Coffee reviews

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

Coffee review: Starbucks Organic Shade Grown Mexico

Plainspoken Coffee. A Coffee Review for Ordinary People by Ordinary People, #41.

Starbucks Organic Shade Grown Mexicois produced by around 900 small farmers on 3200 ha of land in the southern Mexican state of Chiapas [1]. Many of the farms are near or adjacent to the El Triunfo Biosphere Reserve, which contains the northernmost cloud forests in the world and is considered as one of the greatest biodiversity sites of North America. El Triunfo totals 119,000 ha, of which 93,458 ha corresponds to a buffer zone and the rest to the core areas. Core areas are primary forest owned by the government. The buffer zone consists of privately owned lands, about 60% of which are forested. The remainder is agricultural, with shade coffee being the dominant crop; up to 70% is rustic shade.

Originally this coffee was to be a temporary offering, but proved so popular that it is on the permanent Starbucks menu.

Background

This coffee-sourcing is part of a partnership with Conservation International (CI) which began in 1998. Originally, this was to be a three-year program with CI providing technical assistance to producers encouraging them to continue eco-friendly growing practices, and Starbucks as a dependable buyer. This partnership has continued with some new wrinkles, including the development of Starbucks C.A.F.E. practices.

This project has not been without controversy. One main gripe has been that the contracts with Starbucks paid above-market prices, but the beans went through the large exporter and processor Agroindustrias de Mexico (AMSA), which took a cut of the price. This doesn’t seem like an unusual arrangement and perhaps the only practical one with between a large buyer and dozens of cooperatives. At some point Starbucks did try to deal directly with producers, but the cooperatives were unable to arrange shipment.

Some of the co-ops withdrew from participation. Various reasons have been given. According to CI’s report to USAID [1], when the world price of coffee rose above the price already agreed to in the contracts, producers reneged and sold to other buyers (a not too-uncommon occurrence). Some felt that, after a long struggle for autonomy, that they were once again beholden to middlemen [2]. CI apparently negotiated many of the initial contracts, and some producers later regretted signing when they found out Starbucks was the end buyer (was that not in the contracts?). There were also objections to quality demands being imposed on them.

Nonetheless, the arrangement with Starbucks did and has increased income for many of the farmers. One co-op mentioned as a participant in a New York Times article was identified by a Fair Trade advocate as being organizationally weak, not well suited to judging the quality of their own beans, and unable to seek out other buyers. If that’s the case, this co-op may not be qualified for Fair Trade certification, and therefore Starbucks might be the best option for them, at least at this time.

While there is a lack of publicly available objective information on the outcomes of the Chiapas coffee project, from what I have read it has had an overall positive net impact. Encouraging and promoting organic and shade-grown coffee is a major goal of El Triunfo conservation efforts. At least for some period of time, cooperatives that withdrew from the CI/Starbucks program had a hard time finding buyers, especially those that would pay high prices and invest in their communities. If Starbucks is purchasing an average of 1.7 million pounds of coffee from this area every year, this is likely a good thing, especially if these producers do not have other options for selling their beans.

Finally, we need to bear in mind that this is a certified organic coffee, but it does not have shade certification by Smithsonian or Rainforest Alliance. As mentioned above, however, the coffee grown in this area, especially in the El Triunfo buffer zone, is traditionally grown in the shade, often diverse shade.

Let’s move on to the coffee
Starbucks Organic Shade Grown Mexico is billed as a medium roast. For a company known to over-do the roasting, I was surprised to see that “medium” was actually “medium.” I think good Mexican coffees are delicate and sweet and should be roasted light, but I suppose medium was a good compromise to cater to the tastes of Starbucks customers. I was also surprised to see that in a French press, this coffee was fresh enough to have a decent bloom.

This coffee was what we expected from a Mexican coffee: pleasant, approachable, smooth, and well-balanced. It was fairly sweet with hints of chocolate; a couple people thought that rather than milk chocolate it was a more bittersweet dark chocolate, perhaps due to the roast. One person tasted cinnamon. Overall, comments were quite positive. A few people with known anti-Starbucks sentiments were grudgingly impressed. This is a decent coffee that most people should find more than acceptable. When the votes were tallied, it came away with a solid 3 motmots.

Because of its size, Starbucks falls victim to its own success. Providing a consistent product at such large volumes inevitably means lower quality, buying through exporters (and thus lower prices for producers) and an inability to truly police the growing methods of thousands of farmers. Still, I can think of few other offerings by any of the big roasters that are as positive for the environment as the Starbucks Organic Shade Grown Mexico. It sure beats Kraft’s 30% Rainforest Alliance certified (and 70% mystery-sourced) Yuban, and tastes better to boot.

[1] Conservation International and Starbucks Coffee Company. 2007. The Conservation Coffee Alliance.  USAID Contract # 596-A-00-04-00039-00, Annual and Final Report 2004-2007.

[2] Gonzalez, A. A. and R. Nigh. 2004. Smallholder participation and certification of organic farm products in Mexico. Journal of Rural Studies 21:449-460.

Coffee reviews / Coffee-related products

Not-quite-coffee review: Finca Mauritania Cascara

Just to end the year on a unique note, we decided to try an interesting and unique coffee product, cascara. This is dried coffee cherry, and can be prepared as an infusion like tea.

Something old is new again
Although unfamiliar to most Westerners, this is an ancient beverage in Yemen — it may have even pre-dated the actual roasting and brewing of coffee beans. There, and in a few other countries where it is prepared, it’s known as qishar (or qishr, quishar, quishr, keshir, etc.). In Yemen qishar is often made with ginger, sugar, and cinnamon (although many recipes you’ll find will substitute the coffee “husks” with ground coffee).

Enter Aida Batlle!
If anybody in the New World was going to produce and market qishar to the specialty coffee world, it was going to be Aida Batlle, proprietor of three outstanding El Salvador coffee farms — Los Alpes, Finca Kilimanjaro, and Finca Mauritania. She’s committed to quality, sustainability, and innovation.

Coffee is rarely dry processed in Central America due to the damp climate which is so much in contrast with the arid origins of most dry processed beans. But Aida has been experimenting with both dry process and pulped naturals for some time. For her dry process coffee, which she calls “pasa” (“raisin” in Spanish), she leaves the cherries on the tree after they ripen until they dry out and look like raisins. The beans are hulled from the cherries. Normally coffee pulp and skins — from either wet or dry processing — are composted and used for fertilizer. In this case, the dried cherry is used for cascara.

Aida produced around 225 pounds of cascara from her Finca Mauritania harvest. I obtained my cascara from James Hoffman‘s Square Mile Coffee Roasters in the UK, and from Counter Culture Coffee. Square Mile is sold out for the year; I don’t think Counter Culture offered it for sale but used it at tastings and as gifts.

During a visit to Yemen last year, Thom Owen of Sweet Maria’s took a photo of some qishar. It appeared not very uniform, with hunks of hulls and crusty pulp, and it looked dry and flaky. The Finca Mauritania cascara looks much like tree bark, was a rich reddish-brown color, and had a pliable texture.

This bark-like appearance no doubt gave this product its name, as “cascara” refers to tree bark in Spanish. This coffee cascara should not be confused with cascara sagrada, the dried bark of the California buckthorn tree, Rhamnus purshiana. Nearly all Rhamnus have phytochemicals that act as laxatives, and Rhamnus purshiana has long been used as an herbal laxative. Be forewarned that at least in North America, if you Google “cascara” you get lots of hits on the constipation cure, not the coffee tea!

Preparation and taste
The aroma of the raw cascara is powerful and intoxicating. Nearly every person who stuck their nose in the bag said “Wow!” Two descriptions for the smell of the raw cascara came up frequently: raisins and pipe tobacco. The latter aroma sent me back 40 years to sitting on my grandfather’s lap as he smoked a fragrant pipe. Both my husband and I, the only ones from our tasting group that had ever been near coffee mills at harvest time, also recognized the familiar sweet smell of slightly fermented coffee pulp. Licorice came up a couple times, and others detected wine, apple chips, or dried cherries. A few of us tried just chewing on a pinch of the stuff. I thought it was quite good, and the flavor lasted until the chips were well masticated. (This might be the non-liquid solution to a caffeine fix in the field. Bonus: fiber!)

Cascara is brewed like tea. No additional prep is needed — just use the cascara straight from the package. Square Mile recommends a ratio of 20 to 25 grams per liter of water and a 4-minute steep time. Sweet Maria’s advised using the same proportions as brewing coffee, with a steeping time of 4 to 12 minutes, with 8 to 10 minutes being best. Experiment! Your mileage may vary.

Upon brewing, the first thing you’ll notice is that the aroma of the beverage is not like the aroma of the raw material. It has a sort of vaguely grassy smell. One person thought it smelled like wet dog. Nor does it taste like it smells. With lesser quantities or shorter steep times, it is very lightly sweet; all flavors intensify if more cascara is used or it steeps longer.

The first, hottest sip has a citrusy tang; several people said it was orange-toned. Overall, the flavor is somewhat rustic or earthy. It reminded two people of rooibos (except cascara does have caffeine). Rose petal or rose hip tea was also mentioned more than once. If you’ve ever tasted a ripe coffee cherry, that mild sweetness was, as you might expect, there as well. Everybody could find some sort of grassy, green vegetative taste. For me, it was celery. One person said it was like sweetened water from a can of bean sprouts or bamboo shoots!  A couple of us thought it had a sort of odd, syrupy aftertaste (it reminded me of sticky coffee pulp). After it had steeped to the color of strong coffee, one person thought it was robust enough to remind them of beef bouillon.

There was some experimentation with milk or sugar, but nobody said additives made a huge difference in how they felt about it. Some people took to the cascara right away, especially if they were regular drinkers of herbal teas. I prefer refined black teas such as darjeelings, but I liked the cascara better after drinking it a few times, so it may be an acquired taste for some people. Everyone was anxious to try it and glad they did, even if they weren’t coffee drinkers — it was just that singular an experience. If you have an opportunity to try some, let me know what you tasted and how you liked it!

And with this last review, I’ll close out 2008. Happy New Year to all C&C readers!

Blends/Multiple / Coffee reviews

Coffee review: BuyWell International Fair Trade Organic coffees

Plainspoken Coffee. A Coffee Review for Ordinary People by Ordinary People, #40.

BuyWell is a relative new-comer to the sustainable coffee arena, established in Colorado Springs in fall 2007. They focus exclusively on certified organic, Fair Trade coffees. BuyWell purchases Green-e certified renewable energy certificates from 3Degrees
to offset 100% of the electricity used for their entire operation. Further, they support a number of coffee-related charities such as Coffee Kids, Cafe Femenino, and Roots and Wings International.

Roots and Wings was a new one for me — a secular organization working to provide university scholarships in southwest Guatemala. I was impressed with this program; please visit their web site for more on what they do and how you can make a direct donation. You can also do it through coffee purchases: BuyWell donates $3 per bag of coffee sold online when customers type ”RootsAndWings” in the coupon/promotion code.

We tried out several of their coffees.

Nicaragua Picaflor — These beans come from the 100-plus-member Cooperativa 5 de junio, in the the Las Sabanas region of Madriz department (a.k.a., Segovias coffee-growing area), in northern Nicaragua. The coop is part of a larger farmers association,  Aldea Global (AssociaciÁ³n Aldea Global Jinotega), which practices sustainable agriculture and has other Fair Trade products.

In 2006, Cooperativa 5 de junio scored an 84.46 in the Cup of Excellence competition. They grow mostly Caturra and Maracatu at 1200 to 1400 m in “extensive shade.” (Maracatu is a Caturra x Maragogype hybrid.)

The Picaflor is billed as a light roast. I was really pleased to see that “light” meant “light” for BuyWell. A gentle roast is often best for these more delicate Central American beans. A nearly unanimous flavor reported by tasters was “caramel”. There was also some citrus when piping hot, leaning towards orange for one taster. It had a silky mouthfeel, and was my personal favorite of the three coffees. 3.25 motmots.

Guatemala Fuego — These beans are sourced from the NahualÁ¡ cooperative (Cooperativa de Servicios Varios Nahuala) in the Quetzaltenango region of southwest Guatemala near the city of Pasac. Ninety percent of the 126 members are organic, and they also produce organic bananas and honey. The members have been working on a riparian reforestation project as well. The coffee varieties Catuai, Bourbon, and Caturra are grown at 1200 to 1500 m.

This was a medium roast — not too dark for a Central. It had an interesting aroma, which reminded me of American Robins (I know this is odd, but remember, I’m a bird bander, and I’ve handled tens of thousands of birds…some do have distinctive odors), sort of organic and leafy. Having made this rather esoteric comment aloud, a coworker actually agreed with me, in a more generic way: “Yeah, like the apartment I shared with Dale and Edgar the Crow. Sometimes we’d take in a starling or two.” Okay, strange descriptions of what are actually nice smells aside, we also had some consensus on taste, with three people volunteering they got a subtle cherry flavor. Nutty was also mentioned more than once. It had a creamy mouthfeel, also described as “round” and “smooth.” 3 motmots.

Sumatra Canopy — The Canopy coffee is from the Gayo Organic Coffee Farmers Association (Persatuan Petani Kopi Gayo Organik, or PPKGO) near Takengon in Aceh province, Sumatra. This is a big co-op, with nearly 2000 members, and all are organic. The farms are located at between 1100 and 1500 m in the buffer zone to Gunung Leuser National Park. Shade grown coffee in Sumatra is especially important because illegal logging threatens remaining forests, including those in protected areas. The demand for timber has been particularly acute since the 2004 tsunami. PPKGO grows a number of varieties of coffee: Bergendal (they typica variety most often grown in Sumatra), Sidikalang (I presume this is another typica cultivar from the named region near Lake Toba), and the hybrids Catimor and Caturra.

This was a medium-dark roast. It’s been awhile since we’ve reviewed a dark roast, and a long while since we’ve done an Indonesian coffee. The origin was instantly recognizable earth (one person specified loam), leather, pepper or spice, and resin. I liked it much more than I expected I would, given that this isn’t my favorite flavor profile. But the roast was handled correctly, so the characteristic Sumatran taste came through without being all about a “rich” or burnt taste. The score of 2.75 motmots in part reflects one taster who just couldn’t come to grips with an Indonesian coffee; she described it as tasting like “those little hard sesame breadsticks.” I’m going to temper that comment by saying that this coffee will please anybody who does like Indonesian coffees, as it’s probably one of the most approachable I’ve had.

Overall, I was pleased with BuyWell’s selections, the information on their web site, and their commitment to sustainability in their business practices. I was also impressed with the way their roaster handled each bean. I think sometimes working with beans from co-ops, which are likely to vary in quality because they come from so many producers, leads some roasters to over-roast to cover up or even out the impact of the lowest-quality beans. I thought BuyWell honored the origin and the bean and did a really nice job.

You can also check out BuyWell’s blog, Screaming Monkey.

Blends/Multiple / Coffee reviews

Coffee review: Counter Culture Coffee Finca Nueva Armenia

Plainspoken Coffee. A Coffee Review for Ordinary People by Ordinary People, #39.

We did a quick take on Counter Culture’s Finca Nueva Armenia a couple of years ago, as it was used in their Sanctuary shade-grown coffee line. We liked it then, we like it now.

This certified organic selection from the Huehuetenango region in Guatemala is now one of Counter Culture Direct Trade Certified coffees. FNA was founded in the late 1800s. The current owners, the Recinos family, have had it since the 1940s and are now in the fourth generation of coffee farming. The farm went organic in the 1990s — one of the first organic farms in the country.

Coffee grows under multi-tiered shade with 50 species of shade trees recorded on the farm. The farm was very recently qualified for Smithsonian Bird-Friendly status. This is significant, as the farm is quite large — 113 ha. FNA grows mostly bourbon and typica varieties, at 1500 to 1833 m (click on this map for a satellite image).

As a family-owned farm, Finca Neuva Armenia doesn’t qualify for Fair Trade certification, which only covers small farmers that are part of a cooperative. But the Recinos family pays their workers 30% more than surrounding farms during the harvest, including even better rates at the end of the harvest when the per-person picking yield drops, in order to encourage picking for quality as opposed to quantity. And the Counter Culture Direct Trade program pays farmers well above Fair Trade prices.

On the package, this is described as a “classic breakfast coffee. It is certainly that — very well-balanced, light-bodied, the last drop tasting as good as the first without turning bitter in the cup. It was gently sweet, with milk chocolate tones and a short finish. But it is what I like to call a “classic ++”, as there were just these hints of other flavors that made it stand out from the typical classic Central American profile. For several tasters, there was an apple or apricot aspect. One person thought it was “spicy”, but another put his finger tongue on it with “cinnamon”. For me there was also a spicy/savory aroma and flavor, especially when the coffee was prepared as a pour-over or French press, that I really liked. I found myself chasing after that taste in sip after sip. I was never able to describe it more specifically, but sure enjoyed trying! It averaged out at 3.75 motmots; my score is just over 4 motmots.

If you are looking for a really great quality, super-tasting, affordable coffee that is farmed under the most stringent environmental criteria — this is it!