Latin America

Plainspoken Coffee. A Coffee Review for Ordinary People by Ordinary People, #49.

The Community Agroecology Network (CAN) seeks to to link farming communities in Latin America to consumers in the United States. Researchers from five universities partner with faculty and organizations in Latin America to forge long-term community-based relationships. Researchers, organizations and farmer members address questions related to sustainable farming systems. Student interns work with farming communities and cooperatives. Often the work revolves around coffee farms themselves — such as mapping farms and surveying shade trees, orchids, or other fauna. Interns may also work on social projects, other aspects of sustainable agriculture in the community, or training members on computers, etc.

Among CAN’s projects is the AgroEco Coffee Initiative, in conjunction with the Union of Farming Cooperatives Augusto Caesar Sandino (UCA San Ramon) in San Ramon, Matagalpa, Nicaragua, an organization of 21 coffee cooperatives and over 1,000 members.  Research projects include tree biodiversity conservation, establishing a local herbarium, and food security issues. Part of CAN’s efforts include trade innovations, and in this case they work with Santa Cruz Coffee Roasting to bring AgroEco Coffee to market.

The coffee is available in both light and dark roasts, and can be purchased one-time, or by recurring subscription. CAN sent a bag of light roast for us to try.

This is a bag of coffee that does not have tasting notes, but instead has a “sustainability facts” label similar to the Nutrition Facts labels found on food products in the U.S.  What a great idea! It gives data on the coffee-growing community and its environmental, social, and economic conditions. You can see the environmental section on the label at right: there are 541 shade trees of 14 species per hectare. For comparison, Smithsonian Bird-Friendly certification requires at least 10 shade species in the production area (beyond that, how much canopy cover/shade is provided by a given density of trees depends on the height, species, and structure of the trees).

The AgroEco light roast was heading toward a medium, with some beans showing oil. I’d say this was closer to a full city roast. The varietal was not mentioned, but UCA San Ramon grows caturra, bourbon, and maragojipe (and some of these beans did look quite large).

Everyone found this coffee to be a well-balanced, not-lively-but-sturdy, good breakfast coffee. Chocolate and subtle cherry came up more than once in people’s descriptions. Brown sugar and fig were also mentioned. It got the most favorable ratings as a drip. In a French press it seemed a little sharp, but mellowed as it cooled. Nicaragua is a favorite origin of mine for dependable, quietly mid-tone, chocolate-based coffees. The AgroEco is a classic example of this cup profile.

For the first time, we are able to incorporate an evaluation of a review coffee as an espresso drink, as we’ve been supplied with a consumer-level espresso machine by Hamilton Beach (for consistency in our reviews, we won’t be incorporating espresso drinks into our ratings, but will provide our thoughts on them for completeness).  A light roast Nica is probably not the greatest choice for an espresso shot, but while the body and crema were a little thin, a nice sweetness was evident and it was quite tasty and enjoyable. However, it didn’t quite hold up to the addition of milk and/or foam in a latte and cappuccino, although the chocolate tones were nice in with the sweetness from the milk. The medium roast of this coffee might be a better choice for espresso drinks.

As of our review, it’s harvest season in Central America; this bag was no doubt from last crop season. I was in the San Ramon area last March at the end of harvest, and many coffee trees were very afflicted with fungal diseases due to the wet weather in the preceding months. This coffee had no flaws, and I can only imagine that with better growing conditions it could really shine. Certainly I expect that a newer sample would be perkier and demonstrate a little more complexity that this sample. It came in at a solid 3.25 motmots, and obviously supports a program that has done an excellent job at establishing a broad program of assistance that benefits farmers, students, and consumers.

Plainspoken Coffee. A Coffee Review for Ordinary People by Ordinary People, #48.

The backstory

I first heard about Bob-o-link Coffee on a local birding listserv. My first thought was, “Why would anyone use a grassland bird species to represent coffee?”  The answer is sort of a practical one: the owners have an Illinois home on Bob-o-link Road. And the area where the producing farms are located, the Mogiana Region of SÁ£o Paulo and Minas Gerais, Brazil, is so far south that few North American migrant birds spend the winter there. Bobolinks (Dolichonyx oryzivorus) do travel there: these small songbirds have one of the longest journeys of any North American songbird — each year they make a 20,000 km round trip! They are strictly grassland and agricultural field birds, and never found in forests*. But given their very steep population declines (in part due to pesticide exposure on rice farms in winter), they do make good ambassadors for the problems facing Neotropical migratory birds.

Tenuous link aside, Bob-o-link Coffee comes from a group of small farmers practicing sustainable production techniques, including reforestation, organic methods, protection of water resources, and careful post-harvest quality control. The effort is spearheaded by Fazenda Ambiental Fortaleza (FAF), an organic (though not USDA certified) coffee farm in the region just outside the town of IgaraÁ­. FAF also produces “natural” coffee. Not so much in the sense of a natural (dry) process coffee, but apparently coffee planted by merely scattering beans under a shade canopy and providing no further intervention: no chemicals, no fertilizer (not even organic compost), no pruning. Honey, vegetables, cheese and other products are also produced on the farm. FAF provides support and instruction on organic and sustainable agriculture to local farmers and volunteers from the organization World Wide Opportunities on Organic Farms.

The other farmers that produce Bob-o-link Coffee are located at 900 to 1300 meters, and grow a number of arabica varieties: yellow and red Bourbon, yellow and red catuai, and Mundo Novo, to name a few more common ones. What’s in a bag of Bob-o-link Coffee might vary by crop year, so check with your roaster. Like many Brazilian coffees, this is typically dry processed. Note that this coffee is sometimes labeled as “bird-friendly,” but it is not certified by Smithsonian Bird-Friendly at this time (and the term “Bird-Friendly” is trademarked by Smithsonian; you must see the Bird-Friendly seal on the coffee to assure that is is certified). Bird-Friendly certified coffees must also by certified organic. Not all of the supplying farms are, which is an impediment for BF-certification.

Review(s)

We have tried this coffee in two crop years from three different roasters. Last year, we purchased it from Klatch Roasting; the Bob-o-link Coffee was a regular offering. Recently, Klatch announced that it is discontinuing its relationship with FAF and will no longer carry Bob-o-link Coffee. We also bought it from Portola Handcrafted Coffee Roasters, which has since morphed into Portola Coffee Lab and no longer has online sales. This year, we were contacted by Peter Asher Coffee and Tea Company in Champaign, IL, who sent us a 12-oz bag to try. Peter Asher has been carrying this coffee for two years, the buyers have made trips to FAF. They are so impressed with the mission of FAF that they also support student visits there through the University of Illinois Office of International Programs.

Of course, as an agricultural product, coffee quality and taste can vary widely from year to year, even from the same farm(s).  Further, every roaster will treat beans differently. It’s hard to tell what contributed to the dramatic contrasts we experienced between crop years and roasters with the Bob-o-link Coffee, but here is what we found.

The Portola version was sold as organic, and we found it sweeter than expected, a little spicy, with a pleasant tobacco-essenced finish. However, it was always the first few sips that were most interesting, then the coffee faded a bit and veered into monochromatic territory. In general, folks were ambivalent about the coffee, so we sought it out again. We were even more disappointed in the Klatch batch. Whether prepared as a drip, Chemex, Aeropress, or French press, it had a persistently tinny taste. Personally, I often tend to find a metallic aspect in many Brazilian coffees, but I wasn’t alone in detecting it this time. Knowing this was a coffee with a strong backstory working toward a sustainable “brand,” we decided to wait another year before publishing a review. Indeed, the current crop year roasted by Peter Asher is barely recognizable as the same coffee.

The Peter Asher Bob-o-link Coffee was a blend of dry and pulped natural processes. From the dry aroma to the last sip, this is a coffee loaded with cocoa and chocolate, not normally what I associate with Brazilian coffees. In addition to chocolate, tasters reported (each of the following qualities more than once) caramel, French vanilla, nuts, and butterscotch. I think you’re getting the idea: this coffee was like a candy bar. The only time we picked up the metallic taste was when it was prepared in a Chemex. Brewed, it was pleasantly sweet and smooth, balanced but subdued, and unremarkable. As a pourover, using a Clever Coffee Dripper with a longer-than-usual extraction time (5 minutes), it was fuller and more interesting. But preparation in a French press was when it had the richest chocolate tones along with a medium-bodied but creamy mouthfeel. Please start with one of these manual brewing methods to get the most out of this coffee.

Since the Peter Asher version is the current crop year and the only one of the three roasters which we tried which has the Bob-o-Link Coffee available, it is the one we rated here. At 3.75 motmots, it is one of the higher-rated coffees we have reviewed in some time. Bob-o-Link Coffee is gaining traction in the U.S. and not too hard to find online.  While it would be interesting to see how it fared from other roasters, we found a winner at Peter Asher, and thank them for reaching out to us so we could give it another try!

*The bird list from the supplying farms does not, in fact, include Bobolinks.

Male Bobolink photo by Janet and Phil under a Creative Commons License.

In recognition of National Pollinator Week, another review of a coffee with a great backstory.

Plainspoken Coffee. A Coffee Review for Ordinary People by Ordinary People, #44.

The Great Northern Roasting Company [now Roaster Jack] out of Traverse City, MI has started an initiative called Birds, Bees & Trees. They will donate 3% of all proceeds from Birds, Bees & Trees-designated coffee to the Pollinator Partnership, a non-profit organization geared toward the preservation of bees and all other pollinators.

About the Pollinator Partnership
P2, as they call themselves, is one of the best sources for information on pollinators and pollination, including many resource links and excellent planting guides for North America. They also manage a number of projects, such as the North American Pollinator Protection Campaign (NAPPC) a collaborative group of over 120 organizations and individuals that promote and implement a continent-wide Action Plan to encourage activities to protect the numbers and health of all pollinating animals.

GNRC joins a number of other companies (Burt’s Bees, Häagen-Dazs) as a supporting partner of P2. Since arabica coffee is self-pollinating and P2 appears to be exclusive to North America, at first blush this might seem like an odd partnership. However, a number of studies have shown the importance of shade coffee to pollinators in general, and the benefits of cross-pollination to coffee fruit set. The NAPPC does include Mexico and a number of Mexican organizations are partners.

About the coffee
GNRC has chosen their Terruño Nayarit Sun-Dried Organic as their primary Birds, Bees & Trees coffee. (This is currently available online from their site, and the BB&T-badged version, which will generate the donations, is coming soon; I’ll post a link as soon as it is.)

This coffee comes from cooperatives in the west-central Mexican state of Nayarit, mostly around the extinct Cerro San Juan volcano west of the capital Tepic. This is one of the northernmost locations in Latin America where coffee is grown. Most is grown at over 1100 meters, and is of the bourbon, typica, and caturra varieties.

Care to know more? Every bag of coffee has a coded label. You can go online to Track Your Coffee, enter the code, and trace your beans to their source. Our bags, for instance, were comprised mostly of beans from the community of El Malinal (86%) along with 14% from Xalisco, processed at the IPCONAY mill. There’s even a link to a map. No secrets here — and you know how much I like transparency and making it easy for consumers to know more about their coffee.

Terruño Nayarit coffee is available exclusively via San Cristobal Coffee Importers, which has done a tremendous amount of work helping small holders in this area of Mexico. I had the pleasure of seeing founder Jim Kosalos speak at the recent SCAA conference on his work, and found him and it remarkable. You can learn more: in this article: Mexico’s Nayarit Coffee Producers’ Quest To Quality Continues — Tea & Coffee Trade Journal, Aug 2003.

We tried both a light and a dark roast, supplied by GNRC’s owner Jack Davis. The aroma of both — redolent of blueberries — gave it away as a natural (dry) processed coffee. The light roast also hinted at dried summer grass; a hint of oregano was detected by one taster. The flavor was much more gentle than the dry smell would suggest. It was smooth, and prepared as a drip and in a French press the fruit flavor developed as the cup cooled, but it never was as aggressively berry-forward as natural process Ethiopians can be, for example. We like it best made in a Chemex. It really shined: clean, with a little more piquant acidity (“lemon rind at the edge of conjecture” one taster rather poetically intoned). The light roast scored consistently at 3.5 motmots. The dark roast was a tad too dark for many in the tasting panel — dark roast aficionados rated it highly at 3.75, while light roast lovers pegged it a full motmot lower. Everyone should be able to pick a favorite.

Great Northern Roasting’s Birds, Bee & Trees will be an ongoing campaign, with other or more offerings in the future. While they gear up, please honor the many pollinators — birds, bees, bats, flies, mammals, and more — by learning more about why they are important, how to garden for pollinators, and what to plant in your area. Biodiversity preservation starts at home.

Plainspoken Coffee. A Coffee Review for Ordinary People by Ordinary People, #43.

Coffee reviews have been a little sparse lately. The focus of reviews here is evolving, with an emphasis on educating about corporate coffee, and on sustainable coffees with great backstories or associated projects. This coffee is one of the latter.

Café Choco Andes is about more than just coffee. This project includes multiple international partners working not only to improve coffee quality and move toward organic production methods, but also has reforestation, biodiversity, ecotourism, and educational components. It is part of the larger Choco-Andean corridor project, which seeks to create a network of protected areas, both natural and restored and managed, from northwestern Ecuador to the Pacific coastal mangroves.

Location and background
The Café Choco Andes project takes place in northwest Ecuador. This is an area of very high biodiversity, and the Maquipucuna-Rio Guayllabamba Important Bird Area (IBA) is located here. Over 350 bird species have been recorded in this IBA, including the near-threatened Toucan Barbet (top) and the vulnerable Giant Antpitta (middle). The bulk of the IBA consists of the Maquipucuna Reserve, founded in 1989 by the non-profit Maquipucuna Foundation. The reserve is 6000 ha and located about 50 miles northwest of Quito. It is surrounded by another 14000 ha of protected forest, much of which is undisturbed cloud forest. Altitudes range from 1000 to 2800 meters, thus encompassing coffee-growing zones. It includes an ecolodge and scientific station.

In the late 1990s, the University of Georgia’s School of Ecology and the Maquipucuna Foundation began a project to preserve the area’s biodiversity while improving the livelihoods of residents. Goals included reforestation and creation of forest corridors to improve habitat, especially for migratory birds, and working with coffee farmers to re-establish shade trees and convert to organic production. Over 50,000 coffee trees have been planted since 2000, and over two dozen farms have received organic certification. Other sustainable cottage industries help diversify local income and prevent habitat destruction: beekeeping, paper making, hand-crafted jewelry, jam production, and shade-grown cacao. The project now includes over 160 coffee farmers and 400-plus cacao growers.

The importance of the shade coffee is reflected in research that takes place on these Maquipucuna Foundation-owned lands. A recently published paper [1] by University of Georgia and Foundation researchers looked at the response of resident forest birds to disturbance and canopy cover in this area. It found that 18 species of specialized forest birds sharply declined in areas with less than 21 to 40% canopy cover. The authors noted that this threshold level is the same as the 40% minimum canopy cover recommended for Bird-Friendly and Rainforest Alliance certified coffee.

Around five years ago, additional partners, including the State Botanical Garden of Georgia, the Georgia Museum of Natural History, and the Georgia Environmental Education Alliance established Our Shared Forests (Nuestros Bosques Compartidos in Ecuador). This bi-national education program for schoolkids focuses on awareness of migratory bird species that the two countries share, such as Summer Tanager, Blackburnian Warbler (right), and Red-eyed Vireo.

The coffee
The Macquipucuna Foundation’s coffee is roasted by 1000 Faces Coffee, located in Athens, GA. This particular microlot comes from one of the farms owned by the Foundation that is part of the Café Choco Andes project; Finca Orongo in Pichincha province, near the community of Palmitopamba. At one time, it was completely deforested. It consists of typica and caturra, and is grown at 1400 to 1700 meters.

This coffee is not certified organic or shade-grown, although it is grown under these conditions. Coffee & Conservation readers know that I have mixed feelings about certification, in particular because I don’t believe requiring small producers who grow coffee in perfectly environmentally-sustainable ways should have to pay for it. Many are unable to cover the costs (especially if we as consumers are unwilling to make it worthwhile) or even have the skills and time to manage the paperwork.

The last time we reviewed an Ecuadorian coffee, we weren’t especially impressed. That was a Caribou selection, and it was from Loja. Although it wasn’t a dark roast, it was a tad darker than we tend to like. 1000 Faces roasted this coffee lighter. The roast level indicates medium, but it was on the lighter side. This lighter touch served the coffee well.

This was a solid, middle-of-the-road coffee that reminded us of a good Colombian or Central American coffee. The sweetness was subtle; 1000 Faces describes it as raw honey which seemed apt to me. There was an interesting smoky accent which appealed to some panelists, while others perceived it as ashy. It had a quick and pleasant finish that I associate with a solid, reliable breakfast cup. Nothing else stood out to tasters, but I will say that it was a coffee that seemed to taste better a little further past roast day (at around ten days) than really freshly roasted. It mellowed and had a more rounded and balanced personality, losing some of the ashy notes that we detected at our first tastings. It was much better than the Caribou Ecuadorian selection; we gave it 2.75 motmots.

Read more:

• Set aside 20 minutes, and look at the short film Slow Coffee, which is all about this coffee and the partnership between the Macquipucuna Foundation and 1000 Faces.
• Eco-Exchange, Rainforest Alliance: Kids and Conservationists Unite in Ecuador and Georgi to Benefit Cultures, Farmers, Forests and Birds.
• National Geographic Geotourism Challenge 2009: Macquipucuna application with many details on Foundation partners and initiatives, includes a video.

[1] Mordecai, R. S., R. J. Cooper, and R. Justicia. 2009. A threshold response to habitat disturbance by forest birds in the Choco Andean corridor, northwest Ecuador. Biodiversity and Conservation 18:2421-2431.

Toucan Barbet photo by Michael Woodruff via Wikimedia Commons; Giant Antpitta photo by Andy Jones, Cleveland Museum of Natural History; Blackburian Warbler by Petroglyph, all under Creative Commons licenses.