A Master’s in Coffee

This past month has con­sisted of var­i­ous dynamic and inter­est­ing courses, as well as some tough exams. We have been learn­ing every­thing about brew­ing meth­ods and tech­nolo­gies; chem­i­cal com­pounds present in the bean; and post-harvesting meth­ods. As I men­tioned last month, our class­room is located on the premises of illy Caffè. Besides being able to eat the amaz­ing food of the company’s cafe­te­ria, we are very for­tu­nate to be sit­u­ated in their head­quar­ters as we are exposed to the lat­est tech­nol­ogy and prac­tices of a com­pany that has been run by a fam­ily of leg­endary sci­en­tists and innovators.

A few weeks ago, for our brew­ing course, we had the chance to spend an entire week receiv­ing classes at Universitá del Caffé, which is also located at the illy head­quar­ters. During this class, we were guided every step of the way by a great team of expe­ri­enced pro­fes­sors and pro­fes­sional baris­tas that taught us excel­lent brew­ing tech­niques and all the fac­tors involved in mak­ing the per­fect espresso.

I enjoyed our course at Universitá del Caffé so much that I decided to speak with the Director, Mr. Moreno Faina, to get a lit­tle more insight on this dynamic pro­gram and learn about its incep­tion. The Università del Caffè was first set up in Naples in 1999, and later moved to Trieste, to the illy Caffè head­quar­ters. With 25 branches world­wide, they strive to be “a cen­ter of excel­lence cre­ated to pro­mote, sup­port and com­mu­ni­cate the cul­ture of qual­ity cof­fee world­wide, through train­ing.” I am sure I can speak for the whole class in say­ing that we had a lot of fun prac­tic­ing our latte art and exper­i­ment­ing with dif­fer­ent bev­er­age recipes (Some class­mates, whose names I will not men­tion, had extra fun with all the recipes that involved liquor).

Moreover, while most of our pro­fes­sors come from a wide array of par­tic­i­pat­ing uni­ver­si­ties, there are also var­i­ous indus­try pro­fes­sion­als and illy Caffè employ­ees that bring real case sce­nar­ios and expe­ri­ence to the class. Additionally, many of our classes have con­sisted of learn­ing out­side the class­room. In fact, Trieste con­tains a very impor­tant port for Italy and the Mediterranean. This has given us the oppor­tu­nity to visit a cou­ple of com­pa­nies such as DEMUS, a decaf­feina­tion plant; Sandalj, a trad­ing com­pany; and Pacorini, a world­wide logis­tics com­pany, which has made our learn­ing expe­ri­ence dynamic, while giv­ing us an inside glance at pres­ti­gious com­pa­nies that oper­ate within the cof­fee industry.

This past month, we also had the honor of receiv­ing classes with Sunalini N. Menon, an amaz­ing teacher and pas­sion­ate woman from India. Sunalini is the founder of a con­sul­tancy firm based in Bangalore called Coffeelab Private Limited. She taught us about post-harvesting processes as well as sort­ing and cup­ping defects. Her class was not only infor­ma­tive, enjoy­able, and insight­ful, but with­out know­ing, Sunalini also showed me what you can achieve when you are truly pas­sion­ate about something.

The exper­tise that we are being exposed to, both from illy Caffè as well as from guest lec­tures, have def­i­nitely added tremen­dous value to our courses. I am look­ing for­ward to the remain­ing three months, as we con­tinue to learn, grow, and deepen our under­stand­ing in every­thing that is behind our daily cup of Joe.

Ciao,
Ashley

Twitter @Ashleyprentice01

Quality Equals Money in Indonesia

It has been said by many in the cof­fee indus­try that if we can just improve the qual­ity of the cof­fee, the farmer can get more money and improve their lot in life. The frus­trat­ing part is that so few in the indus­try have the abil­ity to fol­low the money and really feel the impact. It leads one to won­der if it really works at all.

This ques­tion was answered defin­i­tively this week at the sec­ond spe­cialty cof­fee auc­tion of Indonesia. The results were dra­matic. But some back­ground will help put the suc­cess in perspective.

The Specialty Coffee Association of Indonesia (SCAI) has been in for­ma­tion since 2009. Many orga­ni­za­tions of this age are still floun­der­ing and try­ing to find their way. SCAI is a great excep­tion as they have grown their mem­ber­ship to a self-sustaining level and receive AID money to help with qual­ity pro­grams in Indonesia as well as mar­ket­ing Indonesian cof­fees. They are a small but ener­getic and effi­cient team ded­i­cated to the improve­ment of cof­fee qual­ity and pro­ducer livelihood.

Indonesia is a pro­ducer of both Arabica and Robusta cof­fees. In fact, they are the 3^rd largest pro­duc­ing coun­try when count­ing both vari­eties. To look at the improve­ment of cof­fee in this coun­try you must exam­ine what is hap­pen­ing in both types of coffee.

Robusta cof­fee is being treated like a com­mod­ity where vol­ume is the goal and qual­ity of the cof­fee has a fairly low bar. This is how Robusta is treated pretty much any­where it is grown in the world. There are a few seg­mented lots and the result is out­stand­ing. As you will see in the auc­tion results below, if the qual­ity of Robusta rises, so will the prices that roast­ers are will­ing to pay for it. Specialty is spe­cialty regard­less of the varietal.

Arabica cof­fee is incred­i­bly diverse in Indonesia for a num­ber of rea­sons. To get a feel for the sit­u­a­tion let’s exam­ine the grow­ing and pro­cess­ing con­di­tions. Indonesia is a series of Islands that stretch as wide as the United States. Each Island has micro­cli­mates, vol­canic activ­ity, and soil con­di­tions that can be very dif­fer­ent from each other. The farm­ing tech­nol­ogy varies from extremely sophis­ti­cated at the state run mega plan­ta­tions to the koteka-wearing peo­ple of Papua try­ing to oper­ate their new pulp­ing machine. Often the time and dis­tance the cof­fee has to travel from the farm to the exporter is hun­dreds of Kilometers and sev­eral days. As a result, cof­fee is par­tially dried and wet hulled along the way so it will not be a lost cause when it gets to a major city. Also, it has to travel through as many as six dif­fer­ent trans­porters from the start of its jour­ney to the end.

The ques­tion for Indonesia becomes this, How in the heck can you improve qual­ity, edu­cate the sup­ply chain and make sure the farmer gets rewarded for their efforts? The answer has to be a com­pre­hen­sive strat­egy. This is what SCAI is pro­vid­ing for their coun­try. It comes down to Education, Marketing, and Reward.

SCAI knew that in order for the qual­ity to rise, qual­ity must be under­stood. It also needs to be com­mu­ni­cated to con­sum­ing coun­tries in a way that pro­vides both mar­ket­ing and feed­back for the asso­ci­a­tion and its mem­bers. So, step one was to engage Coffee Quality Institute (CQI) to pro­vide Q-Grader and R-Grader classes in coun­try. This has pro­duced a group of peo­ple that are able to com­mu­ni­cate flu­ently about the qual­ity of cof­fee both amongst them­selves and with the con­sum­ing world. In addi­tion an  ‘edu­ca­tion road­show’ was pro­vided to sev­eral very rural farm­ers to show how sim­ple improve­ments increases qual­ity and that they can be rewarded for it.

This effort has paid off for Indonesia. It paid off both in Arabica and Robusta. The auc­tion of spe­cialty lots brought record prices and val­i­dated the premise that Higher Quality = Higher Rewards. The fol­low­ing is an auc­tion recap.

Over 60 lots were sub­mit­ted to SCAI for con­sid­er­a­tion in the auc­tion. About half did not pass either the green grad­ing stan­dard and/or the cup­ping stan­dard of 82+ on the CQI grad­ing scale. A selec­tion of 24 sam­ples made it to the auc­tion in three cat­e­gories: Robusta, Arabica, and Luwak processed.

Before the auc­tion an inter­na­tional panel of judges from Indonesia, Australia, Korea, Taiwan, and The United States eval­u­ated the lots. Under the lead­er­ship of Ted Lingle as the head judge the cof­fees were scored, ranked and the top were selected to be in a final round of twelve cof­fees to be re-evaluated by the panel. The top-top cof­fees were picked and ranked. The cof­fee was now ready for auction.

SCAI did run into a prob­lem where the auc­tion­eer they were plan­ning on had to drop out at the last minute. Your hum­ble author was asked to step in. (Speaking only for myself, I thought I did a damn good job!)

On auc­tion day the C mar­ket for Arabica was $1.61/lb and the LIFFE price for Robusta was at $.94/lb.

The proof that qual­ity pays is this: The top Robusta got $3.18 per pound! The top Arabica got $20.45 per pound! The Luwak got $45.45 per pound! The over­all Arabica aver­age was $5.11 per pound for the entire auc­tion. If that is not proof that qual­ity pays, it would be hard to say what is!

Perhaps even more impres­sive and impor­tant is that of the top 5 cof­fees, all were sub­mit­ted by coop­er­a­tives. This means that the money is flow­ing back to the peo­ple that pro­duce it. It is often frus­trat­ing as a con­sumer because you do not really know if the pro­ducer is being com­pen­sated for improved qual­ity. In this auc­tion they did! Also sig­nif­i­cant is that the top Arabica and the top Robusta were pur­chased by an Indonesian roaster and the cof­fee will be con­sumed in coun­try! Indonesians have not had cof­fee this good to drink in, well, ever!

The other beau­ti­ful thing that hap­pened at the auc­tion is that the buyer and seller got to meet, shake hands, and even hug at the con­clu­sion of bid­ding for each lot.

ONGOING QUALITY IMPROVEMENT:  It is now a week after the auc­tion and there is a Q-Grader train­ing in Jakarta. One of the stu­dents is a mem­ber of the coöper­a­tive that sub­mit­ted the Arabica that gar­nered the sec­ond high­est price at the auc­tion. Another is the roaster  – retailer ‘my Kopi O!’ owned by Darma Santoso that pur­chased both the high­est priced Arabica and the high­est priced Robusta. Both are com­mit­ted to under­stand­ing how to com­mu­ni­cate about qual­ity in the sup­ply chain. With their efforts and all of the work being done by SCAI, qual­ity in Indonesia will con­tinue to improve, and the pro­duc­ers are cer­tainly get­ting the benefit!

Peru – The New Gold of the Andes

On the road up toward St Ignacio in the heart of the Coffee region of Northern Peru, I am struck by how far we are from the ports on the Pacific, or any­thing else for that mat­ter. We are already five hours out of Chiclayo, headed toward Jaen, and then ulti­mately St Ignacio within sight of the Ecuadorian bor­der. We are going deep to find those cof­fees in Peru that deliver the unique qual­i­ties I have come to expect from Peru. To those who know me, it should come as no sur­prise that Peru is one of my favorite coun­tries – not because of the cui­sine (which is extra­or­di­nary and always a sur­prise) but because of the entire Peruvian cof­fee industry’s intense desire to lift the inter­na­tional sta­tus of their cof­fees to pre­mier levels.

Lifting the per­cep­tion of Peruvian cof­fee how­ever is no small task. Peru is the fifth largest exporter of Arabica cof­fee world­wide. However, the coun­try faces daunt­ing chal­lenges as it hopes to cap­i­tal­ize upon the for­eign exchange poten­tial of its cof­fee crop, not the least of which is the sheer vast­ness and inac­ces­si­bil­ity of the coun­try itself.

Peru is split by the Andes Mountains, the pow­er­ful uplifted mon­u­men­tal peaks that stretch from Punta Arenas in Chile to Lake Maracaibo in Colombia at an aver­age height of 4000 meters (13,000 feet). As the west of Peru is star­tlingly arid, the east­ern sides of the Andes are over­whelm­ingly lush and here is where the cof­fee grows. Traveling to the cof­fee grow­ing regions on often-perilous roads and mule trails, these farms and com­mu­ni­ties are nur­tured by the many furi­ous rivers, head­wa­ters of the Amazon, that cas­cade out of the high­lands, embark­ing on the jour­ney to the South Atlantic. Of all the Latin cof­fee loca­tions I have expe­ri­enced, the region around Jaen and north­ern Peru is by far the most lush and ver­dant; and very far away from the con­sumers who crave their cof­fee. Coffee grown in this region must cross the spine of the Andes over dan­ger­ous and law­less roads to the dry mills in Jaen, four hours away, and then on to Chiclayo over eight more hours onward.

It is the dual chal­lenge of nature and infra­struc­ture – and the often cross pur­poses of their goals – that define the dif­fi­cul­ties. Roads with per­ilous grades and shoul­ders ris­ing and drop­ping like roller coast­ers through the moun­tains, inter­spersed occa­sion­ally with tiny ham­lets wedged between the road and abrupt cliffs drop­ping hun­dreds of feet. Nature often reclaims these roads through mas­sive land­slides that scrape the efforts of man from their pre­car­i­ous moun­tain­side perches.

Because of these, and many more chal­lenges, devel­op­ment of more effi­cient sup­ply chain inno­va­tions is slow and expen­sive. Most cof­fee in Peru is wet milled on the farms using small pulpers and ad hoc patio sys­tems. Farmers reduce the mois­ture con­tent to approx­i­mately 20% and then trans­port the “almost fin­ished” cof­fee to the dry mills. According to Isabel Uriante Latorre, the General Manager of PROASSA, the pri­mary dry mill for Café Feminino in the North of Peru, the wet processed cof­fee typ­i­cally is deliv­ered from the farms every two weeks. PROASSA is in Chiclayo, the major urban cen­ter in this part of Peru and is at sea level. This decen­tral­ized sys­tem inevitably leads to poten­tial incon­sis­tency in qual­ity and pro­vides a fer­tile envi­ron­ment for fun­gal devel­op­ment and rot.

This anti­quated in-country sup­ply chain is a direct result of the mar­ket dri­ven envi­ron­ment that existed up into the 1970’s, what I think of as the “Pre-SBC/Starbuck’s Era.” During this period, there were rel­a­tively few buy­ers, and their focus was on quan­tity and imme­di­ate sup­ply rather than qual­ity and value dif­fer­en­ti­a­tion. The cof­fee indus­try in Peru made the strate­gic deci­sion to place large con­sol­i­dated dry mills closer to the ports and trans­porta­tion net­work along the Pacific. A clear advan­tage at the time but in today’s mar­ket, han­dling cof­fee in this way is not con­sid­ered “best practices.”

The Agricultural Ministry in Peru rec­og­nizes the chal­lenges faced by the cof­fee indus­try in Peru and espe­cially the great ben­e­fits poten­tially avail­able through chang­ing the cur­rent sys­tem. Although there are enor­mous polit­i­cal and pow­er­ful busi­ness inter­ests to over­come, the Ministry under­stands that inter­nal sup­ply chain inno­va­tion is nec­es­sary in order to become a world-class Specialty cof­fee supplier.

And change is hap­pen­ing, one the most highly regarded farmer orga­ni­za­tions in Peru is CENFROCAFE in Jaen– high in the Andes. This Cooperativa is orga­nized around 84 farm asso­ci­a­tions and six dry mill pro­cess­ing and fin­ish­ing asso­ci­a­tions, which fun­nel the cof­fee through the finance, mar­ket­ing and sales office in Jaen. All of this is tak­ing place above 1000 meters alti­tude. This orga­ni­za­tion pro­vides direct access to inter­na­tional mar­kets for thou­sands of farm fam­i­lies. Approximately 92% of the cof­fee moved through CENFROCAFE is cer­ti­fied Organic and 100% is cer­ti­fied Fair Tradetm.

Instrumental to the suc­cess of CENFROCAFE is the high level of access and com­mu­ni­ca­tion between all ele­ments of the asso­ci­a­tion. Members must be pre­pared for con­tin­u­ing inno­va­tion and rein­vest­ment in order to meet the qual­ity stan­dards of the Coöperative.
One such pro­cess­ing asso­ci­a­tion is Casil, Ltda in St. Ignacio Peru. Deep in the cof­fee grow­ing region in the north­ern tip of Peru and within sight of the Ecuadorian bor­der, this dry mill is within easy access to the entire region and receives cof­fee daily dur­ing har­vest. Coffee processed on the farms is quickly con­sol­i­dated through the farm asso­ci­a­tions and trans­ported Casil for fin­ish­ing and dry mill pro­cess­ing. The Coop is financ­ing con­struc­tion on new ware­hous­ing facil­i­ties for stor­age in parch­ment and stor­age in antic­i­pa­tion of mar­kets. A full cup­ping lab rounds out the mix with a “Q” grader on-site for grad­ing and qual­ity con­trol. The level of pro­fes­sion­al­ism at Casil, and through­out the Coöperative shows in the faces and pride of its mem­bers, the numer­ous inter­na­tional cus­tomers pur­chas­ing their prod­ucts at sig­nif­i­cant pre­mi­ums, and their con­sis­tent suc­cess at cup­ping com­pe­ti­tions against other Peruvian coffees.

We had the oppor­tu­nity to meet two farm­ers, who are mem­bers of Casil, and hear their sto­ries. Both were extra­or­di­nary in their affir­ma­tion of qual­ity and the hap­pi­ness of being part of a larger world through the Coöperative.

Here is the foun­da­tion upon which a new and mod­ern Peruvian cof­fee cul­ture will be built. David Bisetti, owner of Bisetti’s and Arabica cafes in Lima along with Hannah Scranton, as well as KC O’Keefe, owner of Café Verde in Lima all believe that the activ­i­ties of CENFROCAFE, and other actively sup­ported inno­va­tions by the Ministry of Agriculture, will serve as poten­tial mod­els for demon­strat­ing to the world that Peru is truly a world-class sup­plier of some of the finest cof­fees in the world.
The com­ing Expo Café in Peru in November will once again demon­strate Peru’s com­mit­ment to con­tin­u­ous improve­ment as the ethos of qual­ity expands through­out Peru.

For more info on Peru includ­ing video inter­views with David Bisetti and Hannah Scranton, KC O’Keefe, as well as farmer inter­views, pho­tos and much more, visit 
www.coffeetalk.com

Experiences from Q Training 2012

I just wanted to share a bit more on this amaz­ing expe­ri­ence from my per­spec­tive as well as a few of my class mates.

Ashley – 14 months in the indus­try as a part of CoffeeTalk Media. Her Family owns a Coffee Farm in Guatemala and she has grown up as a cof­fee pro­ducer.

Q –What was most MEMORABLE about study­ing for and attend­ing the Q Grader Training?

A– The most mem­o­rable part for me was com­ing together with other peo­ple from dif­fer­ent parts of the sup­ply chain (Producers, Importers, Roasters) to learn a com­mon lan­guage and real­ize we are striv­ing for a com­mon pur­pose: Quality.

Q– What was BEST part of this experience?

A– The best part was learn­ing how to cup accord­ing to the Q/SCAA Standards. It is designed in such a way, that I was able to learn how to process and orga­nize my thoughts while cup­ping in order to give a score. Also, being able to go to the cup­ping table and feel­ing con­fi­dent in know­ing how to do this is a great feel­ing. Finally, the cred­i­bil­ity that comes with being a “Licensed Q Grader” is def­i­nitely a huge plus.

Q– What would you con­sider the HARDEST Part of the experience?

A– Definitely prepar­ing for and pass­ing the Sensory Skills Test (Identifying sweet, sour, salty… specif­i­cally deter­min­ing the vary­ing intensities!)

Q– Is there any­thing you Wished Was Different?

A– NO… I thought it was great! The class was well orga­nized and a great learn­ing expe­ri­ence (but very intense)!

Luzma…  20+ Years in the Coffee Industry as a Producer. She is a 3^rd gen­er­a­tion cof­fee farmer from Colombia. She also Manages a farm in Costa Rica.

Q –What was most MEMORABLE about study­ing for and attend­ing the Q Grader Training?

A– To find out that there are fla­vors in the cof­fee like berries and peaches, I could not even believe it! I had heard it, but never believed it before! Then when I cupped it and found the dif­fer­ences between the cof­fees… it was amaz­ing! From the Green to the Roasting, it is just unbelievable.

Q– What was BEST part of this experience?

A–To be with dif­fer­ent peo­ple and to be with friends I enjoy. I already knew Ashley and Kerri, so to share this expe­ri­ence with them was great; but also to meet the other peo­ple from dif­fer­ent coun­tries and back­grounds… I just loved the experience!

Q– What would you con­sider the HARDEST Part of the experience?

A– oh my gosh… the sweet, the salty and sour. The sen­sory eval­u­a­tion test was the most chal­leng­ing! By them­selves, I know the dif­fer­ence; but com­bined, it was really challenging!

Q– Is there any­thing you Wished Was Different?

A– It would be nice to get a recognition/reward at the end… an apron, a spoon, some­thing that shows the accom­plish­ment! The diploma is nice but some­thing to remem­ber it by would be just won­der­ful! Get spon­sors for that, or add it to the price… but it should be included!

Karen… 20+ Years in the Coffee Industry as an Importer. Founder of an import­ing com­pany and mul­ti­ple non-profits in the industry.

Q –What was most MEMORABLE about study­ing for and attend­ing the Q Grader Training?

A– Learning what real sam­ple roasts are like. After 20 years of “wrong habits” I had an eye open­ing expe­ri­ence of the way sam­ples should be roasted.

Q– What was BEST part of this experience?

A– It was an extra­or­di­nary expe­ri­ence for me. I was reborn. I for­got how much I missed being in cof­fee. I was wor­ried about being able to sit still for 10 hours a day. I was sur­prised; it was quite thrilling! I feel like we were doing some­thing impor­tant for the indus­try. We are bridg­ing the gap with the wine indus­try and we are mak­ing giant steps!

Q– What would you con­sider the HARDEST Part of the experience?

A– The stink­ing sen­sory eval­u­a­tion! I still have to pass that part. I think being my age has to do with less abil­ity to dis­tin­guish the fla­vors. Your really have to FEEL the impres­sion on your tongue!

Q– Is there any­thing you Wished Was Different?

A– Don’t give us a test on acids when we haven’t learned them yet! I also think there should be a col­lab­o­ra­tion / updated with other “tree to cup” input… I don’t think that the spe­cialty cof­fee indus­try has the right to dic­tate zero defects! This is “wrong think­ing” who the hell are we??  It is nice to have a high bar; it is not rea­son­able to have a per­fect bar!

Kerri – 19 Years in the Coffee Industry as a Journalist and Non-Profit Volunteer

Q –What was most MEMORABLE about study­ing for and attend­ing the Q Grader Training?

A– Watching Luz Marina fly into the air in jubi­la­tion as she received her Q Grader Certificate.

Q– What was BEST part of this experience?

A– Feeling ALIVE! There is no feel­ing like learn­ing! It was the equiv­a­lent of being back in col­lege dur­ing finals week. We “crammed” for three weeks prior to the actual class, and then would con­tinue to study after the 8–10 hour course/testing for another few hours each night!

Q– What would you con­sider the HARDEST Part of the experience?

A– The absolutely most chal­leng­ing party for me was learn­ing to really dif­fer­en­ti­ate the cof­fees in a tri­an­gu­la­tion. After so many attempts (some fruit­ful, some “epic fail­ures” – thanks Rocky!) I finally real­ized I needed to take more time, really con­cen­trate on the sub­tle dif­fer­ences in acid­ity, body, after­taste, and most impor­tantly, clear my palate (ok take a small drink of water) between tastes.

Q– Is there any­thing you Wished Was Different?

A– Ok, I wish I had passed the first time! I wish I had fig­ured out the tri­an­gu­la­tion process ear­lier. I wish I had cupped more before the actual class and tests. And I think I wish I had an extra day to just prac­tice dur­ing the course.

Sustainable Organic Coffee
Farming and Coffee Tour

Contact Name: Glenn Jampol

Website: www.fincarosablanca.com/?page=coffee/coffee&language=eng
Location: Costa Rica
Email Address: info@FincaRosaBlanca.com
Phone Number: +506‑2269-9392

Project Description

Finca Rosa Blanca has 30 acres of hard bean cof­fee which is cer­ti­fied organic by the BCS OKO Garantie, an inter­na­tional organic agri­cul­ture cer­ti­fi­ca­tion and is cer­ti­fied sus­tain­able by Rain Forest Alliance and ICAFE, the Costa Rican National Organization for Coffee.

The Coffee Plantations: We have planted over 5,000 native trees on our cof­fee plan­ta­tions with the help of the envi­ron­men­tal pro­tec­tion agency (MINAET) and local school chil­dren. These native trees pro­duce shade and nitro­gen for our organic cof­fee and have cre­ated bio­log­i­cal cor­ri­dors for the birds and ani­mals of the area. The cof­fee is planted fol­low­ing the nat­ural topog­ra­phy of the farm to avoid ero­sion and water waste and is pro­tected by liv­ing fences planted with native shrubs and trees.

We use no agro­chem­i­cals, pes­ti­cides, her­bi­cides or fungi­cides on the farm pre­fer­ring to apply the rich com­post from our ver­mi­cul­ture (worm beds) and from the com­post­ing of organic refuse at the hotel and we apply only nat­ural reme­dies for the fun­gus and pests which often plague coffee.

The Coffee Tour: The guests learn how the experts dis­cern and rate gourmet cof­fee by par­tic­i­pat­ing in a “cof­fee cup­ping” (cat­ación) ses­sion with our knowl­edge­able Barista and Coffee Tour Guide. Sit out on the spa­cious deck and enjoy the views of the vol­ca­noes above and cof­fee fields below while sip­ping your cap­puc­cino, enjoy­ing fresh Rosa Blanca pas­tries and learn­ing more about the ben­e­fits to the envi­ron­ment and the com­mu­nity of an organic sus­tain­able cof­fee farm. This tour plus the cup­ping ses­sion lasts 2 hours.

We encour­age our guests to join us on a tour of our plan­ta­tion where they will learn how organic cof­fee is grown, har­vested, dried and processed. In addi­tion to roast­ing and pack­ing their own cof­fee, our guests par­tic­i­pate in a “cat­ación” or a cof­fee tast­ing, learn­ing how the pro­fes­sion­als deter­mine qual­ity and taste includ­ing par­tic­i­pat­ing in the pick­ing of cof­fee dur­ing our har­vest Season (Oct– Jan.) We then take the client through the pro­cess­ing of cof­fee, includ­ing clean­ing the berries and dry­ing them, end­ing with roast­ing your own cof­fee in our roast­ing and pack­ing house.

Vital Habitat for Migrants
About 200 dif­fer­ent species of birds are known as neo trop­i­cal migrants, breed­ing in the habi­tat and back­yards of North America and migrat­ing south to Mexico, Central and South America, and the Caribbean islands for the win­ter. There, the multi-layered veg­e­ta­tion of shade-grown cof­fee plan­ta­tions pro­vides abun­dant food and cover. In many areas, cof­fee farms offer the only good habi­tat amid defor­ested pas­tures and stark monocultures.

The migrants pack into the farms every fall, feast­ing on insects and fruits and often chang­ing their feed­ing and flock­ing behav­ior con­sid­er­ably from that famil­iar to bird­ers in the north. Some of them stop and stay put, often on the same farm as the year before; oth­ers linger and then move on, far­ther south. Both song­birds and birds of prey make the twice-yearly migra­tion; some arrive after jour­neys of thou­sands of miles and open-ocean flights.

Who Benefits From This Project?

How can we cof­fee lovers know if the beans we drink come from farms that are envi­ron­men­tally friendly and socially respon­si­ble? How can we reward farm­ers that are try­ing to grow a great tast­ing cof­fee while pro­tect­ing wildlife and the envi­ron­ment? Credible labels such as Rainforest Alliance Certified, guar­an­tee that farms are on the path toward true sus­tain­abil­ity, and qual­i­fied organic labels guar­an­tee that farms are not using harm­ful pes­ti­cides and fertilizers.

Many, per­haps most, small­hold­ers are organic farm­ers by tra­di­tion, in part because they could never afford to pur­chase agro­chem­i­cals. With the down­turn of prices paid to farm­ers in recent years, pes­ti­cides and fer­til­iz­ers are out of their reach. With organic farm­ing tech­niques – some learned from their grand­par­ents and some from mod­ern agron­omy – cof­fee pro­duc­ers can main­tain pro­duc­tion and con­serve healthy soils, which are their pri­mary inher­i­tance and asset. A sus­tain­able farm man­age­ment sys­tem is based on a holis­tic view of agri­cul­ture that includes con­ser­va­tion of nat­ural resources, rights and ben­e­fits for farm work­ers, equi­table trad­ing, and the farm’s rela­tion­ship with nearby nat­ural and human communities.

Savoring a cup of cer­ti­fied sus­tain­able cof­fee can improve liveli­hoods for farm fam­i­lies and con­serve wildlife and trop­i­cal ecosys­tems – a rare “win-win” oppor­tu­nity. So the next time you see a Baltimore Oriole, Sharp-shinned Hawk or other Neotropic migrant, raise a mug of shade-grown joe and cel­e­brate the at-home con­tri­bu­tion you’ve made to their survival.

How Can I Help?

Finca Rosa Blanca donates 5% of its net income from the bar and restau­rant to use as sources of fund­ing for projects in the com­mu­nity; These projects are based on the need of the com­mu­nity, efforts in con­ser­va­tion and water pro­tec­tion, a soup kitchen for the school­child­ren whose par­ents do not have the finan­cial means to pro­vide them with a healthy lunch, school pro­grams on recy­cling, organic gar­den­ing, and being a good cit­i­zen. All of these projects are impor­tant to the pos­i­tive evo­lu­tion of the local com­mu­nity in which we are located. Any con­tri­bu­tions of cash will be used to fur­ther enhance these already func­tion­ing pro­grams and to cre­ate some new ones, like a com­mu­nity recy­cling cen­ter, pur­chas­ing land for a sus­tain­able meet­ing hall and refor­esta­tion of dec­i­mated areas or open fields.

Coffee Corps Wants You! New Database Online

Contact Name: Joan Uphoff

Website: www.coffeeinstitute.org/a>
Location: Various Coffee Growing Countries
Email Address: juphoff@coffeeinstitute.org
Phone Number: 562−624−4190

Project Description

The Coffee Quality Institute (CQI) is an inter­na­tional non-profit orga­ni­za­tion with an inti­mate under­stand­ing of cof­fee indus­try needs and years of expe­ri­ence in the devel­op­ment of effi­cient cof­fee mar­ket link­ages, tech­ni­cal assis­tance, mar­ket devel­op­ment, and capac­ity build­ing in devel­op­ing coun­tries. Our tech­ni­cal assis­tance, busi­ness solu­tions and inno­v­a­tive approaches to eco­nomic sus­tain­abil­ity allow cof­fee pro­duc­ers to not only improve their income today but to make invest­ments for the future and the future of their communities.

CQI’s Coffee Corps™ Volunteer Program, estab­lished in 2003, pro­vides train­ing and tech­ni­cal assis­tance to small-to-medium sized pro­duc­ers by match­ing coffee-industry experts with farm­ers and asso­ci­a­tions at ori­gin. These highly skilled pro­fes­sion­als are will­ing to donate their time and exper­tise to pro­vide train­ing aimed at improv­ing the qual­ity of cof­fee as well as the lives of the peo­ple who pro­duce it. These vol­un­teers help grow­ers improve their pro­duc­tion and pro­cess­ing meth­ods, and train roast­ers, pack­agers, exporters, baris­tas and café own­ers about qual­ity con­trol processes and marketing.

The mis­sion of the Coffee Corps is to enhance the liveli­hoods of cof­fee farm­ers, work­ers and entre­pre­neurs in devel­op­ing coun­tries and to help ensure a reli­able sup­ply of qual­ity cof­fee prod­ucts for the world. The Coffee Corps brand and logo is a trade­mark of the Coffee Quality Institute.

NEW APPLICATION: A new Coffee Corps data­base has been devel­oped and all new and cur­rent vol­un­teers are required to com­plete a new appli­ca­tion to stay active in the pro­gram. The appli­ca­tion is avail­able under Coffee Corps on the CQI web­site www.coffeeinstitute.org.

Coffee Corps vol­un­teers are deployed to ori­gin to help address locally iden­ti­fied needs in a vari­ety of ways, includ­ing pro­fes­sional train­ing in the fol­low­ing areas: cof­fee cup­ping and qual­ity assess­ment, roast­ing, pro­cess­ing, qual­ity con­trol, mar­ket­ing, barista skills, cof­fee lab devel­op­ment as well agro­nomic and envi­ron­men­tal issues. Coffee Corps vol­un­teers have worked in most of the cof­fee pro­duc­ing coun­tries in Central and South America, Indonesia and East Africa.

How Can I Help?

The Coffee Quality Institute and Coffee Corps do not pro­vide direct financ­ing for any projects. Our activ­i­ties and project sched­ules are deter­mined not only by need, but fund­ing sources and oppor­tu­ni­ties. The strength of our pro­gram is the cal­iber and deter­mi­na­tion of our vol­un­teers and their will­ing­ness to pro­vide sig­nif­i­cant pro­fes­sional train­ing and con­sul­ta­tion. For more infor­ma­tion please visit www.coffeeinstitute.org.

Where Quality 
Meets Sustainability

Twice a year, a panel of experts from the cof­fee indus­try con­venes to accom­plish a com­mon goal: demon­strate the qual­ity of sus­tain­ably pro­duced cof­fees. Since 2003, the Rainforest Alliance has been host­ing Cupping for Quality events to rec­og­nize farm­ers for their hard work in adopt­ing envi­ron­men­tally and socially respon­si­ble man­age­ment prac­tices, and to dis­pel any per­cep­tion that qual­ity is com­pro­mised for sustainability.

Rainforest Alliance Certified™ farms in Ethiopia, Colombia, Guatemala, and El Salvador earned top marks at the Spring 2012 Cupping for Quality in New York City. The results were announced on April 20 at the annual Rainforest Alliance Sustainable Coffee Breakfast at the Specialty Coffee Association of America’s annual tradeshow in Portland, OR.

This cup­ping had the most robust set of flights yet, with a total of 90 cof­fee sam­ples from nine ori­gins sub­mit­ted, At the InterContinental Exchange Grading Room in New York City, a group of 12 expert cup­pers par­tic­i­pated in the two-and-half-day event, eval­u­at­ing the sam­ples accord­ing to their aroma and fla­vor pro­files. The sam­ples were roasted and pre­pared by Marty Curtis of Combustion Systems Sales, who also led the cupping.

“The best part of our cup­ping events is who they bring to the table,” said Maya Albanese, event host­ess and Coördinator of Sustainable Agriculture at the Rainforest Alliance. “Luminaries in the cof­fee indus­try dri­ving social and envi­ron­men­tal change in busi­nesses of all dif­fer­ent shapes and sizes come together to sup­port the mis­sion of the Rainforest Alliance. By spend­ing time tast­ing and eval­u­at­ing Rainforest Alliance Certified cof­fees, they are sup­port­ing farms with sus­tain­able man­age­ment prac­tices and help­ing to grow the mar­ket for sus­tain­able coffees.”

The high­est score – 86 points – went to Idido of the Kokie Farmers Coöperative, an asso­ci­a­tion of small­holder farm­ers located in the moun­tain forests of Yirgaceffe in Southern Ethiopia. Over 95 per­cent of the sam­ples scored above 80, the thresh­old for spe­cialty cof­fee — an indi­ca­tion that sus­tain­able farm­ing prac­tices often con­tribute to the pro­duc­tion of high-quality cof­fee. Rainforest Alliance Certified farms are required to adopt social and envi­ron­men­tal man­age­ment sys­tems that are ben­e­fi­cial to the pro­duc­tion process, envi­ron­ment, and out­put of the farms.

“Since the very first Rainforest Alliance Cupping for Quality event in 2003, it has been a joy to see improve­ments all along the way — and not just qual­ity improve­ments, but also new ori­gins with cer­ti­fied pro­duc­tion and over­all increases in the avail­able cer­ti­fied sup­ply,” said Chad Trewick, Cupper and Senior Director of Coffee & Tea at Caribou Coffee. “This event is tes­ta­ment to the great ben­e­fits of rec­og­niz­ing and reward­ing qual­ity within a prag­matic and effec­tive cer­ti­fi­ca­tion program.”

“I believe that most of this advance­ment is a result of sus­tain­able prac­tices insti­tuted over the years,” added Marty Curtis, Lead Cupper and founder of Combustion Systems Sales & Service.

Rainforest Alliance Certified farms are com­mit­ted to reduc­ing their envi­ron­men­tal foot­print, being good neigh­bors to human and wildlife com­mu­ni­ties and abid­ing by a strict set of social and envi­ron­men­tal cri­te­ria out­lined by the Sustainable Agriculture Network, a coali­tion of lead­ing con­ser­va­tion groups with the Rainforest Alliance as lead coördinator.

The Rainforest Alliance Cupping for Quality takes place twice per year to accom­mo­date vary­ing cof­fee har­vest cycles around the world. Cuppers par­tic­i­pate on an invi­ta­tion only basis, but invi­ta­tions can be requested from the event coör­di­na­tor by vis­it­ing: www.ra.org/agriculture/crops/coffee/cupping-quality. The next two cup­ping events will take place in Long Beach, CA, on December 6 and 7, 2012, and in New York City on March 28 and 29, 2013.

To meet rapidly increas­ing con­sumer demand for sus­tain­ably pro­duced goods, more cof­fee com­pa­nies glob­ally are sourc­ing their beans from Rainforest Alliance Certified farms. In 2011, over 245,000 met­ric tons of RA cer­ti­fied cof­fee were pro­duced. This is an increase in pro­duc­tion of 20 per­cent over 2010. Rainforest Alliance Certified cof­fee now rep­re­sents an esti­mated 3.3 per­cent of the global mar­ket. Another mile­stone of note in 2011 was the cer­ti­fi­ca­tion of two cof­fee farms under the Rainforest Alliance’s new cli­mate mod­ule. El Platanillo in Guatemala and Daterra in Brazil are two cof­fee farms that will now be able to reduce their green­house gas emis­sions and bet­ter adapt to chang­ing cli­matic con­di­tions because of their addi­tional climate-friendly certification.

To learn more about Rainforest Alliance cer­ti­fi­ca­tion, and how it improves the lands, lives and liveli­hoods of cof­fee farm­ing com­mu­ni­ties, visit: www.sealyourcup.org.

Retailer Profile: Ipsento: A Must-Go in Chicago

[dropcap2S[/dropcap2]ome cof­fee mani­acs say that the Chicago cof­fee scene would be empty with­out Ipsento Coffee House. Apparently, there aren’t too many cof­fee places like Ipsento that can live up to the stan­dards of the young, urban and artsy com­mu­nity of Chicago. Please lis­ten up to the Ipsento’s owner Tim Taylor, who is here with us today:

V. What is up Tim! What is your story of ini­ti­a­tion to cof­fee?
T. Hi Max! I was an avid cof­fee drinker in col­lege about seven years ago. However, as many other col­lege stu­dents, I was on a bud­get; so, I decided to save money by roast­ing my own cof­fee. I bought green beans, roasted them on a pop­corn pop­per at home and got great cof­fee that way. I started research­ing a bit more try­ing to fig­ure out how to roast bet­ter, and all of it was really inter­est­ing to me, so it all quickly became a hobby.

Once I grad­u­ated from col­lege, I started work­ing for U.S. Airways in the air­port and actu­ally vis­ited some cof­fee farms in Guatemala and Costa Rica while I was work­ing for the air­line in Central America. At some point, I was like “Man! I am gonna start a cof­fee busi­ness.” I actu­ally got a roaster and a cart, so the roaster was on wheels and then, I started bring­ing the whole thing to a farm­ers’ mar­ket in Chicago to roast on-site. At this point I didn’t have any loca­tion; I would just roast on week­ends at the market.

About the same time, I vis­ited a cou­ple more farms and tried to import cof­fee in very small amounts ini­tially. However, I was get­ting started amidst a cof­fee cri­sis in early 2004-05, when farm­ers weren’t paid really well, so I became famil­iar with that story. This is how I got into import­ing and wanted to make sure that farm­ers were paid fairly. After I started out, I con­tin­ued with the farm­ers mar­ket and import busi­ness for a cou­ple of years on the side, before I opened up a café. Then I took over Ipsento.

V. Nice story! What kind of roaster are you using?
T. Diedrich IR-3. We do about 5-pound batches in it, but I did just pur­chase a larger roaster that is not installed yet. It is a Diedrich IR-12, and we will install it in a cou­ple of weeks at the exist­ing loca­tion, but we are still look­ing for a place to expand for a larger oper­a­tion later on.

V. How is the busi­ness going?
T. Business is going pretty well in spite of the econ­omy here in the U.S. I am directly import­ing about half of our cof­fees, and I am work­ing with other importers who have sim­i­lar ethics and that made my life a lot eas­ier. I am still learn­ing because I didn’t study busi­ness and had to learn a lot along the way.

V. What makes you dif­fer­ent from your com­peti­tors in Chicago?
T. For starters, we are roast­ing on-site, and there aren’t that many cafes in Chicago roast­ing in-store, so peo­ple respond to that: they like to see us doing our work. We also put a big empha­sis on edu­ca­tion, and that is a big thing for Chicago – we edu­cate our con­sumers and not just our baris­tas, by doing a free cup­ping every week.

We also offer a cou­ple of unique drinks. The most pop­u­lar one was cre­ated by my sis­ter: our Ipsento latte con­tains coconut milk and honey, among other ingre­di­ents. To my knowl­edge, there is no other place in the city that offers some­thing like this so far.
And lastly, we have part­nered with a local syrup pro­ducer, who has crafted a cus­tom syrup just for us, and it has been a big hit in our store.

V. Is there any­thing you would like to share with the cof­fee world?
T. I know my baris­tas are frus­trated with me, but I am all the way to the Third Wave – no more mochas, no more milk, just cof­fee except machi­ato. I do know a num­ber of shops that failed try­ing to do this because the con­sumers aren’t at this point yet. We want to bring the spe­cialty cof­fee indus­try to the next level by engag­ing and invit­ing con­sumers to expe­ri­ence the true taste of cof­fee. However, it is about grad­u­ally edu­cat­ing our cus­tomers, not just telling them what they need to like, and this is what we have been try­ing to do here.

Ipsento Coffee House & Roaster

2035 North Western Avenue
Chicago, IL 60647
www.ipsento.com
j@ipsento.com

Retailer Profile: Mad “Cap” of Coffee

Sup guys! Good times at SCAA in Portland, no? If you were there, maybe you got a chance to meet up with Ryan Knapp, the co-owner of MadCap Coffee Company in Grand Rapids, MI. This 26-year old is pretty remark­able; his roastery/café is one of the most suc­ces­ful ones in Michigan, his roast­ing skills cre­ate buzz around his many whole­sale cus­tomers on the East Coast, and his barista dex­ter­i­ties knock female cus­tomers off their feet. I had an oppor­tu­nity to inter­view the guy and here is what came out from our conversation:

V. Hi Ryan! Traditional ques­tion brother, how did you dip your feet in cof­fee?

K. Hi Max! About 5 years ago, I was fin­ish­ing up col­lege and had no idea what to do with my Theology degree. About that time, I made a trip to East Africa, mostly Uganda and a lit­tle bit of Rwanda. I guess I was kind of inspired by how much of an effect cof­fee could have on coun­tries’ economies and Rwanda specif­i­cally, which expe­ri­enced so much of this dur­ing the last cou­ple of decades. Coffee has been its num­ber one export com­mod­ity, so on that side of things I was really intrigued by it. And then I started work­ing as a barista in this café in a small town in Illinois, and had no idea how much cof­fee would draw me in. I fell in love with mak­ing espresso, and brew­ing cof­fee.
Trevor Corlett and I decided to open up MadCap Company together in Grand Rapids, a place where we could deliver the high­est level of qual­ity and focus on deli­cious cof­fee with­out cut­ting cor­ners on any step of the chain.

V. Ah, I see… It could be inter­est­ing for some to know why it’s hard to deliver qual­ity cof­fee in a small town?

K. We were in a super small town, of about 15,000 peo­ple maybe, and it is dif­fi­cult to do cof­fee with the qual­ity that we wanted to do in such a low traf­fic area, so we were look­ing for a big­ger city than that. We found Grand Rapids to be an attrac­tive city with a very accept­ing food cul­ture. The spe­cialty cof­fee move­ment was pretty new in Michigan as a whole in the entire state, so we thought we had a lot to offer, and it has been a great com­mu­nity for us so far.
I just think that with buy­ing expen­sive cof­fee, you also have to sell a lot of expen­sive cof­fee, and we have just been in a town where you don’t have a lot of fancy brew­eries and restau­rants. Sometimes that stan­dard of qual­ity is hard to deliver because it is hard to find some­body who wants it. Specialty cof­fee isn’t for every­one and not every­body gets excited about it, but that is ok, the more peo­ple are excited about it the bet­ter (laughs).

V. I have heard that MadCap buys cof­fee from this sweet farm Finca de Dios, Guatemala. Please tell me about your rela­tion­ship with it.

K. Quality and rela­tion­ships are the two things that we are really focused on as a busi­ness. We have been buy­ing from Finca de Dios since the first year that we have opened, and we visit it every year. Currently, every cof­fee that we pur­chase from them is part of a rela­tion­ship: we are com­mited to them – farm­ers know that we are gonna pay money for their cof­fee no mat­ter what.

V. What is one of the most effec­tive meth­ods that you have found as far as pro­mot­ing the public’s inter­est in spe­cialty cof­fee?

K. I believe the most suc­ces­ful method for us has been our Sunday ser­vice, where we pair dif­fer­ent foods and cof­fees in a sit down man­ner. It is not a com­mon cup­ping expe­ri­ence, it is more closely related to a fine din­ing expe­ri­ence. Sometimes when you do a cup­ping for­mat it can be a lit­tle intim­i­dat­ing and less sen­si­ble for con­sumers and we want to offer some­thing that is a lit­tle more com­fort­able and unique.

V. Que bueno! What kind of foods do you pair and what has been the gen­eral recep­tion from the pub­lic?

K. We usu­ally work with local com­pa­nies to deliver the food to us. The choice varies depend­ing on the ser­vice. On our first ser­vice we had blue­ber­ries, cheese and bisquits. In another one we did choco­late pair­ings. The main goal is to com­ple­ment and to high­light the cof­fees we use.
As far as the recep­tion it has been really, really good so far. The most excit­ing part about it is hav­ing peo­ple com­ing back dur­ing the week after the Sunday ser­vice and ask­ing more and more ques­tions about the stuff they learned dur­ing it.

V. We are near­ing the end of our inter­view, is there some­thing that you would like to share with our caf­feinated audi­ence?

K. Yeah, for sure! I think we have grown so much as an indus­try that you see more and more roast­ers that are excited to see great cof­fees. However, more than often I find myself talk­ing with other roast­ers, and they will say I wish I could do some­thing this way, but I am not able to do this because my cus­tomers will get mad, or I don’t have any money. For exam­ple, they are afraid to buy expen­sive cof­fee because they don’t think their cus­tomer base will pay 50 cents more for a bet­ter cof­fee, but I think there is a lot that we can do. Get out of the box and don’t be afraid to oper­ate differently!

MadCap Coffee Company

98 Monroe Center NW
Grand Rapids, MI 49503.
www.madcapcoffee.com
info@madcapcoffee.com

B2B eCommerce Can Help Achieve Financial Sustainability">B2B eCommerce Can Help Achieve Financial Sustainability

Specialty green cof­fee buy­ers and sell­ers have a prob­lem: There is not enough time in the day.

The prob­lem is becom­ing more pro­nounced as spe­cialty green cof­fee offer­ings become increas­ingly com­plex and along with it, busi­ness devel­op­ment. For a buyer, this means it takes longer to find what they need. For a seller, it can take longer than it should to move a prod­uct. This leads to a longer time to mar­ket and time is money.

The infor­ma­tion green buy­ers now require to make a pur­chase is a hand­ful to man­age. Detail on cof­fee qual­ity tops the list, includ­ing cof­fee grade and cup­ping notes. A close sec­ond, accord­ing to most roast­ers, is where a cof­fee is cur­rently located and the amount avail­able. Next is a lengthy list of attrib­utes that for many can make or break a sale, such as vari­etal, pro­cess­ing, and ele­va­tion. A nice addi­tion is the farmer or ori­gin story.

Jeff Taylor at PT’s Coffee explains, “the search for an offer­ing is dif­fer­ent every time, there is no nor­mal process, which means find­ing what you need is time con­sum­ing.” Dan Ericson at Camano Island Roasters adds, “ I some­times have to call 10 dif­fer­ent importers to find what I need.” In the 21^st cen­tury, there has to be a faster way to find information.

Green cof­fee sell­ers have made some attempts to col­lect, store and share infor­ma­tion, such as cof­fee pro­file pdf’s that are shared with roast­ers. Other sell­ers make their pro­files acces­si­ble on their web­sites. But this infor­ma­tion is cum­ber­some to update for the seller and dif­fi­cult to find and sort through for the buyer. Nor is any of this infor­ma­tion inte­grated with inven­tory or account­ing soft­ware. All together, cur­rent infor­ma­tion shar­ing in the business-to-business (B2B) spe­cialty cof­fee mar­ket is inef­fi­cient and adds unnec­es­sary cost along the sup­ply chain.

Not only is infor­ma­tion not stored and trans­ferred well, the right infor­ma­tion is not being placed in the right hands as fast as it should. This means unnec­es­sary days inven­tory out­stand­ing for pro­duc­ers and bro­kers, which is painful for a busi­ness. Sammy Demisse at Keffa Coffee points out that “a cof­fee can sit unsold for weeks or months, it can be hard to say how long it will take to sell.” There is noth­ing unique about this prob­lem; it is some­thing that all green cof­fee sell­ers must manage.

Fortunately, there is an answer that saves time and makes for more effec­tive green cof­fee sales and mar­ket­ing. We see the solu­tion every­day in the con­sumer mar­ket and now it is enter­ing the B2B world – eCom­merce, i.e. an online trad­ing plat­form for spe­cialty coffee.

By imple­ment­ing eCom­merce, pro­duc­ers and bro­kers can store and trans­fer infor­ma­tion effi­ciently and share it more effec­tively with the right buyer. This helps the seller cut costs and facil­i­tate sales and simul­ta­ne­ously makes the buyer’s search for the right cof­fee much more con­ve­nient. Many B2B indus­tries have already begun adopt­ing eCom­merce and it has proven to help save money while facil­i­tat­ing growth in today’s chal­leng­ing marketplace.

Specialty cof­fee is late to the B2B eCom­merce game, which is unfor­tu­nate because not only would it help spe­cialty cof­fee busi­nesses save money, but sell­ers and buy­ers alike would have more time to focus on the most impor­tant aspect of spe­cialty cof­fee – cof­fee qual­ity. B2B eCom­merce will free up resources that can be diverted to tasks such as explor­ing new ori­gins, cup­ping, and invest­ing in the next crop.

Let’s pic­ture what eCom­merce would look like along the spe­cialty cof­fee chain. The actual imple­men­ta­tion and inte­gra­tion can be com­plex, but the user expe­ri­ence for sell­ers and buy­ers is super simple.

Starting at the top of the B2B chain, seller-offering sheets should turn into search­able online prod­uct cat­a­logs so green buy­ers are able to quickly find what they need and even request sam­ples or make pur­chases seam­lessly online. Buyers should also be able to save, share and com­pare offer­ings, and then buy online with their pre­ferred pay­ment method.

Looking down the chain, all users should have online accounts that record and ana­lyze sales his­tory, report cof­fee avail­abil­ity in real time, make it easy for new offer­ings to be dis­cov­ered and incred­i­bly easy for sta­ple offer­ings to be reordered. And this is just the start.

The oppor­tu­nity is huge and within reach. Look for B2B eCom­merce in spe­cialty cof­fee in 2012.

Hayden launched Koffeelink in March 2011 to pro­vide green cof­fee traders with a plat­form to mar­ket and find spe­cialty offer­ings. Prior, he has worked as a con­sul­tant on b2b com­mu­ni­ca­tions and inter­na­tional sup­ply chain man­age­ment, served as a Peace Corps Volunteer in El Salvador, and has a Master’s in International Business from The Fletcher School at Tufts University.