Coffee-related products

Book review: God in a Cup, The Obsessive Quest for the Perfect Coffee

Journalist Michaele Weissman has put together a great overview of the world of specialty coffee in God in a Cup. She traveled around the world with coffee buyers and explored the contrast between mass-produced, commodity coffee and artisan-focused, quality-oriented specialty coffee.

This book isn’t really about searching for great tasting coffee, but uses that pursuit to frame the genesis and impact of specialty coffee for consumers and especially producers. While not strictly about coffee sustainability, it nonetheless brings alive many of the points that I strive to make here at Coffee & Conservation on the topic and the crucial role specialty coffee roasters make in this arena — and in turn how consumers can support it. As such, it lays the foundation for much of what I discuss here.

Weissman preserves her artfully-paced narrative by placing the in-depth background information at the back of the book or in boxes, but still provides enough detail in the main text to clearly explain to readers unfamiliar with the coffee trade and the stakes involved.

She does a great job of highlighting the passion — and activism — of the pioneers in this industry. Much of the focus is on her travels and interviews with three of them: Counter Culture’s Peter Giuliano, Intelligentsia’s Geoff Watts, and Stumptown’s Duane Sorenson, but many others are mentioned. This personal touch lends authenticity. It also keeps readers connected, as following these coffee buyers provides an opportunity to really understand the complexities involved in producing this crop and bringing it to market. Most revealing for me were the discussions about Fair Trade, and in particular the examination of the cooperative system. The example of the troubles Watts has had with poorly run organizations helps to illustrate that cooperatives (which are the only producers allowed to be certified Fair Trade) are not always the best way to protect farmers.

I approached this book with a little trepidation, as I have read way too many articles about coffee that were superficial, not factual, lacked a fresh approach, or were just examples of lazy reporting. This was none of these. If you are at all interested in coffee (which you must be if you have read this far), I highly recommend this book. Further, get a couple extra copies for your coffee-loving friends, people you would like to convert to specialty coffee, or those in your life that don’t really “get it.” God in a Cup will make a great gift this holiday season.

To get a sense of what this book covers and Weissman’s take on it, read this interview with her at Salon. She also maintains a blog which explores her ongoing coffee experiences. Then go pick up a copy of her book!

Research on coffee growing

Research: migratory birds provide pest control, increase profit, in Jamaican coffee farms

Ecological and economic services provided by birds on Jamaican Blue Mountain coffee farms. 2008. Kellermann, J. L., M. D. Johnson, A. M. Stercho, and S. C. Hackett. Conservation Biology 22:1177-1185.

There have been several good papers published lately on coffee farming that I will be summarizing, but this was the most interesting to me, as I have seen the data presented at recent ornithological conferences.

This study looked at the benefits birds provide by preying on coffee berry borers at four coffee farms in Jamaica’s Blue Mountain region: Clifton Mount, Wallenford, McGraham, and Rowan’s Royale. Rowan’s Royale is the only certified organic coffee farm in Jamaica. All others used the pesticide endosulfan four months before this study began. To see if birds were eating coffee berry borers, the authors excluded birds from some coffee plants to look at the rate birds were preying upon coffee berry borers.

Coffee trees in which birds had no access had higher rates of borer infestation and greater damage. Unprotected trees had rates of infestation that were up to 14% lower, and the declines were determined to be due to birds preying on the borers.

Seventeen bird species preyed on coffee borer beetles; eleven were North American migrants wintering in Jamaica. The decline of the borer infestations on coffee trees accessible to birds coincided with the arrival of migrant birds to the island. Three migrant species did most of the work: Black-throated Blue Warbler, American Redstart, and Prairie Warbler (right).

The authors calculated that the value of pest control provided by birds (via increased yield) to farmers averaged US$75 per ha of coffee, not a small sum considering there are 10,000 ha of coffee in Jamaica and the per capita gross income in the country is US$3400. This figure did not include any additional economic benefits such as reduction of other pests, the potential for savings in pesticide reduction, or additional environmental benefits of not using highly toxic endosulfan.

One important component to this study was the finding that these bird species increased with close proximity to native forest patches, and declined steeply on coffee plots that were further than 40 to 50 meters from a habitat patch. In order for farmers to receive these ecological services and economic benefits from the birds, they need to provide habitat for them! Preserving native forest is a win-win situation for the farmers and the birds.

Black-throated Blue Warbler photo by yours truly; American Redstart by my talented friend Steve Hamilton; Prairie Warbler by Scott A. Young.

J. L. Kellerman, M. D. Johnson, A. M. Stercho, S. C. Hackett. (2008). Ecological and economic services provided by birds on Jamaican Blue Mountain coffee farms. Conservation Biology, 22 (5), 1177-1185 DOI: 10.1111/j.1523-1739.2008.00968.x

Housekeeping

Shade coffee at Dave’s Garden

Dave’s Garden is an enormous web site that covers every issue of interest to gardeners. The site just had a feature article on shade coffee by Marna Towne. Marna hits all the high points to introduce DG users to this important issue. And this is no small audience: DG has over 400,000 registered users and can get nearly 2 million hits a month! Many thanks to Marna for doing this piece, and asking me to provide some information and photos.

So welcome Dave’s Garden readers! Please visit the User Guide for a list of the important background posts. If you only read one post here, make it The Top 5 Indicators of Sustainable Coffee.

Marna’s article covered some of the information in What is shade coffee? and What is sun coffee and why is it a problem? You may also want to check out the post on the coffee crisis (why cheap coffee is being grown on sun plantations) and an example of illegal coffee growing in a national park (how it ends up in common grocery store brands).

I hope Dave’s Garden readers find this site useful — and I welcome feedback — and that Coffee & Conservation readers head over to DG to check out all the incredible resources there!

Corporate coffee / Smucker's

Folger’s finds another way to make poor beans taste "better"

Folger’s (owned by Procter & Gamble*) is introducing a new roasting method that they say is “the biggest innovation since the launch of decaf” according to an article in the New York Times. The article says

P.& G. has overhauled its main roasting plant in east New Orleans — which employs more than 400 people — to include a step it calls ”predry” or ”preroast.” Each bean is fully dried before roasting, ensuring a more evenly cooked bean, which makes it less bitter…Jim Trout, innovation leader for research and development, at P.& G., said: ”It’s like thawing a turkey before you cook it. If you don’t, the outside will be burnt and the inside will still be raw. This way it cooks evenly all the way through.”

P&G makes it sound as if they’ve come up with some necessary innovation that will improve the taste of coffee. The truth is, it’s only necessary for corporations like P&G, Kraft, Nestlé, or Sara Lee that deal is millions of tons of coffee to utilize multiple post-harvest steps to make their product drinkable.

Green coffee beans do contain water. The drying process, which takes place shortly after harvest at the farm or mill, brings this down to 11 to 12  percent (further drying makes the beans brittle and the flavor bland). Skilled coffee roasters take the unique characteristics of a particular crop into account (including water content) in order to transform the raw, tasteless bean into a the flavorful roasted product that will highlight the best features of the crop in the cup. They also roast in small batches, from 7 to 25 or perhaps 50 pounds, in order to best control the roasting process and the delicate transformations taking place.

I repeated the word “crop” to remind us all that coffee is an agricultural product, not a bolt or a fan blade. Coffee beans vary from year to year, region to region, farm to farm, and even tree to tree depending on microclimate variables.

That’s the first problem big companies like P&G face. They get tons of beans from multiple sources. Some are wetter than others, and some are drier. They roast them in 300-pound batches. If they are to get any consistency, they have to start off with a uniform product — something closer to a bolt than to an agricultural product. Pre-drying/pre-roasting would indeed even out the beans so that they can “cook evenly all the way through.”

Actually, pre-drying is not a new procedure for P&G. In 1989, P&G used it to make beans more porous in order to impregnate them with compounds that would enhance the flavor while simultaneously treating them with enzymes to extract bitter compounds (found in cheap robusta beans). The following year, P&G applied for a patent using pre-roasting for creating dark roasts. They come right out and state in the application that

Low grade coffee beans with many defects will burn and scorch more readily than wholesome beans, causing non-uniform roasted bean colors and tastes … It is an object of the present invention to dark roast poor quality beans with less tipping and burning when compared to present dark roast processing.

Pre-drying and fast roasting also results in roasted beans that are less dense. In 1991, P&G worked out the method, incorporating pre-drying, that produced reduced density (lighter by weight) high yield (same number of cups from fewer beans) coffee. P&G’s “new” roasting method saves P&G lots of money in shipping costs.

According to the data provided by P&G to the Enquirer, what was once a 13 oz. can will now weigh 11.3 oz. but still  produce 90 cups of coffee. Tens of thousands of lighter cans of coffee will add up to significant cost savings in shipping with today’s high fuel prices. If the consumer pays the same price for each can of coffee, it will generate even more profit.

Technically, it’s true that this method improves the taste of Folger’s coffee — because they use low-quality beans to begin with, as is stated in each of their patent applications. In their application “Process for making reduced density coffee,” P&G notes that robustas are the preferred bean (it also states that even moldy beans “show a slight improvement”!).

Do not support these technological “advances” that allow the big multinationals to continue to purchase, and encourage the farming of, low-quality cheap coffee beans. It pushes farmers into poverty and destroys the environment.

*JM Smucker purchased the Folger’s brand earlier this year, and the deal is expected to be completed within a few months.