2 weeks ago I visited Jobneel at Nacimiento in Santa Barbara in Honduras. We have been buying coffee from Jobneel and his father Extreberto (Cielito Lindo) for almost 5 years now through the Cup of Excellence and also direct. Although I had a very productive visit to their farms last year, I wanted to try to push Jobneel into doing even better during this visit.

Processing

I was really happy to see that Jobneel was already using the african washing technique that we worked on last year. This certainly removes a lot of the floaters and helps improve the average density and quality of the coffee.  However, I was disappointed to see that his wet mill was a total mess and very dirty. I told him straight away that if he did not clean his mill, most likely we would not buy the coffee as it is very likely to ruin the quality of the coffee. Jobneel started cleaning it straight away and on my recommendation he decided to go to San Pedro Sula the following week in order to buy a pressure washer (I don’t understand why not more farmers use this) to make cleaning the mill easier. We also agreed that it is a good idea to lay tiles in the fermentation tanks as the concrete is hard to keep clean. When I came back to the farm the second day, the mill looked spotless and we were both very happy.

Varieties

Another positive development I saw was that Jobneel was already planting more Pacas on higher altitudes on his farm because of the feedback and the higher price we gave him last year for that particular variety. The Pacas seems to be the best performing variety on his farm when it comes to cup quality as it produces winey and intense fruity coffees. Jobneel asked me if I liked the Catimor he is growing, and to be honest the Cielito Lindo coffee we have loved in the past has been a blend of Catimor and Pacas. Therefore I did not really know what to respond to Jobneel’s question, so we decided to cup the Catimor (Ihcafe 90) to see if I liked it. It turned out to be a very unpleasant experience. It tasted a lot like tobacco and burlap and had a rough mouthfeel and astringent finish. (Like clean Sumatran coffees can taste) Since this has been my experience from a lot of other Catimors I have tasted I decided to advise Jobneel not to plant more. Jobneel however, decided to start to remove his catimors and re plant more Pacas and Bourbon as soon as the new Pacas was performing well.

Cherry selection

The biggest challenge for Jobneel is to get enough pickers to work for him during the harvest as the farm is on the top of the mountain and there are no people living around the farm. At Nacimiento there needs to be picked coffee almost every day as the ripening of the coffee is not uniform because of the unstable climate. This makes it difficult for the pickers to only pick ripe cherries as there is a lot of green unripe and also overripe and cherries, that has broken because of excess rain, on the same tree. I was quite disappointed to see that there was a lot of green coffee in the receiving tank and had to spend about an hour talking with Jobneel how bad this is both for quality and his income. Jobneel constantly answered with how difficult it is to get workers and although he pays them more for only picking ripe cherries, it does not seem to be efficient. I decided to make an example in order to make Jobneel realize the importance of good cherry selection. I took a sample of cherries from the receiving tank and started counting all the unripe, ripe, overripe and broken cherries. The numbers turned out to be:

• 51% red ripe cherries (Higher Acidity)
• 17% purple ripe cherries (More sweetness)
• 29% Green unripe / semi ripe cherries (Astringency and sour acidity and unpleasant nutty flavours)
•   3% Overripe, dried or broken cherries (Fungus, ferment and unclean flavors)

 Next year and beyond

For next year Jobneel will finalize his drying patio and raised beds so he can control his own drying. He will also start implementing the following:

• Get an agronomist to make a map of the farm, mapping soil quality and variety in order to be able to separate lots and fertilize more correctly.
• Standardise fermentation and washing techniques.
• Standardise drying technique on raised beds and patios
• Hire women to sort out bad parchment during drying
• Extra sorting of cherries and parchment in march / April
• Implement logging system and quality control system

I can’t wait to get started, but first I will be enjoying the fresh crop samples from Nacimiento and Cielito Lindo this year. Hopefully they will be available for sale in July.

We have now started selling the very best lot from Nacimiento 2011.

It is from the Pacas variety that was picked in April 2011.

This coffee, because of its variety, growing conditions and especially late harvest time has a very consentrated flavor of cherries and black currants. A very juicy coffee with firm winey acidity.

By far the best lot we bought in Honduras last year.

For more information about the farmer and the coffee go here.

We are so proud and very happy to have some new coffees for sale.

This time, the new crop from one of our all time favorites, Jobneel at Finca Nacimiento is finally in house and on the shelves.
We have bought 5 lots from him this year and the first release is a Bourbon picked on the 3rd of March. This coffee is so ripe and juicy that people think it is a Kenyan coffee. Loads of ripe cherry flavours. For more information on the coffee go here.

We are also thrilled to finally be able to sell some very special coffee from the Caballero family in Marcala, Honduras. They have several farms, so we decided to honor their name by calling the coffee “Caballero” as their family has been pioneering coffee in Honduras for over a century. We bought 7 different lots from the Caballeros this year, and first one for sale is the first picking from the farm Los Cipreses. For more info go here.

The third release this week is a coffee from one of the first farms we ever bought coffee from when we opened in 2007. Finca La Montañita is situated in the mountains of El Salvador. The Pacamara that we bought from Mr. Antonio René this year has a lot of crisp apple acidity and intense fruity flavors.
For more info go here.

We hope you will enjoy these coffees.

Here are some more pictures from my visit to the farms Naciemento and Cielito Lindo in Santa Barbara in Honduras.

Yesterday I spent a whole day with Jobneel at him and his father’s farms Nacimiento and Cielito Lindo in Santa Barbara in Honduras.

As I had already been to the farm last year, I asked Jobneel if he could show me how they pick and process their coffee at the farm.

Normally they would be in full harvest by now, but due to climatic changes, they had only done the first picking and were still waiting for the main harvest to happen in March / April.

(My exporter, Angel showing me Jobneels diferent lots)

Fortunately, Jobneel had already finished the first picking and separated his lots into different varietals, like I had suggested for him after last years visit. Early in the morning I had the chance to cup two different Bourbon lots next to a lot of Pacas and Catuai and Extreberto’s Catimor varietal (IHCAFE 90) and some of the coffees from the neighbouring farms. I insisted cupping the coffes blind as always and for the fourth year in a row I selected Extrebertos coffee to be the best. I actually thought his coffee was Catuai due to a misprint on the Cup of Excellence web page about his coffee, and therefore was very surprised to learn that the coffee was in fact a Catimor varietal. (Catimor is often regarded as a low quality varietal due to its genes from Robusta plants.)

After the cupping I went straight up 700 meters in an old Toyota pickup, to visit Jobneel and Extreberto at their farms. At he end of the road on top of the mountain at 1500 meters above the sea is the farmhouse of Nacimiento where Jobneel and his family stays during the harvest.

Upon arrival I could clearly see some changes from last year. Jobneel had spent a lot of the money he earned last year on a new wet mill with 2 fermentation tanks and a washing channel, water reservoir, etc. Compared to the old wooden tanks and tiny depulping machine it was a huge improvement. The mill was just finished and Jobneel had only used it twice before I came, so I had to teach him a few tricks I learned in Kenya in November on how to properly wash coffee to remove floaters, etc. (I will post a video of his processing technique later)

I also got a 2 hour tour of the farm where we looked at all the different varietals he is growing (40 year old Bourbon and old and new Catuai, Pacas and Catimor ) I convinced him not to remove the old trees, but rather prune them so that they get more healthy. Old trees have proved a few times to produce better quality due to stronger roots and less fruit on the tree.

Walking, or should I say climbing around the farm is breathtaking, both because of the high altitude and extremely steep hills but also in terms of the scenery. The day was very cool and  misty and I could only in brief moments catch the beautiful view of the lake and surrounding mountains.

In one of the steepest hills (probably 55 degrees) I met Extreberto, Jobneels father. Extreberto is 73 years old but still working every day. As a matter of fact he was picking coffee so that I could see how they process the cherries later in the afternoon.

One of the things I noticed when they were picking was that a lot of the cherries had cracked due to a lot of rain and sun. I had earlier on my trip learned that this may be a reason for phenolic defect in the coffee (Phenol tastes medicinal and mould and is a huge problem as one bean will affect the taste of a whole pot of coffee.)

I also noticed that a lot of the pickers were picking a lot of these cherries and green unripe cherries among the ripe cherries. I explained to Jobneel that in Kenya all the farmers remove the green and bad cherries from  the ripe cherries before they are processed, so I suggested for Jobneel to start doing the same. Fortunately he is very commited to growing quality so he decided to start immediately. That meant we had to get on our knees and remove all the bad fruit from the good coffee before processing.

Angel (my exporter and partner of Jobneel) decided to make an experiment to see if the cracked fruit would taste like phenol, so we separated that from all the other cherries to process and taste to see if we are right.

After a long day with many discussions, we concluded that Jobneel is going to do the following this harvest:

• Separating all varietals in to separate lots so we can taste the difference and choose the best ones and pay according to quality.
• Remove all unripe, black and cracked coffee cherries from the ripe ones before processing.
• Pay the pickers a premium for being more selective and thourough during picking.
• Test the Kenyan washing technique to remove floaters and pulp from the parchment.
• Plan to build a solar dryer for the wet parchment coffee for next years harvest.

After a lovely home made dinner before the end of my visit, Jobneel politely took me aside to ask me if we were willing to pay a bit more for his coffee this year as he had made a lot of investments and I had also suggested a lot of new techniques for him to implement that would add more costs to his production. He also wanted to know if we will buy his coffee in the future and how much coffee we need from him this year. He even asked if it was ok with me if he participated in the Cup of Excellence.

My reply was of course, Yes! Please participate in the COE. Yes, we will continue to buy his coffee as long as he is producing high quality and Yes we will pay according to our agreement from last year which was between USD 4 to 6 per lb of coffee depending on the quality.

All in all I am just extremely happy, Inspired and greatful to see that Jobneel and Extreberto are still committed to do the extra work to produce quality, that they invest in their farm for the future and that they are willing to improve and experiment to develop the quality of their coffee. This is not normal to see this year when the farmers are getting payed USD 3 – 4 per lb even for the worst qualities due to the record high New York C -market prices.

I am really looking forward to taste the coffees they are about to pick, and most likely they will be in Norway in August.

Thumbs up!

Yesterday I got a link sent to me by a good friend and coffee enthusiast in San Francisco. The link is to an Internet forum called Home Barista that is basically a discussion forum for coffee enthusiasts from around the world. I was a bit surprised to read this post on a forum created by and for coffee lovers, so I felt I had to reply in order to educate our customers and also to try to explain that not all coffee companies are the same.

Transparency

A lot of high quality driven roasters, including ourselves, preach that transparency is the most important part of our trade, but rarely do we actually get to see the numbers in the coffee industry. Sustainable Harvest is one of the few companies that are trying to do something about this through their Relationship Information Tracking System.

Cup of Excellence is also a great example of where consumers can get full traceability of the coffee trade.

I have been trying to establish a traceability system of our own and also to develop a contract that shows what the farmer gets when we pay USD 3 pr. lb (453g) FOB for coffee. We do have the contracts in Kenya as this is cooperative coffees created by hundreds of farmers. For all the other coffees we have bought this year we feel we don’t need it as we are communicating directly with the farmers anyway. We are still far away from being 100% transparent but hopefully in the future we will be able to get a system for it that enables our customers to get all the info they need.

As a temporary solution I have started to systemize all the information about our coffee purchases from the end of last year, and to my surprise we are actually paying a higher average price for our coffee than I thought we were.

Coffee prices

For the past months we have read that the C market price for coffee is at it’s highest in over 10 years at about USD 1,6 pr. lb. (453 g) of green coffee.

Although this is not a very high price for coffee it is still very positive that it is going up, as the price has been way too low for the last 10 years, forcing a lot of producers to start growing other cash crops in order to survive.

As you all probably know, we do not trade coffee based on the C market price and we do not sign future contracts based upon today’s prices like most of the bigger roasteries do. We buy the coffee direct from exporters or farmers and negotiate the price based on taste and quality. We negotiate with the farmer and the exporter. Not with a broker. We also have gentlemen’s agreements with farmers that if they continue their work with quality, we will be there to support them by buying their coffees.

As promised, I will try to do an effort for transparency, so here are the prices in USD pr. lb that we have payed for our coffees FOB  (free on board) in 2010:

Panama, Hacienda la Esmeralda:______ 26,50 $ + packing

Honduras, Cielito Lindo 2010 COE:_____  8,10 + packing

El Salvador, Las Palmas 2010 COE:_____ 5,31 + packing

Honduras, Naciemento:______________  3,50

Honduras, Finca El Pantanal:___________3,00

Guatemala, Santa Ana:_______________ 3,50

Kenya, Mugaga:_____________________ 4,77

Kenya, Tekangu:____________________  5,23

Of course these lots are not the same size. The Esmeralda was only about 120kg for instance. So the average price per lb. so far this year is actually USD 5,06.

Adding to the cost

As you may know, this is just for the green coffee. We also need to  pay for the shipping and handling of the coffee before it gets to our roastery. Shipping cost can vary greatly depending on the origin of the coffee. The price of the coffee gets about 25 to 30 % higher for the coffee when we include these costs. On average this means the price for the coffee when it has arrived to Norway is about USD 6,58 pr.lb.

We also need to cover our travel expenses that we spend when we travel around the world to find these coffees and visit the producers.

So far this year I have been to Kenya and Honduras, and I am going to Brazil next week, to Colombia in October and visiting Kenya again in November. That adds up to 60 days of traveling and a cost around NOK 120.000,- or about USD 20.200,- only for 2010.

My accountant may think I am crazy spending so much on traveling, but I think it is totally necessary and a good investment for the future. We are building relationships with serious farmers and we are trying to secure a good supply of great coffees in the future. We want to develop long term relationships with the farmers, not have one night stands with them.

After the coffee has arrived to Norway we still need to roast it, so you have to add the  cost of production, rent needs to be payed as well as salaries, delivery truck, electricity, maintenance, etc, etc. Of course the cost of living is higher in Norway than in Colombia and therefore we need to add a bigger margin to the coffee than a farmer in a producing country needs in order to make a living. For example, a beer in Colombia is about 1 USD. In Norway a beer in a bar is about 10 USD.

Is coffee expensive?

Some people think our coffees are expensive, and I understand that they believe so, especially if they compare us to a coffee sold in a supermarket. But if you taste the difference and understand how much work and effort is behind these coffees, I still believe that our coffees are cheap. It all boils down to about NOK 5,- or about USD 0,9 pr. cup. Compare that to what you pay for a bottle of water here in Norway (USD 5) where we have plenty of super clean water free from the tap, I think there is no need to discuss whether coffee is expensive or not.

Why is some coffees worth more than others?

Because quality of the coffee varies. Not only from farm to farm but within the same farm we can sometimes find a huge range of different qualities and varietals.

Take Cielito Lindo and Naciemento for instance. These 2 farms are neighbouring farms run by father and son. They grow coffee from 1500 to 1800 masl. in 2 very different types of soil. They grow 5 different Arabica varietals (Pacas, Catuai, Catimor, Geisha and Bourbon) These trees produce (like all other fruit trees) both very mature coffee cherries and also unripe and cherries that fall to the ground and get mouldy and rotten. Of course this will produce coffee of different quality.

Next year we will be there during their harvest in order to help them separate the different varietals. We are going to taste the coffees blind and  score them according to the COE cupping form. We will pay more for the better tasting lots and less for the lots that get lower scores. Would we do this if there wasn’t a difference? I think not. So, why do we do this? Because we want to encourage the farmers (above: Jobneel and Extreberto) to grow more of the qualities we like so that we can get more of this coffee in future years.

Simple and easy.

Why pay more for coffee?

Well, I see it as an investment. The farmers are able to invest in necessary equipment in order to raise the quality and they are able to save a little money and make a decent living. If we treat them well today, they will treat us well tomorrow.

I  believe that we cannot continue to exploit the coffee producers. Sooner or later they will stop producing coffee and that is a scenario I would not like to see. So, if you love coffee and would like to continue to be able to appreciate its wonderful flavours and diversity, then choose quality coffee before cheap quantity coffee.

I also think all roasters need to practice transparency in a greater way. It is time we practice what we preach so that more people understand what we are all about.

Hopefully this post was of some help to clarify what we are doing and trying to do in the coffee world. I could go on and on writing about this, but instead I encourage you to leave comments in our comments section and I will make sure I reply as soon as I can.

Extreberto from Cielito Lindo at the Cup of Excellence 2010

We are very pleased and proud to announce the purchase of Cielito Lindo CoE #18 in the Honduras Cup of Excellence for the 3rd year running. The purchase price was $8.10 per pound.

Tim was part of the international jury this year, so had a very close relationship with the top coffees – and especially with the wonderful Cielito Lindo which has become a favourite at Tim Wendelboe between both staff and our customers. It is very exciting to know we will be offering this coffee again soon!

More information on the Cup of Excellence and what it means to us and the farmers can be found here.

More info on Cielito Lindo can be found here.

Tim and I will be going to London this afternoon to watch the 2010 World Barista Championship and the SCAE exhibition.

I will be holding a roasting seminar on thursday morning, while Tim V will be organizing the 2010 World Aeropress Championship.

We are also sponsoring the WBC brew bar with coffee as well as the La Marzocco stand with some Cielito Lindo Espresso.

If you are not able to attend and cheer for our 2010 Norwegian Barista Champion, Oda Misje Haug, make sure you watch it live on the WBC site on thursday at around 2pm.

Here is a little road movie that sums up my recent Honduras trip.

Hope you like it.

2010 Honduras COE and visit to Cielito, Santa Barbara from Tim Wendelboe on Vimeo.

If you think there is a little too much driving in this video, think about how I felt after sitting in a car for 4-6 hours every day for 7 days.