Birds and other biodiversity / Know Your Coffee Birds series

Know your coffee birds: Jacu

When I conceived the “Know Your Coffee Birds” series, I made up a list of birds often found in shade coffee farms. There was one that was not included that I feel compelled to write about already because it’s being used in a unique way to market coffee: the Jacu bird.

The Dusky-legged Guan, a.k.a. “Jacu”, has found a new career as a coffee picker and processor.

“Jacu” is the Brazilian name given to a group of birds, actually — the guans. Guans are the largest group in the bird family Cracidae — primitive, vaguely chicken-like forest birds found in much of Latin America. There are 15 species of guans in the genus Penelope. All guans are strictly forest birds, preferring primary forest. Due to deforestation and hunting pressure, cracids in general are among the most endangered groups of birds in the Neotropics.

Guans are primarily vegetarians, eating mostly fruit and berries, some flowers and buds, and a few insects. Guans are very important in tropical ecosystems because of their role in dispersing seeds in the forests in which they live. It is this frugivorous diet that leads us to the Jacu’s coffee connection.

Guans eat ripe coffee cherries. While they are unlikely to venture onto sun coffee plantations, they will live in or near coffee farms where coffee is grown in forest-like conditions and/or adjacent to intact forest. Like nearly any animal that eats fruit, guans prefer fully ripe fruit, and that includes coffee cherries. One might imagine this habit would draw the ire of coffee farmers. But at least one enterprising producer is using the philosophy, “If life gives you lemons, make lemonade.” Or in this case, “If life gives you bird crap with coffee beans it it, make coffee.”

In the spirit of kopi luwak, produced from coffee beans collected from the feces of civet cats in southeast Asia, comes Jacu coffee, produced from beans collected from the droppings of guans.

This coffee is currently being offered by Camocim Estate (two farms: Camocin and Alatalia) in Pedra Azul, Brazil. Pedra Azul is in the southern part of the Atlantic state of Espirito Santo. Two species of guan may be found there: Rusty-margined Guan (Penelope superciliaris) and Dusky-legged Guan (P. obscura).

Fazenda Camocim encompasses 500 hectares in total, with 50 planted in coffee, and the rest re-planted in a forest-rejuvenation project. The farms are certified organic and biodynamic, and utilize fruit and nut trees in the coffee plantings, and native habitat patches as well. All of which no doubt provides habitat and other food for the guans.

Supposedly, some of the ”unique” characteristics of kopi luwak come from the civet’s digestive process, which according to tests leach out proteins which cause bitterness. But a bird’s digestive system is different than that of a mammal.

The digestive enzymes in mammals and birds are similar. But while some cracids do have gizzards in which ingested grit helps crack and grind seeds, it is not well developed in guans. So the beans are not getting a lot of deep scratches that would allow for added absorption of chemicals that might alter the properties of the bean. Most importantly, food passes very quickly through birds. Birds typically pass the seeds of fruit within an hour, or at most a few hours. It’s very inefficient for a bird to have their small digestive tracts loaded up with a lot of seeds — especially large ones like coffee beans. I cannot imagine there is any physical reason why they should taste much different than the rest of the crop that is harvested by humans and processed in a more traditional manner.

However it tastes, I love the idea of this coffee. It means the beans are coming from a forested area, from producers that care about working with and preserving — rather than fighting and eliminating — native wildlife. And that’s especially important in this case, because Espirito Santo is smack in the Atlantic Forest biome, one of the most exceptionally biodiverse and endangered habitat types in the world. Large bird species have been severely reduced or extirpated in many of the remaining forest fragments of the Atlantic Forest. This has dire consequences, as up to half of the native tree species require birds, including guans, which have large enough mouths to swallow and disperse their fruits. Rusty-margined Guans are tolerant of disturbed habitats and have been considered important for their role in seed dispersal in these forests and have been suggested for use in conservation efforts.

One day, I wouldn’t mind reviewing some jacu coffee. I’ve seen it offered green at Sweet Maria’s in the U.S. and roasted from Hasbean in the U.K. I’d especially like to try it side-by-side with the more typically-processed organic from Camocim. When I find a U.S. source where I can get both, roasted, I’ll be on it like a duck on a june bug. Or a jacu on a coffee cherry.

Update: Here’s an interesting article on Jacu coffee in Modern Farmer in 2013.

References:

Cardoso da Silva, J. M. and M. Tabarelli. 2000. Tree species impoverishment and the future flora of the Atlantic forest of northeast Brazil. Nature 404: 72-74.

Munoz, M.C. and G. H. Kattan. 2007. Diets of cracids: how much do we know? Ornitologia Neotropica 18:21-36.

Pizo, M. A. 2004. Frugivory and habitat use by fruit eating birds in a fragmented landscape of southeast Brazil. Ornitologia Neotropica 15:117-126.

Photo of Dusky-legged Guan by Jose Claudio GuimarÁ£es.

Fair and Direct Trade

Sweet Maria’s Farm Gate Coffee

Green coffee and home roasting supplier Sweet Maria’s has formalized their direct trade buying program, calling it Farm Gate Coffee. Farm Gate prices are at least 50% (but often 100% or more) over Fair Trade prices. Their latest newsletter gives a more thorough explanation.

Even if you don’t roast your own coffee, head over to the Sweet Maria’s web site. I have learned so much there — not only in the coffee library, but also reading the bean reviews and descriptions and the many travelogues that are sprinked throughout the site. It’s a real education!

Birds and other biodiversity

Research: Woodpeckers and ants in India’s shade coffee

Vishnudas, C. K. 2008. Crematogaster ants in shaded coffee plantations: a critical food source for Rufous Woodpecker Micropternus brachyurus and other forest birds. Indian Birds 4:9-11.

Rufous Woodpeckers are ant specialists.

The Rufous Woodpecker is one of the twelve woodpecker species found in the Western Ghats of India; it is widespread throughout Asia. Rufous Woodpeckers have a particularly interesting life history, as they are ant specialists. They not only feed largely on ants, but they excavate their nests in large paper-wasp-like nests of the stinging tree ants in the genus Crematogaster.

These ants are common in shade coffee plantations in India, and the author reports that 31 of the 37 ant nests he observed being raided by Rufous Woodpeckers over the previous ten years were on shade coffee farms; only six were in natural forest. Other bird species also take advantage of the woodpeckers ripping open the ant nests. Secondary feeding on the ant eggs and pupae by Greater Racked-tailed Drongos, Oriental Magpie-Robins, and Common Tailorbirds and other bird species are described.

The ants, however, are not welcome on the coffee farms. They protect and support mealy bugs, which are pests on the coffee. Although the woodpeckers and other birds can help control the ants (as do other natural predators), many Indian farmers have traditionally used copious pesticides to control the ants. The author notes that the increasing popularity of organic coffee is reducing this practice, and concludes, “It is high time that the conservation value of shaded coffee plantation, as a critical habitat for Rufous Woodpecker and other forest birds, be recognised and proper agro-ecological management practices developed and popularised amongst planters.”

Photo by Lip Kee.

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.