Retail and specialty roasters

Retail and specialty roasters

Two roasters, two new marketing approaches

Two of my favorite responsible roasters have come out with new tools to market their coffees.

Intelligentsia has launched In Season, a web site emphasizing that coffee is a seasonal crop, and highlighting the coffees that are currently within 10 months of harvest, and which are upcoming. Clicking on each coffee provides a flavor description; the name of the farm, producer, and region; varietal, altitude, and harvest season.

The Roasterie has set up a cool tool called My Blend. Answer 10 questions about your coffee preferences, and a blend will be developed for you. You can even design the label. I thought the questions were both straightforward and the “right” questions to ask. I’m going to have to try this out! If you give it a try, let me know how your blend turned out.

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

Coffee review: Caribou Colombia Timaná

Plainspoken Coffee. A Coffee Review for Ordinary People by Ordinary People, #38.

Pursuant to our backgrounder on Colombia, here’s another review of a Colombian coffee, one which is quite readily available, Caribou Coffee Colombia Timaná.

This is Caribou’s regular Colombian offering. It is Rainforest Alliance certified (100% of the beans), and comes from the the area near the southern town of Timaná in the Huila department (coordinates 1.983,-75.95). It is primarily of the Caturra variety, and grown at 1600 meters.

Caribou sources this coffee from a cooperative called Asociacion de Productores Agricolas de Timaná or ASPROTIMANA. In late 2005 ASPROTIMANA started the process towards Rainforest Alliance (RA) certification, with 26 growers participating. Now all 52 members (with 53 farms averaging about 6 ha) have received RA certification. As I mentioned in the previous post, there are many growing areas in Colombia at high altitude in which clouds provide shade. Growing coffee under additional cover in these areas creates problems with very low yields and sometimes issues with pathogens such as fungi.  Farmers in these areas often preserve adjacent forest plots. This is the case with the ASPROTIMANA growers. Almost 250 ha are in coffee grown in semi-shade (fulfilling RA requirements of 70 trees per ha of a dozen species), with another 35 ha being set aside for conservation.

This was a light roast with a really pleasant aroma; one taster found it “buttery and complex.” This was a very nice middle-of-the-road coffee, and we agree with Caribou when it says that it is “the perfect beginner’s coffee” or “perfect everyday coffee.” I have to say that (in keeping with making coffee like an ordinary person) that I prepared it one day in a French press a bit too strong. It was even better like this: more richly-bodied and robust, another reviewer that day described it as “resonant.” Another was extremely enthusiastic and rushed down the hall, cup in hand, to my office to ask me what he was drinking. We gave this coffee 3.5 motmots.

In 2007, Coffee Review gave it 88 points. It’s also one of the coffees available in several of Caribou’s Roastmaster’s Choice Clubs.

I also tried the Colombia Timaná Reserve, one of Caribou’s Origins Select coffees. It is from the same producers, but only from 6 select growers. This was also very nice coffee, but I honestly could not detect a significant difference from the regular Timaná, although more discerning tasters might very well be able to. Anyway, kudos to Caribou for this tasty, sustainable selection.

Fair and Direct Trade / Retail and specialty roasters

Counter Culture Coffee’s Direct Trade program

Counter Culture Coffee recently launched its Direct Trade program. It is a natural progression from their Source project, and is a robust example of similar models employed by other roasters, most notably Intelligentsia. Counter Culture is a pioneer, however, in that their Direct Trade coffees are certified by a third party (Quality Certification Services, paid for by Counter Culture).

Here are the standards:

  • Fair and sustainable prices. Counter Culture works with each farmer to determine their production costs and begins price negotiations accordingly. This is the beauty of a direct relationship: many farmers really don’t know how to determine or track their productions costs, and therefore accept pricing that may not realize a profit for themselves. A direct relationship like this Counter Culture model is a true partnership, with the roaster assisting the farmers in calculating, forecasting, and streamlining their production costs. The result: farmers make a good living, roasters have reliable sources of great coffee.Currently, CCC pays a minimum of $1.60/lb. for green coffee; this is expected to rise in 2009. There are also quality-based financial incentives paid to growers on top of this (see below), designed to encourage ecologically-responsible cultivation methods and sustained quality improvement over time.
  • Personal and direct communication. Counter Culture visits grower partners on a biennial basis, at minimum. CCC has an entire section on their web site devoted to posts on trips to origin.
  • Exceptional quality. Direct Trade coffees have scored at least 85 on a 100-pt. cup quality scale. The highest quality coffees are rewarded with higher prices paid to the grower.
  • 100% Transparency. All relevant financial information is is available to all parties — growers, buyers, seller, intermediaries, customers — always.

I think this is a superior model to that of Fair Trade certification in a number of ways. First, of course, is that FT certification only applies to small farmers organized into cooperatives, it is not available to family-owned farms or plantations or single producers. Farmers themselves also do not necessarily receive all or a large portion of any price premiums; this is decided by the cooperative. Second, FT pricing does not take into account any differences in cost of production or cost of living in different regions. Third, FT certification does not certify or verify relationships or communications between producers and roasters or retailer, they only certify the financial transactions between them. Finally, FT does not certify, reward, or incorporate quality into their standards.

Some of Counter Culture’s coffees are also Fair Trade certified, but not labeled as such. And not all Counter Culture coffees will be Direct Trade certified, as it takes some time to work with farmers to get to that level. But the sourcing and purchasing philosophy behind Direct Trade at Counter Culture applies to all their coffees. Congratulations to Counter Culture for this progressive move, which I hope is the future of all coffee sourcing!

Caribou Coffee / Coffee awards and competitions / Retail and specialty roasters

Caribou Coffee wins Roaster’s Choice award

In a previous post, I mentioned that one of my favorite aspects of the recent SCAA conference was tasting the ten finalists in the Roasters Guild 2008 Roasters Choice Tasting Competition. The theme was Single Origin coffees, and 36 members of the Roasters Guild participated in the event by submitting roasted coffee. Voting was open to all conference attendees (nearly 8000!).

The winner: Caribou Coffee’s Roastmaster’s Reserve: Ethiopia Yirgacheffe. When I tasted this coffee (blind) I knew it was an Ethiopian, and I enjoyed the understated berry notes. And although I like Ethiopian coffees, I wouldn’t opt to drink one daily, which I considered a requirement for my vote. With so many great artisan roasters participating, many with very special microlots, I couldn’t help but be surprised that Caribou took top honors. I think this says a lot about this company. I’m not the only person who thinks Caribou does a fine job and is underappreciated for it. Check out these posts from the Coffeed forum, from both late last year and after the competition. Congrats, Caribou!

The full list of the winners is below.

I mentioned that #103 was my favorite, my second pick was #111. I knew 103, a Colombian microlot, was a classic from Latin America, but I thought that 111 was also. For a Rwandan, 111 was quite sweet and chocolately. I also love Kenyan coffees, but have to admit that 109, the third place Kenyan from The Roasterie, was one of the most difficult to categorize coffees I’ve tasted lately, and we tried it over three days. I thought it might be Sumatran, because for me it had some sort of vaguely sour earthy flavor. I wrote on my sheet “What is this?!”  Kingfisher’s top pick was #104, the Tanzania (I pegged that origin blind, too!).

  1. RC102 — Caribou Coffee — Ethiopian Organic Yirgacheffe
  2. RC106 — Sweet Maria’s — Rwanda Gkongoro Nyarusiza
  3. RC109 — The Roasterie — Kenya Jambo Estate
  4. RC104 — Berres Brothers Coffee Roasters — Tanzania Peaberry — Songea
  5. RC105 — Dolce Gourmet Gelateria & Café — Panama — City Roast
  6. RC103 — Tony’s Coffees and Teas — Colombia — Tolima Microlot — Gaitania Cyerposo
  7. RC108 — Lexington Coffee Roasting Company — Rwanda Bufcafe
  8. RC107 — Bear Creek Coffee — Papua New Guinea
  9. RC110 — Vermont Artisan Coffee & Tea — Ethiopian Sidamo — Organic Fairtrade
  10. RC111 — Cuvee Coffee Roasting Company — Rwanda – Bucafe

Meanwhile, in an adjacent room, judges were cupping the entries in the 2008 Roasters Guild Coffee of the Year Competition.

The winner list is after the jump. A Colombian entry won first place, bumping Hacienda La Esmeralda to second place after winning the competition the last three years. I was pleased to see a Domincan Republic coffee in the top ranks. I would provide more links and information about the winners, but the list is so generic that I am unable to get more specifics.

1. C.I. Racafe & CIA S.C.A., Colombia (placed 11th last year)
2. Hacienda La Esmeralda, Panama
3. Volcafe Specialty Coffee, Ethiopia
4. Sidama Coffee Farmers, Co-Op Union, Ethiopia
5. San Rafael Pacun/ Cafetalera El Tunel S.A., Guatemala
6. Agropecuaria Salfar S.A./ San Sebastian, Guatemala
7. Agoga Plantation Limited, Papua New Guinea
8. Finca La Ilusion-Café de El Salvador, El Salvador (2008 Cup of Excellence winner)
9. Federacion Nacional de Cafeteros de Colombia, Colombia
10. San Jose Ocana, Guatemala
11. Big Island Fine Coffee, Hawaii
12. Kona Coffee Plantation, Hawaii
13. Consejo Dominicano Del Café (Natura Bella), Dominican Republic.