A country full of contradictions. On the ground, in the climate, in the culture. With tropical forests, hidden Mayan temples in the jungle, colonial Spanish-speaking cities and coffee farms.
Despite all the inconsistency, one thing is all in agreement:
Coffee is the "black nectar of dreams".
Farms in Chiapas are inaccessible, 'hooked' on steep slopes and everything is done by hand. Owners are families and the average area is from 10 to 20 acres. And so is the 75% of the total coffee production in the country. But not only the plantations are high. It's the quality!
To get to the coffee trees we struggled, walking almost shaggy, when the locals crossed the same paths in comfort, having sacks on their backs and sometimes ... children. It is admirable what they are doing, faced with the hardness of the landscape, unpredictable microclimates and 'would-be' intermediaries who take the product with a 50% down payment and then disappearing forever. Fortunately some companies have decided to give them better tools for best results.
We were in the 8th coffee country in the world. We met proud descendants of the great Mayan civilization. We walked the same paths they do daily to reach the plantation. And we admired them. Not just for their resistance to the great difficulties of thelandscape. Mainly for the great insistence of reaching an aromatic, intense product, with strong body and fruity notes. In spite of all the obstacles, they will succeed. And we will enjoy it!
Arriving at Indonesia, you realize that the creatures of fairy tales may not only live in imagination. You are in a landscape full of paradise flowers, strange houses, colorful lakes on craters of volcanoes and … dragons in a breathtaking distance. At the same time, however, you are also in the fourth largest coffee country in the world.
The largest island of the Indonesian Archipelago. To get from one village to the other we needed continuous flights and a lot of patience. When we met the breed of Toraja (To: Riajam people: Oresebi) we were left with our mouths open. Their homes (tongkonan) are quite special, inspired by a myth that says that the first house was built in the sky and the ancestor descended to the earth continued to build them there as well. Similarly to the houses, Toraja coffee is special, with tons of mature fruit and black chocolate.
The secret to getting the perfect product is to … leave the tree alone. If, for example, one grows sideways, no one will correct it. They will let it go on its own. They will not prune it, let it stand up uncontrollably and pick up the fruit when it’s time. That’s how it is and all the coffee production on Flores Island. Last year, due to bad weather, they managed to get only 50% of the production. If they were more organized they could produce three times more than a good year. However, their coffee is famous!
The whole process of producing and processing coffee is a family affair. The sale is done locally and the transfer of the fruit from the one part in the other is difficult. This makes the product expensive but does not cease to surprise with its particular features. Gentle, but with a rich body, with cocoa tones and aroma. Perhaps when you leave something in nature, the result you get may be commercially not the most interesting, but qualitatively it is excellent. To discover the best varieties you need to look for them. And this search is never ending.
The coffee tree is alive and is continuously influenced by the climate, the natural environment and the way of cultivation. We will continue to search. We will reach the edge of the world. And besides the best grains we will discover people with great differences but even greater similarities. Their passion for what they do.
This passion is definitely shared!
When you hear: “coffee production” almost automatically you will think Brazil. And not unfairly, since it has 1/3 of the total coffee production in the world, steadily over the last 150 years. It is no coincidence that their language does not have the word breakfast, but café da manhã which means morning coffee.
Until 1727, the government of the country was trying unsuccessfully to import coffee beans from French Guiana. Only Francisco De Mello Palheta did it after telling the governor’s wife who gave him the precious ‘material’ hidden in a bouquet of flowers.
From this … conquest, Brazil began to conquer the planet.
6 states: Minas Gerais, Espírito Santo, São Paulo, Bahia, Rondônia and Paraná.
3.44 million tonnes of coffee are produced.
$ 4.6 billion export earnings 3.5 million people are working in the production of coffee.
85% of Arabica’s share of total production.
When the tree reaches … the average age of 10-15 years and its productivity decreases, it cuts to 20 cm, instead of uprooting it. So they use healthy roots and rebuild a tree that will bear fruit again within 2 years. Besides, we are talking about trained professionals and not unskilled farmers.
When your passion is coffee you do not have to know the country that sits on the throne. Traveling to the plantations of the area Sul de Minas, we met people living in coffee, coffee and coffee constantly. But this is not our only audience. The Brazilians are hospitable, warm and enthusiastic. Make you feel at home and taste caipirinha and barbeque each time of day. We met partners, but we made friends. So we realized once again how sophisticated and so is the production is not enough to give you the scepter. It also needs that … intangible ingredient that makes coffee stand out.
And this is the soul!
In Brazil coffee trees have only the sun above them. They grow in strips and reach 1 meter in width and up to 3 meters in height.
Essentially, the tree is a trunk with braches full of fruit from top to bottom.
The harvesting of the crop is carried out by mechanical collectors, which vibrate the tree as they pass through it. Thus, the more ripe and looser cherries fall and are gathered for sorting and processing. Concerning the majority of coffee cultivations in the country, harvesting is performed in this way and although it has received widespread criticism from coffee experts, it is also the reason why Brazil produces the volumes of coffee that we know today. In other words 1/3 of global production.
Coffee in Brazil is produced on large farms from traditional and wealthy families of great financial strength and know-how, often with the assistance of advanced technology. One of the most significant problems that the production of coffee in this country faces is water scarcity. For this reason, the coffees tend to be natural – dried under the sun without first being washed with water. But the market demands washed or semi-washed coffees. This forces producers to invest so as to keep the water in their area or to fully take advantage of the water in the aquifer.
To achieve this they have modern irrigation networks, they reinforce the properties of the water with special fertilizers and electronically control their water supply needs to know exactly how much is needed for their own plantation.
Something else that characterizes Brazil is how they renew their coffee trees. When a tree becomes 10-15 years old and its productivity decreases, they cut it 20 centimeters from the ground, instead of uprooting it and planting a new one in its place.
As a result, they use the existing healthy root system that is capable of feeding the new tree that will grow there once again. This will occur in about two years. If a new tree was to be planted in its place, it would take 4-5 years for it to start producing.
With this type of area management it is always possible to have healthy and fruitful trees.
The farmers working on the farms of the country are practically very few, taking into account that the population is at a satisfactory educational level, hence the people do not easily choose to work in the farming industry.
Also, the wages of farming workers are not low, so the owners cannot afford to hire too many. This is one of the most important reasons that industrialization is constantly growing. As production becomes more automated, the need for working hands decreases and so do wages. But because the quality of the coffee is very good, certifications are not affected by the reduction of the workforce and this is happening in both Brazil and India. On the contrary, in Ethiopia this almost does not exist.
However, all the coffees there are organic, due to the fact that the use of insecticides and pesticides is forbidden. Therefore, Ethiopia may not hold certifications, but nevertheless it is capable of providing an organic and premium product.
The journeys shall continue.
Hold on until we turn to the next pages of the Dimello Coffee Diaries.
Stay tuned!
The coffee trees of India grow among rubber trees, peppers, areka nuts and more.
One could say that coffee lives in the shadow of other trees. But its result is so unique that it overshadows whatever is beside it. To describe coffee trees one must imagine large green umbrellas. The trunk reaches up to one and a half meter and from that point on it opens just like an umbrella. This is a factor that makes harvesting quite difficult, as one must get under the tree and “milk” the fruit.
Upon reaching one of the largest coffee farms, we did not find an automatic irrigation system, except in a small part, and that is when we realized that in order to achieve a good result you have to be very inventive.
The soil is shaped in such a way and employs specific facilities so that rain water is exploited to the maximum. So, ponds and tanks are created, which “hold” the water in place. Therefore, aridityis avoided, which is the greatest enemy of high-quality coffee.
In the same way, exemplary management takes place at the washing stations. From there, the waters are redirected with pumps to large tanks and then are led to places where trees grow.
At the roots of the trees, toxic substances of the sewage are broken down, thus filtering and cleaning the aquifer. When living under such conditions, you need to be very imaginative to help the economy of nature.
The farm previously mentioned has comparatively better organization in accommodating the workers and their families, as well as in educating the children.
The owner has even built a day care center. When we visited them our eyes were filled with images and our hearts with overwhelming feelings upon meeting the children. Their faces glowed when we gave them the gifts we had with us and we once again understood how important human contact is.
We also saw a two-storey school with 6-7 classrooms as well as the workers’ houses. The old ones were in poor condition, but the new ones, which had already begun to accept their first residents, seemed tidy and clean. It is very important for the owner of the farm to do what it takes to ensure humane conditions for his people.
At other farms we had visited, the conditions varied according to the owner’s beliefs.
We could talk about India for hours, but somewhere here we must turn the page to go to Ethiopia.
Starting our route in Ethiopia, we headed toward Yirgacheffe & Sidamo, two areas renowned for their coffee. Especially the first, Yirgacheffe, stands out for its high-quality coffee, but when you actually get there, in the middle of nowhere, there is nothing that resembles a village… There are two dirt roads that intersect vertically with camps, one the right and left, which makes you wonder if you actually got there or not…
Despite Ethiopia being globally known for the quality of its coffee, there is no organized form of cultivation. Here, unlike other producing countries, each grower has his own personal “garden” and cultivates – besides the basics one needs to live off – a couple of coffee trees. A grower does this in order to sell the product in exchange for a very small amount of money.
This is the first strange thing about the coffee chain. So, it became clear to us that every villager-grower, neither has much knowledge about coffee nor controls the quality of the crop. They know what their ancestors knew. The only new thing one needs to know is some neighbor that has a very valuable and rare item: a scale.
He then weighs the coffee and buys it. Then, he meets some other villager who has something even more valuable: a truck. He continues this very peculiar chain; he buys the coffee and takes it to someone who has a washing station. The owners of the washing stations, in turn, sell the coffee to exporters or they take on the role themselves and export the coffee on their own. In this sense, the coffee route in Ethiopia is quite complicated, with many intermediaries, but that does not change the fact that it is exceptional, with many varieties, some of which are still unknown.
In the mix one can also meet some owners of organized farms, but they are very few and an exception. Another rare phenomenon, are those who have larger cultivating spaces than “personal gardens” selling directly to washing stations. In some cases, even rarer, some have formed cooperatives with washing stations and others even export coffee themselves.
The route that coffee follows in this country is so complex that it is impossible to fully understand it culturally, politically and economically. An undeniable fact is that the genetic diversity of coffee here is unparalleled at a global level. In Ethiopia there is 99% more genetic material in the coffee than in the rest of the planet.
Therefore, the way a tree grows depends on its genetic character as well as what each cultivator has learned from his family tradition. In Ethiopia, the trees grow like hand-held fans because no one tends to them nor prunes their branches. They are thin with sparse leafing, reach two meters and the branches open in all directions. In spite of this, generally, Ethiopian coffee is excellent.
Coffee in Ethiopia is much more than a drink. It is a ritualistic preparation, a means of gathering family, friends or associates around a table for discussion and commune. The most elderly woman of the house prepares the coffee in a pan and grinds it before mixing it with hot water in a pot called “jebena”. She serves the coffee in small cups and then adds boiling water. She consequently carries out a method of double preparation. The process lasts about an hour from beginning to end and is considered a habit of good hospitality.
Every country has its own coffee culture. So, it’s time we met the ultimate one! Welcome to Brazil!