1996, Seattle’s Woodland Park Zoo started a tree kangaroo conservation program focusing on the Matschie’s Tree Kangaroo. From the start, they took a community-based approach to the preservation of the tree kangaroo habitat. A major accomplishment was the establishment of the 76,000 ha YUS Conservation Area — named for the three primary rivers in the Huon Peninsula: the Yopno, Uruwa and Som. In addition to Matschie’s Tree Kangaroos, this area, of course, preserves many other species including several incredible endemic birds-of-paradise: the Huon Astrapia (Astrapia rothschildi), Wahnes’s Parotia (Parotia wahnesi), and the Emperor Bird-of-paradise (Paradisaea guilielmi) — some of the most truly spectacular birds in the entire world.
In an arrangement similar to that of biosphere reserves, the conservation area has a core protected area and buffer zones that allow for mixed, environmentally-friendly uses. One of these sustainable management strategies for local communities (there are nearly three dozen villages in the area) was coffee growing. Only about 6% of PNG’s coffee comes from Morobe Province. The YUS area is remote and very rugged, with no road access, and getting coffee to market is an enormous challenge. And it’s not like these farmers are in a place where the some equivalent of a local county extension agent can drop by and give some agricultural assistance. Thus, in 2010, the Zoo’s conservation program worked to provide technical training for over 300 YUS coffee farmers.
A coffee roaster…
Zoo program personnel knew a direct relationship with a stateside roaster would be a strong step in the right direction, so they approached Caffe Vita, a roaster with six locations in the Seattle area. In early 2011, Caffe Vita introduced a Zoo Special Reserve coffee to support the Woodland Park Zoo. Although currently sourced from Guatemala, it is organic and Rainforest Alliance certified, and $1 a bag goes to Zoo conservation efforts.
Green coffee samples from YUS farmers were brought to Caffe Vita to roast and evaluate. Green coffee buyer Daniel Shewmaker could tell there was potential. In the summer of 2011, encouraged by improvements to new samples he tasted, Shewmaker visited YUS. Abandoned coffee plots have been renewed and tended. He worked with farmers on improving drying methods and separating lots by elevation. He agreed to buy 22 bags. The coffee arrived in the U.S. in December, 2011, and in February, the coffee was made available to the public.
And the coffee
The YUS farmers are growing bourbon, typica, Mundo Novo, and Arusha varietals at 1200 to 1500 m. While not certified organic, no chemicals are used; as you might imagine, if coffee is so difficult to get out of the area, any synthetic or commercially-produced inputs are just as hard to get in. The photo taken during a Caffe Vita visit shows the shade trees over the coffee shrubs.
Caffe Vita describes this coffee as “mellow and honey-like, with flavors of toasted hazelnut, orange zest, guava, and sugarcane.” We found the coffee to start out with a very slightly wild flavor, reminiscent of a Sumatran; one person described it as a spicy note. Brown sugar and caramel was mentioned several times from our panel, and nutty also came up more than once. One taster remarked upon enjoying a savory undertone as the coffee cooled. Nearly unanimous was the opinion that the YUS was very clean and smooth. The panel gave it an average of 3.5 motmots, with many giving it 3.75.
PNG is one of my favorite origins, in part because I never know exactly what to expect. Those of us that drink PNG coffees fairly regularly were very impressed with this coffee, especially given its history. We didn’t find it extremely unique or mind-blowing, but it absolutely was as good as any other specialty PNG we had tasted in the past, and better than a hell of a lot of them. These farmers, in the short time they have had to work with Caffe Vita on upgrading and improving their growing and processing methods, came up with a perfectly clean coffee. We detected no baggy notes, a concern Shewmaker had given elevated moisture levels in earlier samples. A coffee this good so early in the game has no place to go but up, and I’m really looking forward to future crops. It’s available at Caffe Vita locations and online.
This coffee and conservation story is remarkable in many ways. In my line of work I see plenty of preservation efforts and cross-disciplinary partnerships. Many aren’t very long-lived or successful, and few are as encouraging, inclusive, and transparent as the work undertaken by the Woodland Park Zoo. Please take a look at the conservation program’s web site; in particular I encourage you to download some of their excellent, informative annual reports. Caffe Vita’s commitment to helping these efforts in so many meaningful ways is a model for what other coffee roasters can achieve by taking sustainability to heart. The only thing missing is you.
More info:
- Short video about the coffee and project from the Woodland Park Zoo – 2.5 minutes and very cool.
- Journey to a Papuan Paradise – great article from National Wildlife magazine about the Huon Peninsula, the tree kangaroo projects, and stunning photos of birds-of-paradise.
- Capacity Building, Coffee, & Conservation Through the Woodland Park Zoo – National Geographic News Watch.
Matschie’s Tree Kangaroo photo by Tim Laman and map from the Woodland Park Zoo Tree Kangaroo Conservation Program media kit. Shade coffee photo by Caffe Vita on Flickr under a Creative Commons license.