algrano | Blog

DEMYSTIFYING THE COFFEE SUPPLY CHAIN

[algrano]

Direct trade in Ethiopia?

Sourcing coffee from Ethiopia is very difficult - that’s what they say. We say:  Things have changed and more than ever it is time for more direct involvement. Direct trade in Ethiopia? Here is how and why!  

It is winter. Days are short, it is freezing cold outside and every day you are probably asking yourself: When is it warm again so that I can enjoy a yummy iced filter coffee in the sun? 

Actually, you should celebrate! The harvest season of Ethiopian coffee has just come to an end and it’s time to get involved with the producers of the best coffees in the world!

All jokes aside: This time of the year is particularly exciting for the coffee industry because every new harvest in Ethiopia unveils more of the seemingly unlimited potential of this coffee origin.

Ethiopia is the birthplace of coffee and still home to wild, unknown Arabica varieties. The soil is just perfect for the production of coffee and large areas of the country are at high altitudes around 2000 meters above sea level. Because the conditions for growing coffee are perfect in Ethiopia it is no surprise that the average quality from there is far ahead of other producing countries.

However, many people in the industry will tell you that buying from Ethiopia is super complicated.  The value chain is complex and legal requirements for exporting are tricky to understand. They are right in some ways. Ethiopia isn’t Brazil. If you apply the same mindset that you attained in relationships with Latin American producers you will probably encounter some unexpected issues in Ethiopia.

In fact, there is no need to worry! Do you want a direct trade relationship with an Ethiopian coffee producer? Let’s make it work!

We tell you 3 reasons why buying more directly in Ethiopia is not just possible but also smart!

The ECX Reform

One of the reasons why many shy away from working directly in Ethiopia is the EXC. (Wait, is that another Incoterm!?) The Ethiopian commodity exchange was established in 2008 with the goal to provide a secure marketplace for sellers and buyers of commodities. It is set up as a private company partially owned by their trading members in the ECX and the government. It offers a platform for the trade of wheat, beans, sesame, coffee, and other produce.

Before its foundation, the selling and buying of coffee was very unregulated and many dubious middlemen made the trade insecure for both sides. The ECX therefor required vulnerable producers to sell their coffee through the platform. Buyers had to register and deposit the payment into an account at the ECX before they could receive the coffee.

This system fixed many problems of the market and was a step in the right direction - for commodities. What was not respected at that time was the demand for traceability of high-quality coffee. Once offered in the ECX system a coffee received a generic quality grade and was only offered as such. Limu-3, Yirgacheffe-1, etc. are products of that grading system.

As this was counter-productive for a differentiated market in which buyers would be willing to pay significantly higher prices, the authorities introduced serious reforms in 2016 which came into action in the past two seasons.

Besides allowing for more transparency at the commodity exchange, the new rules and regulations also allow small coffee producers as well as private washing stations to sell their coffee directly to buyers or exporters. Before the reforms, this was only possible for larger private estates and the Unions - the representatives of cooperatives.

During our visit to Ethiopia this season we noticed that still many stakeholders are in disbelief about the freedom to trade freely because governmental institutions in Ethiopia seem to have a tradition of changing their minds overnight. At the same time, we met people who very clearly see actual improvements. We arranged a meeting with the head of the Coffee and Tea Authority in Addis Abeba, to have clarity over the new regulations.

Long-story-short: Buying directly from any coffee producer or washing station is allowed and the opening of the coffee market is supported by the authorities.

Consolidations with Algrano

Now let’s assume you find a fantastic coffee you would like to buy directly from the producer but you want to buy less than a container load, which is the case for many roasters who intend to buy directly. There are three main ways through which you can do this. 

Exporting coffee can be expensive. We offer smart solutions for the consolidation of small volumes. Photo by chuttersnap on Unsplash

In the first case, the coffee comes from a Cooperative, like for example Nano Challa in the Limu region. Every cooperative is part of a Union which acts as an umbrella organization and manages administrative matters like the exporting. In the case of Nano Challa, it is the Kata Mdugua Union.

Unions are only allowed to sell directly to buyers and cannot consolidate with other producer units like a private washing station. If you would like to purchase less than an amount that is feasible to be exported in an individual container you can add your coffee to our mixed container from Kata Muduga. Volumes can be as small as 20 bags for individual lots.

The second option is suitable for anyone who needs only a very small number of bags. With our online platform, you will be able to consolidate your order with other roasters on the same coffee lot to reach the minimum amount of 20 bags. If you have some befriended roasters you would like to share a coffee lot with, this option is for you! There will be an opportunity window of 4 weeks for each origin we work in.

For Ethiopia, the countdown starts on the 1st of February 2019!

The third potential case would be a relationship with a private farm or washing station. For next year we will arrange a supply chain through a flexible exporter who can purchase the coffee from your producing partner based on the agreed farmgate price and provide your coffee ready-for-export together with the orders of other roasters. We are enabling this way of buying with the help of Moplaco Exporters - a household name in the coffee sector in Ethiopia run by Heleanna Georgalis. In this case, there is no limitation to the origin of the coffee. We will be able to offer consolidation of coffees from Yirgacheffe, Harrar or Limu - all on one container. 

Why this is just the beginning

Ethiopia is the fastest growing economy of Africa. 10% growth in GDP per year; 200 thousand newborn children every month. Average age an Ethiopian citizen: 18.

Without a doubt, it is a country on the rise with a clever and ambitious youth leading its nation to a bright future. When we visited Ethiopia some weeks ago, we could feel that undeniably strong spirit of optimism when talking to people of all sorts.

However, looking at the modalities of coffee production in Ethiopia, especially the methods of processing, it is actually hard to believe the quality is generally that high. This doesn’t mean that coffee processors are doing a bad job, quite the opposite is true, but the techniques and tools are far behind the standards of other origins. As more technology and innovation will empower the coffee industry, the quality will jump up significantly. In fact, many coffees in Ethiopia have the potential to score 90 points and higher.  

The future of coffee. Kids at the Dalecho cooperative after school.

Let’s also have a look at lot separation: Generally, one coffee lot is equal to 100 bags of parchment which is based only on the capacity of a truck that will transport it to a warehouse. The production is very streamlined with little distinction in the applied methods. Cherries in - parchment out.

This will change. Producers are now much more motivated to differentiate their product, as the demand for distinct coffees in no longer lost in a non-transparent trading system.

In the future, we will see more processing styles, experimental lots and, where possible, also single variety lots.

There are exciting times ahead in Ethiopia and it is time to engage more with the makers of Ethiopian Specialty coffee! Eventually, it is the right incentive that will motivate producers to push the limits. By receiving honest and direct feedback from roasters, producers can better understand and finally tailor their product to the roasters needs. The best thing about a direct relationship in coffee is the teamwork in pursuit of better quality. 

Let’s make it happen!

[algrano]

How about a coffee grammar? Between Candid Standards and Candied Starfruit: Part 3

In the past two parts of this blog series on coffee evaluation, we focused mainly on the scoring of coffee in numbers. The score of a coffee has huge importance in our industry. It is the benchmark for pricing and reflects the quality of a coffee for most of us. But how much can we really take away from a final score? 

It doesn’t tell us much about the character of a coffee and whether you ’re looking for a blend component or just an amazing coffee for your special line: A coffee evaluation has to deliver more than just a number. Most scoresheets leave room for descriptors and demand the cupper to take notes on the scored attributes, but these seem rather secondary in the system of a cupping sheet.  

It is fascinating to see that a group of people tasting coffee on a regular base can be as close as 0.25 points in the individual scores, which means they are very calibrated. Linguistic description, however, is much harder to calibrate on as we don’t really have a concise system to articulate flavor. Do you also find yourself using completely different words to describe a coffee than someone else despite being generally quite calibrated to each other?  For all those who aren’t sure what I mean, I recommend trying the following experiment. All you need is some ambitious spoon swinging friends and a table of coffees you cup together:

Put three different coffees on the table of which at least two are unfamiliar to you. (if everyone brings one coffee the others don’t know, it should do the job.)

Instead of scoring the coffees with numbers, try to write a protocol of your natural procedure of analyzing the coffee. Write full sentences and be as precise as possible.

Then read out your description to each other and compare the individual attributes but also the structure and order of the evaluation.

Most likely you will find that some descriptors of aromatics are matching. When you taste a fruity Kenyan SL-34 all of you will identify some “berry” notes. (Blackberry, Gooseberry, etc.)

What you will realize though is the inconsistent order and the large variance in words when it comes to anything else than flavor notes. In our case, some of us didn’t take notes about the intensity of core attributes. Others had no remarks on the balance while someone else wrote almost solely about the acidity. 

We also noticed that the style of wording was strongly influenced by our professional background. Roasters would refer much more to sweetness with a different set of words than former baristas or green coffee buyers respectively.  What we paid attention to when cupping was quite different even though the coffees we tasted were the same. To put it in a different context. If we put the three coffees on a larger cupping table and handed the notes to someone asking this person to match it with the corresponding coffees… well. The result would have shown a strong unalignment. However, it was also enlightening. We came to two realizations.

Number One: Everyone has their own way of analyzing a coffee. Even though it can result in a numerical rating and the association with learned words, which corresponds to the assessment of your fellow cuppers, the patterns which we use to arrive at this result are highly individual.

Number Two: Using a similar vocabulary is insufficient if you don’t put it in the right order, because it produces blindspots. Any language is made of words and grammar. If words were the bricks, grammar is the mortar. Without the mortar, the wall falls apart.

The journey of tasting a coffee

How do you cup coffee? What goes on in your mind when you do? Isn’t it a fascinating mental process?

Even though this is such an essential matter in our industry there is yet very little content about the actual procedure of tasting. The most common literature deals either with the color and shape of mugs or with the biochemical aspect of taste perception. It goes a bit along the lines of this: 

Different volatile chemicals rise up to your nasal cavity to stimulate the olfactory perceptors which then send electric signals to the gustatory cortex were the information is processed.

Some good buzzwords here and there and you seem to have a sound explanation of how humans perceive taste and aroma.

Indeed it is, but it is the answer to the wrong question. 

It explains how the how the information gets to our brain, but not how we process it once we obtained it. This is where taste psychology and the tricky aspects of conditioning and framing come into play.

Early fundamentals of taste psychology have already emerged in ancient Greece when philosophers like Plato put their mind to how we process the impression from what we put in our mouths. He first lexicalized the basic tastes like sweet, sour, bitter and salt, which have become totally intrinsic to our understanding of taste.

Yet what I would like to raise the awareness for in this blog post is how a concept of taste, may it be as simple as the one introduced by Plato, influences the way we perceive coffee and express its perception.

How would you describe the character of a coffee if no one ever showed you how to do that? It is a big challenge for newcomers in coffee to “find the right words” to describe a cup of coffee. In the beginning, we all listened carefully what those who seemed proficient would say. We learned words like juicy or bright and so when someone asked you the next time what you thought, you probably fired out the few words you learned last time. Every coffee you liked was juicy. Every cup you didn’t like was astringent. What a nice word: Astringent. I liked this one a lot when I started in coffee. It sounded sophisticated. Bitter, Roasty, Musty, Dry, Tart = Astringent. 

The journey of tasting a coffee is influenced strongly by the concepts and ideas out there. The most significant one is surely the SCA cupping protocol and the ideas that led to it. Many of us refer to it more or less consciously when making the effort to taste coffee in an organized manner.

What the little experiment explained above shows, is that we all use a different chronology of attributes as we cup. What do you best start with? Aromatics, because they appear first on many scoresheets and we have internalized this procedure to a great extent? Acidity, because it is the anchor of quality for most cuppers? Overall impression regarding cleanliness and balance, because getting a general impression in the first round of tasting seems to be a logistical step? Not easy...

The context in which we cup will also dictate how we approach a coffee. Roasters, for example, think a lot about ratios. They are aware of the given potential in a green coffee and try to define the right amount of development to create a taste experience to their liking. Therefore balance would be much more a point of focus here with a different meaning than in green coffee evaluation. 

When cupping for green analyzes, the scope must be generally a lot wider. Green coffee cuppers look for taints in a coffee more than anything and on top of this try to estimate the potential of the coffee for a later purpose. When tasting green coffee one has to look through aspects like brewing and roasting despite their huge effect on the cup experience in order to get to the relevant field of work. First and foremost this will be related to the happenings at the farm level like the choice of variety, the cherry ripeness, fermentation, drying and so on. The core attributes are cleanliness, acidity, and aromatics. 

Another field in which coffee is tasted frequently is in the preparation of coffee as a final beverage. Here the point of reference is the cup as a whole rather than single aspects. The job of a barista is to look at the cup as it really is and to imagine the experience of the customer, hence the overall impression is more significant. When going into detail, they put the focus on bitterness and dryness (aftertaste and mouthfeel) as they determine the limitation of extraction and also on the level of acidity as it is the sensorial ceiling of the brewing strength.

Coffee Cuppers Syntax

These few examples show already how impalpable the character of coffee is and why we are inconsistent in the expression of taste.

Despite (or maybe because of?) this circumstance I believe that an effort to structure our words better will lead to a more constructive conversation around the cupping table. 

Therefore I would like to suggest some guidelines that can help anyone at any level of tasting to have a more structured approach. In fact, these quite intuitive rules have proven to work well in competitions and other beverage industries. 

Just have a look at wine! The degree of systematization is simpl impressive. If you are curious what it is like to describe a wine like a pro, check out this video!

(Obviously, wine is a much more stable product with a uniform way of presentation and the variation from one bottle to another of the same wine is marginal.)

From General to Specific

As mentioned before: There is always a certain purpose of the cupping and usually, it involves the decision whether or not a coffee qualifies for the intended use. For example, the SCA specialty coffee form is a tool to identify specialty coffees. The general criteria for this are:

Presence of sweetness

Uniformity

Cleanliness

In this case, one should start by saying whether or not the coffee qualifies as specialty grade.

The coffee is sweet, clean and uniform.

What follows will go more and more into depth, describing the coffee more specifically.

This rule should be followed also in the individual attributes. Mention first the overall, broad category and then become more specific if possible. For the aromatics, it would go like this:

Fruity. Stonefruit-like. Yellow stonefruit. Apricot. Dried apricot. Dried apricot skin.

This doesn't mean one should always have such a detailed list of descriptors. Most coffees don’t show very specific flavor attributes such as dried apricot which is why one should rather use the more general descriptor if the cup as such isn’t replicable. This reflects also in the coffee flavor wheel were the attributes become more specific from inside to outside. 

From High to Low

The high-to-low-rule relates mostly to the intensity. When describing a single attribute like flavor one should start with the notes of highest intensity followed by the lower ranking notes.

Flavor notes in a coffee can be broadly separated into three categories which were presented first by the head of sensory analyses at Cafe Imports, Ian Fretheim, who developed a new cupping form. 

These are Fruity, Floral, and Caramel. Always go with the most intense category first and then work from the attribute of the highest to the lowest intensity.

The coffee is medium-high in fruit aromatics.

Stonefruit (highest)

Citrus (medium)

Berries (lowest)

From Absolute to Relative

Attributes can have an absolute or relative character. Absolute means that the attribute is quantifiable, hence it could be measured. Relative attributes are more metaphorical (“it is like…”) and are more context-based than factual.

The acidity attribute can make this very clear. We first start with an assessment of the intensity.

The acidity is medium high.

This assessment is done on a scale rating from the lowest possible amount of acidity (0) to the highest know intensity (10). Through calibration, one could make this assessment with very high reliability. 

A similar degree of certainty is provided by the type of acid.

The acidity is citric.

There is a quantifiable amount of citric acid in a cup of coffee which can validate this description. The same will go for all other physically present acids in the coffee.

When the absolute character of an attribute is fully assessed one can proceed with relative descriptions which involve some degree of creativity and are more individual as they are linked to memories.

The acidity reminds me of rhubarb.

What kind of rhubarb? Ripe or Unripe? With sugar or without? Such expression can be valuable when the context is clear but one should be aware of how ambiguous such a description is . Generally, you should be rather reserved when the assessment has to be repeatable in a different time and place and across different cultural backgrounds. 

Describing coffee is fun but also difficult. I hope that the ideas of this blog series are helpful and nurture some new conversations at your cupping table. At the algrano cuppings, we constantly challenge our concepts and try to become better at tasting coffee. If you want to cup with us, swing by at our office or check out our social media channels for public cuppings across Europe!

Author: Constantin Hoppenz

Constantin is an expert on quality control and coffee roasting and joined Algranoto manage the specialty coffee offers on the platform. Some of his posts will be very technical, some others more emotional or political. In any case, you are warmly welcome to comment and discuss! Thanks for reading!

[algrano]

Between candied starfruit and candid standards - Part Two - The big 3

In the last blog post we had a closer look at the most common standards for evaluating coffee: The scoresheets of the SCA and the Cup of Excellence competition.

But what is it actually that these scoresheets are made of? - paper of course. Haha.  Seriously: Why these categories and not others? And what if I want to build my own scoresheet?

In this part of our series, we want to look at the scoring of coffee more generally and present the theoretical foundation of how we evaluate coffee. 

A scoresheet is only useful in the context in which it was created and in fact many cooperatives, exporters and roasters have developed their own evaluation system to rate coffee. It is, for example, misleading to use the SCA scoresheet for the quality control of roasted coffee because it was developed for green only. They work under the condition that roast and extraction parameters are applied consistently. Therefore one should first ask the question: What is the purpose of the evaluation?

According to the answer, you then adjust your scoring system. Adjusting… hm. Adjusting from what? Is there a framework from which you build your score sheet, something that should always be considered when we evaluate coffee - whether it is for roasting, brewing or green coffee? Indeed there is. Aromatics, Acidity, and Mouthfeel have to be always part of a coffee evaluation. They are the skeleton of every score sheet, the pillars of a coffee, the Big 3.

Aromatics

The aromatic diversity of coffee is huge. You probably have heard that there are about 1000 different aromatic compounds in coffee, which is twice the amount you can find in wine. Less than 40 of them have a significant impact on the coffees’ character but still: The number of possible combinations of those is endless.

But when we talk about aromatics we don’t only mean the smell of the coffee which you can find in the common scoresheets as Aroma.

Flavor and aftertaste are as much a product of the aromatic compounds in the coffee as what you smell as vapors rising from the cup. When you “taste” starfruit in a coffee it is a series of volatile chemical compounds rising into your nasal cavity to stimulate your olfactory receptors. This can be altered or enhanced by slurping (flavor) or swallowing (aftertaste). In that sense, The category “aromatics” can be defined as the entirety of the volatile compounds in your cup. In the Cuppers Handbook it is also referred to as the bouquet.

Acidity

The acidity is like the backbone of every coffee. It brings life to the cup and can lift aromatics and the perceived sweetness to a tickling and stimulating experience. Even styles like dark roasted espresso blends need a certain amount of acidity. Without it, the coffee would be horribly flat and boring. On the other side, acidity can be totally overbearing and generally, humans have a quite low tolerance for it. I probably don’t need to mention the great specialty dilemma of creasing customer faces from “light roasted” espressos. At its best, though, it can create a superb experience through a combination of numerous different acids such as citric, quinic, chlorogenic, malic, tartaric, acetic, lactic or phosphoric acid. They all have a different expression but are measurable and can their perception can be trained.  

Mouthfeel

The word describes it very well. How does the coffee feel in your mouth? It means the tactile sensation of the liquid on your tongue and is one of the most interesting and complex aspects of a coffee. An effort to capture it in a more narrow category resulted in the term “body” which is more related to the intensity than to the actual character of the tactile sensation. Beyond the intensity, we look at the mouthfeel often as texture or structure which is maybe difficult to grasp but pays tribute to the subtle nuances of a coffee and the effect of cooling on the perceived density of the liquid. This is also because the chemical compounds responsible for the creation of mouthfeel are versatile. Lipids (fats) play a major role in the weight and texture of a coffee. Dissolved carbohydrates (fiber) add to the mouthfeel and also Trigonelline, Caffeine and chlorogenic acids as sources of bitterness have an important impact on the mouthfeel. The winning coffee of World Brewers Cup Champion Emi Fukahori was of the Laurina variety which has 50% less caffeine content than a usual Arabica variety. This created an interestingly round mouthfeel in her coffee.

                                                                                           Photo by Rodrigo Torii

How to build a score

In order to compare coffees side by side, a numerical rating system can be useful - On most scoresheets, we give attributes a value from 1 to 10. Not always is this really helpful to understand coffee as we will discuss later but for now, let’s discuss how a score is built. While it might be obvious to someone that a high sparkling acidity is better than a neutral one we have to ask ourself why we judge like this. It isn’t as self-explaining as we might think. The sour vs. acidity dilemma many baristas experience with their customers in specialty coffee shops makes that all too clear.

A helpful approach when looking at the Big 3 is to use the parameters Quality, Intensity, and Complexity. 


Quality means how good an aspect is. When we taste something in our coffee we first access whether it is positive or negative. It sets the direction in which it will influence the rating of the attribute the particular feature belongs to. Then we consider the intensity of this feature. This will multiply the quality - either in a negative or positive direction. The higher the concentration of a positive aromatic component in the cup the better. For acidity, this has strict limits of course but if you think of strawberry aroma for example: Well… who could get enough of that?

When you can find a series of flavors in the cup we consider the coffee to be complex. Complexity is a rather odd one and sometimes just inexpressible. When there is just so much going on, that you can’t explain it all in detail - that’s complexity. A dynamic change of the attribute as it cools can also be an indicator of complexity.

These three parameters should also be looked at in the order presented. Quality has come first because the highly intense aroma of rubber is really not for you are looking for. Also, complexity doesn’t justify a high score if the intensity is so low and you can bare taste anything of what is supposedly complex.

How we integrate this assessment into a numerical hierarchy is now only a matter of calibration. Once you are given reference points for what for example a 6 or 8 acidity you will be able to adjust your scores accordingly. This is what happens during a Q-Grader Certification or Calibration Course.

Sweetness and balance

Maybe you asked yourself why sweetness isn’t part of the Big 3. Isn’t it even the most important aspects of coffee? Of course, the perception of sweetness plays an important role. But there is one big problem: There is actually no sugar in coffee that could make sweetness quantifiable. Green coffee contains up to 10% simple sugar chains like Sucrose which mostly caramelize or become products of the Maillard reactions during the roasting process. After roasting only traces of free sugars remain. On average we are left with less than one gram of actual Sucrose in a 300 ml filter brew.  So what is it then that makes a coffee appear sweet?

If we look at the composition of a cup of coffee, the highest percentage of dissolved solids comes from fiber (up to 800 mg/100 ml). It is also made up of carbohydrates, but the long sugar-chains version called polysaccharides. They are not sweet in taste but produce a density and mouthfeel in a coffee can give the impression of sweetness in the cup. Some of the soluble fibers found in coffee are also used as thickening agents in the food industry.

Another aspect of sweetness is what we rather smell as compounds tightly linked to sweetness in our memories - Maillard products (a result of complex reactions between amino acids and reducing sugars) and products of caramelization.  

They are responsible for the aromatics of coffee and result in almost all coffees in notes of caramel, vanilla, chocolate, etc. These aromas often appear in sweet food products and we are quite conditioned to associate them with sugar. The same counts for intensely fruity coffees with a balanced acidity which sometimes feel like drinking juice.

A scoresheet that has taken this entangled and slightly ambiguous character of sweetness into account is the World Brewers Cup Scoresheet on which you cannot find cannot find a separate column for sweetness.

However, it can make sense to distill an attribute like Sweetness from the Big 3 if it is a characteristic you are trying to emphasize. Especially in roasting we often put a focus on such relative attributes as we are trying to create synergy in a coffee.

Another attribute of this kind is Balance.  Its goal is to put aromatics, acidity, and mouthfeel into relation to each other. It helps us to talk about the holistic picture of the coffee and describe how the individual aspects come together as one. Also how the coffee changes as it cools should be looked at here. Describing the cup as a whole is often the more natural approach we take to tasting coffee. All the different attributes that we first separate conceptually can be rated as a total under Balance A great coffee has an inner harmony that creates a wholesome cup experience.

But should relative attributes be actually captured in a separate score?

Technically it isn’t necessary to give a separate rating on balance. All arguments why the balance of a coffee is high or low can also be given in the individual attributes it puts in relation to each other. When the acidity is overpowering why wouldn’t one score this lower in Acidity in the first place?

What is much more important when it comes to relative attributes is to work descriptively. A scoresheets’ purpose is not solely to end up with a final total score to say: It’s a 90+ coffee!. The purpose of most cuppings is to evoke discussion and communicate up and down the supply chain to make coffee better.

Why is the acidity not working well in this coffee? Could the balance be improved with a richer mouthfeel?  Or why is this an unusual Brazilian coffee?

This descriptive aspect of a scoresheet is what matters most.   Numerical scoring is necessary to help to match standards or keep an overview of a larger number of coffees.

As a Liaison between growers and roasters we have to provide not just a quality assessment to roasters but also offer qualitative feedback to the producing side. In our daily work, we use cupping scores mainly to remain calibrated with the producer and exporter and control the consistency from farm to warehouse. This we do based on the Big 3 - aromatics, acidity, and mouthfeel. Rating coffee is only a tool which becomes useful when we combine it with concise language.

How we describe coffee linguistically will be the focus of the third and last part of this blog post series.

If you have questions or remarks feel free to comment below or send a private message to [email protected]

Author: Constantin Hoppenz

Constantin is an expert on quality control and coffee roasting and joined Algrano to manage the specialty coffee offers on the platform. Some of his posts will be very technical, some others more emotional or political. In any case, you are warmly welcome to comment and discuss! Thanks for reading!

[algrano]

Between Candid Standards and Candied Starfruits - Part One

This is the first of a three-part series on how evaluating the taste of coffee works. In this weeks post, we explain why it is necessary to have clear standards in a coffee evaluation and we’ll look at the most well-known standards that exist - The SCA form and the Cup of Excellence Scoresheet.

In next week’s post, we will address the “Big 3” - the most important quality aspects to understand the essence of every sensory evaluation of coffee.

Last but not least: Our thoughts on describing coffee with words. From sweet aroma to starfruit acidity - we will have a close look at some common mistakes and propose the idea of a concise coffee grammar.

When we get to taste coffee of outstanding quality it can get pretty crazy sometimes. Coffee people talk about their experience eloquently - full of creativity and excitement. Flavor descriptors range from candied lemon zest to wildflower honey and poached mirabelles.

We describe coffee as being sophisticated. The acidity is citric, malic and phosphoric all at the same time and then the mouthfeel reminds you of that lemonade you had when you were twelve.

While at the moment one may indeed be able to have these associations, the actual liability of such lavish assessment is questionable. Are you sure that you can taste the difference between a lemon and lemon zest? How does malic acid differ from citric and what do you mean exactly when you say the coffee is balanced?

In our industry we ultimately sell taste. Our value proposition is deliciousness. But it also means that we have to take responsibility for the description of our products and that puts up the challenge to describe the characteristics of a coffee without being either too trivial or overpromising.

As a roaster or barista, how many coffees have you already tasted and found remarkable flavors in but then next week it changed completely? None of that sparkling raspberry candy. Where did it go?

One thing is clear. The raspberries were there. It was not an illusion. The problem is that coffee undergoes a complex sequence of processing steps with each of them having an impact on the final cup. The sparkling raspberry candy might have been a combination of genuine red fruit aromatics in the coffee and the level of acidity in the cup. The level of extraction, the roast degree or the alkalinity of the water are all significant for that level of perceived acidity. Maybe not a major change to one of them but the interplay with minute changes to each can sometimes have the same effect as if you went upside down with your roast profile.

The more complex a coffee is, the less tangible its profile becomes.

Why is this relevant to us at algrano?

Algrano is a hub for both exceptional and high standard quality coffee. For the latter category, the quality control is already sufficiently done with a physical analysis (measuring moisture, defect count, screen size, etc.) and a check of the cup consistency and cleanliness.

For what is considered specialty though, the grading involves much more analyses of what is in the cup. Of course, we do all the physical checks as well but this matches the expectations in almost every case.

When it comes to cupping coffees in depth, though,  the goal is not to identify every nuance. This might feel counterintuitive at times and require a certain degree of restraint at the cupping table.

The objective of an importer is to find the cup profile that is the largest common denominator between the origin, our office, and your roastery.

To source the raspberry candy coffee for you we first have to make sure that everyone in the supply chain talks about the same coffee. It means, for example, to calibrate brewing and water qualities, consider roasting or the effects of resting of coffee during transport.

Only then we are able to communicate cup quality along the supply chain with a language that is both accurate and standardized. But what does that standard look like? 

Faith in the form

With the discovery of specialty coffee, the need for consistent cup evaluation was quickly recognized. In the first place, our industry needed a way to separate specialty from the so-called commodity coffees. This development took place about 15 years ago when the q-grading program was introduced by the Coffee Quality Institute

The SCA protocols are the result of the same efforts at this time and only one year (2004) after the launch of the q-program, the Specialty coffee Association published The coffee cupper’s handbook. Both programs have the same theoretical background.

Generally speaking, it is a system for scoring coffee on a scale up to 100 points by adding up a series of individual scores for major quality aspects such as acidity or flavor. The scores shall be complemented by a literal description of the coffee such as flavor notes or remarks on the balance.

Regardless of the individual aspects of this score sheet, what got stuck with everyone, and what has become a standard in our industry is the final score of a coffee. If I told you we have some 90 point scoring coffees available, you wouldn’t hesitate to order some samples.

Scores have become synonyms for quality and therefore the value of a coffee.

But there are multiple ways to achieve this final rating as a number of score sheets has been introduced over time. Another very relevant one for coffee tasting is the Cup of Excellence form. CoE is a competition for finding the best coffees of a producing country, followed by an auction of the top 21 coffees. Hence the form has been developed for the purpose of analyzing specialty coffee much more accurately, whereas the SCA form was originally developed to separate specialty from non-specialty grade coffee and to add a rating of the “specialness” to the score. Let’s go a bit more into detail.

The difference becomes clear especially when looking at the right side of the SCA scoresheet.

The categories Uniformity, Clean Cup and Sweetness are the basics in every coffee - regardless of it being commodity or specialty grade. A coffee must have at least some level of sweetness. It has to be consistent (uniform) in how it tastes. Otherwise, you simply wouldn't know what to do with this coffee. The absence of unclean flavors is self-explaining. What is also important to note is that these attributes are rated only on a yes-or-no base. Over five cupping bowls, how many are clean (uniform, sweet)?

Now let’s have a look at the CoE sheet as a rating system that zooms much further into the coffee as it is already assured that the coffee is uniform, sweet and relatively clean.

All categories in this system ask the question: How good is the attribute? It is not enough to say whether or not a certain attribute is present in the cup. It goes deeper into the analyses of how clean or how sweet a coffee is. In addition to that, the chronology of the attributes varies slightly from the SCA form. The classic SCA form argues that aromas and flavors are most elevated at high temperatures. Thus, these attributes must be scores in the beginning. For the aroma itself, this is true of course, as we build the score from the dry fragrance, the smell of the crust and when it is wet. In distinct specialty, flavor and aftertaste tend to change a lot while cooling. It is rather difficult to get the full flavor spectrum within the first rounds of slurping.

The Cup of Excellence sheet pays a contribution to this fact and therefore puts flavor and aftertaste further towards the end of the sheet.

According to this sheet, what should be looked at first is possible defects and the cleanliness of the cup in general, which makes a whole lot of sense. Before analyzing the positive aspects of a coffee, one must confront what is possibly blocking the view. This can be anything from pungent phenolic notes (not in Cup of Excellence of course, but generally speaking) to hints of woody, papery tones.

But enough of the fussy details! Because despite all the differences in the coffee score sheets throughout the world, there are some common truths of what really matters in a cup of coffee. We call them “The Big 3”. Wrapping your head around these core values will give you a profound base for cupping with literally any scoresheet!

In the next blog post, we will go deeper into the rabbit hole of coffee tasting and explain these essentials of the coffee profile. 

Meanwhile, what is your biggest hassle when cupping coffee? Let us know in the comments below.

Author: Constantin Hoppenz

Constantin is an expert on quality control and coffee roasting and joined Algrano to manage the specialty coffee offers on the platform.

Throughout November Algrano is hosting cupping events dedicated to professional roasters in Zurich, London and Berlin where Constantin will present an outstanding selection of high-quality coffees from Algrano’s producing partners in Brazil. If you are a coffee roaster go ahead and book a free ticket!

[algrano]

Roasting Royalty Looks to the Future

Many family-run roasteries attach a proud sense of heritage and tradition to their brand, but it is rare that a family can lay claim to an invention that went on to change the coffee roasting world.

Following in the footsteps of his father, Lutz Reinhart-van Gülpen is now the sixth generation to keep the flame burning when he took over the reign of his family-run business eight years-ago. The father-of-four and current business manager of Van Gülpen Kaffeerösterei, established  in 1832, explains his connections to roasting royalty:

“We had two founders, Carl Lambert van Gülpen and J.H. Lensing, who imported green coffee from Holland which was transported down the Rhine to Germany. Alexius, the son of van Gülpen, was experimenting with small ball roasting machines in his garage from designs that he saw in England. At the time, people were buying green beans and roasting at home over the fire. He had the idea that you could manufacturer and sell coffee roasters, as well as roasted coffee”.

He says Alexius experimented and contacted an engineer, Mr von Gimborn, and together they set up europe’s first factory that focused exclusively on the manufacturing of coffee roasters, before adding: “They went on to sell a lot of roasters, over 100,000 units of the “Emmericher Kugelbrenner (Ball Roaster)”, which was a lot at that time”.

In 1868, the founders started a company and today, Probat still remains one of the world’s leading manufacturers of coffee roasters as it celebrates its 150th anniversary this year.

Yet despite the family calling, Lutz has not always been a coffee man. He formerly trained as a sound engineer but the switch from the technical and sensory world of the recording studio to the roastery became an obvious choice after graduating from a course in Coffee Excellence at Zurich Institute of Applied Sciences (ZHAW).

“It was a good experience”, he recounts, “there was a lot of sensory and chemistry involved which is important to progress as a roaster”.

Van Gülpen Kaffeerösterei now roasts daily on an airflow modified Probat G90 which was manufactured in 1934, and has recently added a brand new G22 to the line-up. In keeping with family tradition, he still owns a priceless piece of roasting heritage; one of the original Probat ball roasters that paved the way for the drum design that continues to set the benchmark more than a century later.

Focusing on specialty-grade single origins and blends, the 39-years-old says he is proud to keep the the family tradition alive but says their business identity is also progressive and looks to the future. Catering for a diverse mix of business-to-business and online retail clients, Lutz is confident that his roastery will continue to change with the times.

He mentions that in a couple of decades’ time, he and his children can look forward to celebrating their 200th anniversary as one of the oldest-roasting families in the world. It’s a timely reminder that the evolution of the coffee roaster was born out of a dedicated family tradition that still continues to celebrate and roast coffee today.

ALGRANO COFFEE IN THE HOPPER

Producer: SanCoffee

Country: Brasil

Varietal: Yellow Catuaí and Mundo Novo 

Process: Pulped Natural

FOLLOW VAN GÜLPEN KAFFERÖSTEREI AT:

Facebook: vanguelpen

Instagram: vanguelpencoffee

Website: vanguelpen.com 

Photos courtesy of Van Gülpen Kaffeerösterei.

[algrano]

Amazon tribe protects rainforest through coffee and tech

Less than half-a-century ago, first contact from the outside world was established with the indigenous Surui people of the Amazon rainforest. Ever since that fateful moment, the community has been facing an existential crisis as tree logging and mining companies seek to exploit their ancestral lands. Almir was just ten years-old when the loggers first arrived, but his fight to protect his people’s culture and territory has become a lifelong struggle for survival.

At the age of 17, Almir Narayamoga Suruí was the first person from his tribe to attend college when he inherited the title of Leader of the Suruí Paiter Indigenous People from his father. He grew up witnessing how his community had been devastated by disease brought in from outsiders as illegal loggers and miners threatened their way of life. Almir realized that their future was hanging in the balance. He knew that their land, nestled in a rich biodiverse niche in Cacoal, Rondonia region of the Amazon, faced extinction if he did not act.

When loggers put a $100,000 bounty on Almir’s head, he left his village to seek the help of Google Earth in mapping his tribe’s territory as part of an ambitious 50-year development plan. Almir describes how it was a turning point for his people: “There was a strategic diagnosis of our people and territory because we have to be vigilant of our land and assess what is needed in terms of health, education, the environment and sustainable agricultural production”.

This sustainably-minded approach is now bearing fruit. Intercropped with cocoa and banana under the forest canopy, the Suruí Paiter community have been cultivating Robusta for decades - a cash crop that was introduced by settlers - which the tribe inherited after the land was officially demarcated by the government in the 1980s. And their natural process, sun-dried Conillon is now increasingly in demand.

“From 30 tonnes of coffee production, four tonnes will be shipped to Europe this year. It is the first time that an indigenous Amazonian coffee in this volume reaches European shores. Our plans are to place emphasis on quality and to maintain the forest so that both can cohabit in equilibrium with the environment. In this way, we can get a good price for our crop to fortify our local economy and give value back to our culture”.

Some of the most effective tools in Almir’s struggle to save his people and land are a laptop, phone, and access to the internet. It also allows him to reach new markets outside Brazil. The 43-year-old environmentalist explains that establishing alliances through technology with like-minded organisations is vital to protecting the rainforest through trade: “We first contacted the Aqua Verde association who have helped us to promote the positive social, environmental and economic impacts of reforestation. They also put us into contact with algrano and the experience of finding a buyer like Rast Kaffee has been excellent”.

Meanwhile at the other side of the Atlantic, Quadia, a Swiss impact investing company and investor in Algrano, had sponsored the Swisstainability G21 Forum, an annual event organized by Nice Future. The aim of the G21 Forum is to promote the ecological and social transition towards a better economy by gathering people from business, NGO and academics. The Amazonian indigenous cause was at the heart of the forum in 2015 with the participation of Almir Surui, who showcased their efforts to defend their unique forests and biodiversity against the threat of deforestation. Since the Surui Paiter community is engaged in coffee production, Quadia facilitated the natural partnership between the Surui and Algrano, to enable the export of their coffee into Europe.

Almir, who was ranked 53rd of the world’s most creative business leaders by Fast Company Magazine says that more than 500 people are now directly engaged in the cultivation of Suruí coffee. He has high hopes that his community will sell ten tonnes to specialty markets next year: “There is a lot of thought, care and emotion that goes into our coffee and we are thankful that consumers can enjoy our product” he adds.

The income they earn helps to fund The Metareilá Association of the Suruí Indigenous People. Founded in 1989, the association works to defend and preserve the Paiter Suruí’s cultural and territorial heritage. A Paiter University also trains people in indigenous leadership and promotes sustainable agricultural practices. He says: “It is natural that many leave the tribe, go to study and return. This is good for the community because they bring back technical skills and knowledge”.

Almir has been celebrating his community’s pioneering transparent trade partnership through algrano with a which culminated in a visit to World of Coffee in Amsterdam in June: “I am very happy because we are seeing the materialisation of our plan”, he concludes. “As a producer, it is an unbelievable feeling to be so far away from home and enjoy the special moment of sharing a coffee together with the end consumer.  A better future can only be possible with a conscious economy and this can be obtained by our vision of sustainable development through coffee”.

The Suruí people aim to plant more than one million tree saplings over the next decade to help reforest their land. They plan to raise funds through a UN-backed initiative that gives carbon credits to countries and communities that actively maintain and protect their forests.

[algrano]

Going the extra mile

In this latest blog in a series of articles about demystifying the supply chain, algrano talks to one of its logistics partners, Vollers, about the challenges they face and what the specialty coffee community can do to help improve standards.

Behind the curtain of the coffee supply chain is a herculean challenge that requires efficient logistics backed up by an accurate flow of information. From the time it leaves the farm gate to the moment it is brewed, the bean has more than likely spent months in transit crossing borders, clearing custom checks and even continents. Out of the estimated 159m bags (60kg) of Arabica and Robusta coffee that was produced last year, a large volume will have been transported large distances by land, sea – and occasionally by air - from the country of production to its final destination in your cup.

Vollers, a family-owned business that has been transporting and storing raw materials for more than 80 years, is one such logistical link in the global supply chain that helps to keep our coffee moving. Managing director, Christian Vollers, who took over the business from his father four-years-ago says that coffee currently accounts for approximately half of their volume. The Bremen-based company also handles commodities such as cocoa and tea across its network of hubs in Germany, Holland, Italy, and Russia. It’s most recent acquisition includes an immense converted aircraft-hangar storage facility in Bury-St-Edmonds, UK.

Now the third generation at the helm of the company, Christian says that coffee is an area of the business that he feels most comfortable with. “I would consider myself to be a coffee man,” he comments before describing the many logistic challenges he faces daily:

“We are very customer-specific so when we take up an instruction from the importer or exporter we track the ship and ensure that someone is there to pick up the container at the port of landing. We take responsibility for the unloading, handling charges, documentation, labelling, samples, storage and also make sure that the coffee is forwarded to the correct place. Technology helps but you need people on the ground”.

From its main offices in Bremen and Hamburg, the Vollers Group employs 320 people in eleven locations across the continent, including a further nine subsidiaries in key transport hubs such as Moscow, Riga and Tallinn in the Baltics. Many are engaged in supporting the important task of collecting the container when it is unloaded from the vessel in port to transport the green coffee to the warehouse. Even in the 21st century of instant communication, the master of all shipping documents - the Bill of Lading - is an original document with a handwritten signature that is required to release the container. No Bill of Lading? No green coffee.

Christian explains that while shipping companies have been experimenting with technologies of their own such as blockchain, the industry still has some distance to travel before an international platform is adopted. “The problem is not necessarily the blockchain,” he explains, “it is the logistical challenge of merging the physical product with the digital trail. We can send a man to the moon and back but a supply chain can still grind to a halt when the writing on a label is unreadable. This can cause problems down the line – especially the last mile”.

Although specialty-grade coffee accounts for only five percent of Vollers’ business, he says that volumes are steadily growing as commercial traders now have a specialty sub-division because of increased demand. The 45-year-old goes on to highlight the important distinction between commercial and specialty coffee; and the increased logistical challenges inherent in the latter.

“Most commercial-grade coffee comes in bulk – that’s 21 tonnes per container. Whereas, with specialty coffee you may have a per bag business with 20 different lots inside one container. This is of course great for specialty coffee but it is a huge challenge for logistics. We normally take only a sample from one bag of each lot because the product is very uniform and we don’t want puncture the grain-pro lining in every bag – this wouldn’t be correct. It’s a sampling method that works well with commercial coffee but doesn’t translate so well to specialty”, he says.

He adds that the industry urgently needs improved international standards in a community where freshness and quality is a signature of specialty. From a logistics point of view, Christian advocates for a better understanding around commonly agreed regulations in specialty coffee that will help to reduce transactional costs and protect workers.

“What do we consider as specialty?” he asks, “the terminology should be applied much wider than just a focus on quality. We need to develop better safety standards for example. One of the big challenges is bag size; I believe weight limits will become an issue in the future because carrying a 69kg bag is not a positive thing for the producer, logistics handler or the roaster. As the industry develops, organisations like the SCA can help to sponsor these discussions so that we can work towards a standard contract for specialty with agreed logistical conditions”.

Reaching an industry-wide consensus around standardised bag weights, sizes and the process of Q-grading landed against pre-shipment samples currently remains a matter for discussion. However, supply chain actors like Vollers are starting to push for informed debate around internationally agreed standards from a logistics perspective. “We can learn a lot from the commercial coffee sector,” Christian concludes, “so that we can reduce transactional costs further and generate more value for specialty supply chains”.

And just as the last mile is commonly the most problematic in a supply chain of thousands, the burden of responsibility might also lie with the wider specialty coffee community to go that extra mile.

[algrano]

Celebrating ten years on the light side

Like many people’s journey into coffee, Armin Machhörndl can remember his defining moment. It was more than a decade ago and after a period of travelling around Asia he was wondering what he wanted to do with his life. At the time, specialty coffee was still an emerging trend in Germany and he decided to open the Green & Bean coffee shop with his friend and two-times’ barista champion, Thomas Schweiger, in Ansbach.

They began sourcing coffee from different roasters across Europe when an Ethiopian coffee from award-winning Scandinavian coffee roaster, Tim Wendelboe, arrived in the coffee shop. Armin was so surprised by the complexity of flavour that he went in search of similar coffees in Germany but could not find anything close to the sensory experience in the cup. Reaching his point of no return along the journey, he decided to start roasting coffee himself.

“We started with a used 5kg Probat and I would buy green coffee from different green coffee traders. Then I got deeper and deeper into the coffee knowledge and tried coffees from everywhere,” he recalls. “It was good to start with a small coffee roaster, I was able to practice and tried all kind of roast styles from dark to light”.

However, Armin realised that the market for lightly roasted coffee was practically non-existent in Southern Germany at the time. He knew that if he was to follow in the footsteps of a roasting style pioneered by Scandinavian coffee roasters, he would have to work hard to help create the market himself. This quest led him to spreading the word at the German Roasters Guild amongst other specialty coffee forums.

The two-times Brewers Cup Champion (2011, 2012) is now celebrating the tenth anniversary of Machhörndl Kaffee. Today, the engine of the roastery is fired by a 25kg Probat. It is also staffed by a 15-strong team of coffee professionals who work across the roasting operation and their front-of-house coffee shop in central Nürnberg.

“The location of the roastery is hidden in quite a hip part of Nürnberg. We have a lot of people searching for us but in the inner city where we have another coffee shop, it’s a different kind of customer,” he adds. While they supply other specialty coffee houses in the city such as Kaffe Hörna, Armin is excited about the growth of their online shop which offers a wide selection of single origins roasted for either filter and espresso.

Although the father-of-two now juggles family life with the demands of growing a successful business, he still finds time for origin trips. Recently, he visited farms in El Salvador, Costa Rica, and Honduras which opened his eyes to the challenges that producers face in growing high quality coffee: “I now have a big respect for the hard work of the farmer. This year, I want to stay for longer on the farm to see the whole process”.

This desire to work more directly with growers comes at a time when Machhörndl are now beginning to diversify their green coffee sourcing policy through innovative service providers like algrano. Armin comments that a recent natural process Brazilian coffee sourced through the platform has been well received by his customers who have been surprised by the intense fruity flavours in the cup.

Looking back to those early days when a lightly roasted specialty coffee was hard to find in Germany, Armin reflects with some validation of his own contribution to the growth of the market: “The big players are now going towards specialty coffee and lighter roasts. For me this is good, because we realise that our work makes sense”.

ALGRANO COFFEE IN THE HOPPER

Producer: Alessandro Hervaz

Country: Brazil

Varietal: Catuai Amarello

Process: Natural

FOLLOW DIE KAFFEE AT:

Facebook: machhoerndlkaffee

Instagram: machhoerndlkaffee

Website: machhoerndl-kaffee.de

Photos courtesy of Machhoerndl.

[algrano]

Honduras coffee producers bridge the digital divide

For a relatively small country, Honduras’ reputation as a producer of high quality Arabica coffee is a big success story. It is estimated that more than a quarter of the Central American country’s population – or approximately two million people – are engaged at some point in the seasonal coffee harvest between November and March each year. And since the turn of the late 20th century, production has steadily grown to the point that the country now ranks in the top ten of exporters of coffee globally.

However, the Honduran coffee sector has also faced its fair share of setbacks and challenges. In 1998, Hurricane Mitch devastated 80% of the country’s agriculture and a period of economic instability and political tension following a coup in 2009 affected the country’s exports to international markets. A few years later, an epidemic of Coffee Leaf Rust, or La Roya in Spanish, wreaked havoc on the cultivation of classical coffee varieties such as Typica, Bourbon, Caturra and Catuai.

However, given that 95% of growers are smallholder farmers with plots less than three hectares, producers are well positioned to help control the spread of the fungal disease with the introduction of more disease-resistant varieties and selective breeding.

One such cooperative that is supporting its growers to improve productivity, access new markets and combat the threat of La Roya is Café Organico Marcala (COMSA). Located in the mountainous La Paz region of western Honduras, one of the poorest areas of the country, the cooperative comprises of 1600 members who are highly dependent on coffee cultivation and agriculture. Since the last epidemic of La Roya in 2012, which affected more than a third of COMSA producers, the cooperative’s forward-thinking strategy is empowering growers to fight back.

Suita Manuela, COMSA’s Business Developer, joined the cooperative one year-ago and is motivated to help generate a sustainable income for farmers. She says: “I want to add value for coffee farmers which in turn helps to support the development of our country. COMSA is a community that is very open and I see a lot of talent”.

COMSA was founded in 2001 by a group of community-minded growers who joined forces to form their own organisation, which would look after their interests. One of the main goals of COMSA was, and still is, to directly access markets in o access directly to markets Europe, North America and Asia. At the time, the international coffee price had crashed and many producers were forced to abandon their small-holdings to search for work in the city.

The cooperative has since been working to help growers rebuild their livelihoods through the diversification of their income and education provision. Another important advantage of co-operative membership is that producer family members can now attend COMSA’s very own international school with a wide range of curricular activities such language classes in French, German and English.

Suita adds: “Alongside education, our members don’t just get a benefit from receiving higher prices for their coffee through premiums such as Fairtrade, and certification schemes including Bird Friendly, organic and Small Producers Product (SPP), but we also provide technical assistance. Some of the farmers bring their coffee in cherry state so we have a wet mill for processing while others bring their coffee in dry parchment. We also do honey and natural processing. Trading as a group benefits our members because we set a higher price than our competitors and expect a certain level of quality”.

Raising the bar on coffee quality and price has also benefited the wider community as traders have been forced to offer higher prices to local farmers. COMSA’s training in organic practices - Pata de Chucho - is rooted in a technical diploma course in sustainable agriculture that is funded through the Fairtrade Premium. Balancing the needs of the community and the environment, initiatives such as the promotion of organic composting supports farmers to apply the minerals and nutrients needed to improve production yields.

For example, coffee waste such as the pulp is recycled to make organic fertiliser that is then distributed to farmers for free, helping to reduce input costs by a factor of 50 compared to the more conventional, chemical-reliant, means of production. Meanwhile, farmer exchanges and training in the use of shade trees, sustainable water management and inter-cropping, producers are taught the agricultural techniques that have a direct result in the quality of the cup.

Suita says that last year, 500 containers of specialty-grade green coffee were bound for international markets - and trade is now steadily growing through the algrano platform. Two buyers that she met on a recent sales trip to Europe - Kiez Rösterei from Berlin, and Rast Kaffee, based near Lucerne, Switzerland – have been impressed with the quality and are keen to continue their relationship with COMSA this year.

She adds: “Algrano opens up the channels and makes it possible to sell microlots to roasters with higher quality beans. Being able to connect helps our producers because we can hear directly from the people who buy our coffee. The feedback we receive and higher price returns for a higher quality product means that we have higher levels of satisfaction amongst roasters and drinkers. It’s a dual-benefit for the coffee supply chain and coffee industry as a whole. The more exposure we have, the more profitable our growers become - it’s all about communication”.

[algrano]

Switzerland goes bananas for sustainable trade

In the early 1970s, a group of forward-thinking women in Switzerland were brought together by a simple but far-reaching question. They wanted to know why bananas imported from the tropics were cheaper than apples grown in Europe. The question went to the heart of the exploitative trading practices of the banana trade and a movement was born. Led by social activist, Ursula Brunner, the Banana Women - as they came to be publicly known – continued to ask questions about unfair trade and how to address it. Their campaign grew to become the Working Group for a Fair Banana Trade – or Gebana for short.

Today, Gebana has diversified into other foodstuffs but its ambition remains the same; to create equitable access to markets by establishing a direct link between producers and consumers. Gebana’s development manager for Benin and Togo, Michael Stamm, says: “Being close to the producer is important for us. Not only are we paying a premium on top of the usual market price but we are trying to make a difference. Smallholder farmers face huge pressures on price and struggle to access markets – that’s why we try to build relationships, provide agronomic training and invest in certification, as well as production processes on the ground”.

Gebana’s approach is to develop integrated supply chains that bring producers closer to consumers on a global scale. It is a trend that is steadily positioning Switzerland as a creative hub for innovation in the value chain.

“The consumer has the power to be active in supply chains”, adds Michael. “When the consumer is well-educated and cares about the products they buy, they are happier to pay a premium that helps the farmer. That’s why Switzerland can help to lead in this area because the shorter and more transparent supply chains we have, the greater the value is shared with producers. Algrano fits very well with our own model. We have sent several samples though the platform and are now looking for buyers in Switzerland and other markets. It is a challenge because we take on the risks from all sides - but it is worth it”.

Since 2014, Gebana has been working with cocoa producers in the West African country of Togo to help them directly reach markets in Europe. Patrick Eboe, Gebana’s General Manager for Togo, explains: “Since the liberalisation of the economy, the sector has tried to align with exporters which has driven down prices for farmers. As many of our cocoa farmers also grow coffee, we thought we should do something. Since then, we have been supporting them with technical help to raise standards and gain certification such as organic and Fairtrade. We now have a presence in the field from the point of production and buy directly from the farmers”.

This year, the second shipment of high grade natural process Robusta – a product of nearly 1000 cooperative members from the mountainous plateau of Kloto in the southwest of the country – will reach Europe. Since the demand for quality Robusta remains particularly high as a component for blends, especially in coffee consuming markets in Southern Europe, Gebana are supporting growers to increase quality and yields for western markets. It is estimated that currently, coffee growing supports 20,000 families in Togo.

And there are positive signs that Switzerland’s status as an international platform for trade is evolving. Following an amendment in the country’s fiscal law in August last year – which allows public deposits of up to CHF 1 million - new opportunities are opening up for the crowdfunding of sustainable supply chain projects. A recent roundtable discussion hosted by Gebana, which brought together logistics and production startups with investors, shows that there is a growing appetite to reinvent the role of global trade. As the Banana Women so successfully demonstrated in the seventies, Switzerland is well placed to lead the way in developing a counter-model to traditional, exploitative trade structures in the future.

Co-founder of algrano, Gilles Brunner, echoes this optimism: “Sixty to seventy percent of the global trade in coffee happens in Switzerland and many people work in commodities such cocoa and grains. We have the knowledge and resources here so the conditions are right to innovate new, transparent supply chains. In the case of Gebana, they were one of the early pioneers so our partnership shares a very similar mission. Swiss consumers are also one of the biggest buyers of Fairtrade and organic certified products per capita in Europe, so even from a consumer perspective the market is already asking for fairer, more sustainable models of trade”.

[algrano]

One family’s gift to the coffee world

Still recovering from a brutal civil war in the 1980’s, the eventful story of coffee production in El Salvador stretches back to the early 19th century. It starts when Bourbon, a classic cultivar, was introduced to the Central American country in the early 1800s and first grown for domestic consumption. But the favourable climate, mountainous topography and volcanic-rich soils offered the perfect conditions and coffee production went on to become one the most important permanent cash crops for the countries’ economy.

Bound to the history of El Salvador’s coffee production is the celebrated Pacas variety, a natural mutation of Bourbon that has established a reputation for being high yielding, of excellent cup quality and can stand up to the elements. Maria Pacas Martinez is now the fifth generation of the Pacas family who have been growing coffee in the pacific-facing western highlands. It was her great-grandfather, José Rosa Pacas, who took up the challenge and acquired a strip of land on the Apaneca Lamatepec mountain range from the government to grow coffee more than a century ago.

“As coffee is a permanent crop, it made sense that people were able to acquire and purchase land from the government when coffee was first introduced. My great-grandfather, also a lawyer by profession, was one of those people. Since then, my family have been involved in coffee – for five generations”, she says.

It was José’s observant son, Alberto Pacas-Figueroa, who made the discovery that was to tie the family name to the history of coffee taxonomy forever.

Maria adds: “I don’t think it was a coincidence that Alberto, who was a painter and saw the world through an artists’ perspective, recognised that a different variety was growing in the garden at Finca San Rafael. He observed that the trees were shorter, and more compact. It was recommended to him by a very knowledgeable coffee expert and friend, Francisco De Sola, that they should contact scientists at the University of Florida to investigate his new finding”.

After a field visit of botanists from the university who took some samples back to the lab, it was confirmed that the different looking coffee shrub was in fact a new varietal that had naturally mutated from its genetic Bourbon heritage - and was named Pacas in honour of Alberto’s discovery. Further studies have shown that because of the Pacas’ shorter and more compact growth, it can be planted more densely to increase yield potential. It is also more resistant to pests such as nematodes – microscopic worms that attack the roots of the tree – and requires less intensive pruning. Maria’s grandfather, Alfredo Pacas-Trujillo, continued to share the new variety with producers across the rest of the region and today, Pacas can now be found cultivated across Nicaragua, Guatemala, and Colombia.

However, coffee production across the entire country was devastated by the fighting and terror of a tragic civil war that lasted more than a decade. It was only in 1992, when the UN Peace Accord was signed in Mexico City, that stability slowly returned to the country and along with it, coffee growing families who had fled the violence to neighbouring countries started to return too.

“We came back to El Salvador in 1991 and my father decided he wanted to start processing the coffees at the farm,” comments Maria. “He established Café Pacas and a mill with the idea of developing different processing methods. At the time, there were only three grades based on volume production - central standard, high grown, and strictly high grown – but it was his forward-thinking experiments with different microlots and traceability that he began to enhance the quality of the coffee. He transmitted this passion for coffee to his children and was smart enough to get advice from people who knew about processing methods, and its effect on the cup profile”.

Her father’s reputation for growing traceable, quality coffee became increasingly in demand when consumer preferences for ‘gourmet’ coffee grew in markets such as Japan and across North America. In 2004, Maria put her background in economics to good effect when she joined the family team to help with sales, market research and to assist buyers on field trips. Café Pacas’ reputation for specialty has been cemented over the years after becoming an acclaimed Cup of Excellence finalist in 2005, 2006, and 2010.

Today, the Pacas family remain dedicated to growing, processing, and exporting specialty coffee to clients worldwide, and their love for coffee continues to shine though like it is one of their own. The gift of coffee has, with tireless curiosity and dedication for five generations, become one family’s gift back to the world. But Maria insists that there is no time for complacency:

“Things are changing very rapidly”, she counsels, “we have to be on our toes, to make decisions as quickly as possible, and to produce one of the world’s most beloved coffee in a super competitive consumer market. Platforms such as algrano, where they facilitate transparent information for the roaster, are important tools for coffee producers like us. We have to take advantage of this in order to reach people we would not otherwise be able to, and establish long-term relationships. To me, algrano is the Facebook of coffee and we want to contribute to the community in any way that we can, so that future generations can continue to enjoy our coffee”.

[algrano]

Opening the black box for a sustainable coffee future

Supplying more than a third of the world’s coffee production each year, developments in Brazil have the potential to affect coffee markets worldwide. And due to its sheer size as a coffee producing powerhouse, the country has earned - rightly or wrongly - a reputation for quantity over quality. But the reality on the ground is a different picture as producers respond to market pressures by setting their sights on specialty, rather than a race to the bottom.

Henrique Dias Cambraia, the current generation of a century-old family tradition and Head of Fazenda Samambaia is one of the early pioneers of specialty coffee in Brazil. In 1999, he established San Coffee with a focus on scaling up quality to add value for members of Santo Antônio Estates by expanding and upgrading its production and processing facilities.

Today, San Coffee represents twenty co-operative members who collectively produce more than 200,000 bags of coffee each year. Utilising these economies of scale, San Coffee now has a state-of-the-art milling and warehouse facility in the heart of the coffee producing region of Minas Gerais. Many of its members have earned a reputation for achieving national and international recognition in the Cup of Excellence competitions amongst other categories.

General Manager of San Coffee, Fabrício Andrade, says that as the global market reaches an inflection point where demand begins to outstrip supply, a focus on sustainability will help to drive future trends in the coffee industry: “Although knowledge is our biggest asset it is widely spread and easily accessible. Using advances in science and technology to become more sustainable will play the most important role in the shift from the third to a fourth wave movement in coffee”, he predicts.

In response to the challenges of a changing climate, tighter operating margins and rising expectations around quality each year, San Coffee have now shifted their strategic direction to working towards achieving greater sustainability in their business and production practices.

“Improved farming techniques, research into varietals, processing methods, logistics and more effective and efficient management systems; our principle is to keep ourselves in a state of progress so that we can continue to reduce costs and provide a great service,” he adds. “We believe that good business relies on sustainability and transparency. That’s why we need to look at how the value is distributed along the supply chain. If we are able to convince the consumer to purchase a coffee at a higher value, then we need to offer the consumer a coffee that is higher quality through good farming, harvest and post harvest techniques - while traceability individualizes the coffee lot that gives recognition to the producer”.

Fabrício goes on to highlight another challenge in specialty markets: “Certification is a good thing but consumers want to go beyond that. Even if you want to trade directly there is too much paperwork and many roasters don’t have the time to handle the logistics. That is why our partnership with algrano is a perfect fit as transparent trade will be the backbone of a sustainable value chain of the future”.

Although it may be uncomfortable for many intermediaries along the supply chain, Fabrício insists that opening this ‘black box’ on special interests in the coffee trade is necessary for this change to happen. “Everybody is talking about it,” he says, “we can’t escape the downward pressure that the big coffee companies are pushing on growers to improve yields, but we are reaching the biological and physical limits. Change is happening so fast, and we need to adapt if we are to continue to add value to our growers.”

One way that San Coffee is doing this is through their Beyond Borders project that aims to offer the same model it offers its members to other like-minded growers in neighbouring regions. The initiative provides training to help support producers with the practical knowledge to improve quality and productivity, while providing a service during and post-harvest. This can range from the milling, drying, and quality control, to other crucial aspects of the supply chain such as documentation, warehousing, container loading and providing finance to producers.

João Marcos, a producer from the Small Growers Association (AFASA) in Santo Antonio do Amparo, who participated in this project, says: “The new opportunities provided through this business platform allow for a direct transfer of added value to the producer. This has real impact on our capacity to reinvest in the farm and therefore stay in coffee growing for the long-term”.

Fabrício concludes by adding that algrano is the first service provider to open the ‘black box’ for buyers: “We approach, motivate and empower growers to produce quality consistently as a single origin, helping to tell their stories to specialty buyers through platforms like algrano. Through a mindful connection and different approach to business through transparent relationships, we can help to open the black box for them. That’s how we convince the consumer why transparent trade helps to distribute value more evenly throughout the supply chain - and ensure this extra value reaches the growers”.

[algrano]

Starting 2018 with Ethiopia!

This new year starts with exciting news! After two years spreading the word about algrano in most Latin American producing countries, we are stepping in the motherland of coffee.

In December I travelled through Ethiopia for two weeks to meet local partners and offer the Ethiopian growers the possibility to present their coffees to the growing community of roasters sourcing on algrano. I am happy to share my impressions, my analysis of the Ethiopian coffee situation and how algrano is working in the country.

The Ethiopian coffee value chain

In the different coffee producing regions of Ethiopia, producers grow and harvest their coffees on a hectare or less of land. During the harvest, growers deliver the ripe cherries to the nearby washing station. This is where the coffee is pulped and dried on the emblematic African raised beds. Washing stations are either privately owned or belong to local growers cooperatives. Once dried, the parchment coffee is sent to the capital, Addis Abeba. It is in Addis that the entire country production is centralized, hulled, graded and stored before shipment through the port of Djibouti.

ECX reform

While preparing the trip I had heard of the existence of the Ethiopia Commodity Exchange (ECX) reform in 2017 and that the changes would have profound impacts on the current supply chain. So let me shed light on the change happening. Before the new regulation, only cooperatives’ unions were allowed to export their coffees directly. Private washing stations’ owners had to sell their coffee to the ECX, their coffee would then be auctioned and they would lose the traceability of their coffees at this point. This old regulation gave the monopoly of traceable coffees to the cooperatives’ unions. The new regulation instead, allows exporters to purchase coffees from private washing stations and export them. In addition, plantation owners are now also allowed to export their own coffees directly. There is a lot of talking about the new regulation, its impacts and opportunities but the changes will not be immediately implemented. Changes will likely be effective for the next crop.

Focus on cooperatives and plantations coffees

Sticking to our model of empowering growers by providing them modern tools to market and sell their coffees directly to roasters, only cooperatives and plantations will offer their coffees on algrano. There are hundreds of cooperatives across the country that are organized in unions. Unions gather between 10 and 200 cooperatives together and are responsible for the milling, marketing, selling and export of the cooperatives’ coffees.

Before leaving Addis Abeba to go the fields, I bought a local SIM card from EthioTelecom - the state-owned and only telecom provider in the country - to test out the connectivity across the country. Though not always extremely fast, I was connected on 3G all the time, even in remote villages. Smartphone are not widespread in villages but I could demonstrate algrano on the mobile phones of the cooperatives’ or unions’ managers. I was impressed by this fact and felt encouraged to offer our solution to Ethiopian cooperatives.

Great offers coming up!

Starting next week, cooperatives and plantations will be offering coffees from Sidamo, Yirgacheffe, Jimma, Agaro and Limu regions. Sidamo and Yirgacheffe regions are two famous producing origins, Yirgacheffe being a sub region of the bigger Sidamo area. This being said, I was impressed by how the Jimma, Agaro and Limu regions are developing in terms of quality. Usually less recognized regions, cooperatives and unions have been investing a lot in equipment (new eco pulping machines) and improving processes to use less water and have better quality results. In the last few years, selected cooperatives have been harvesting the fruits of these investments. Hunda Oli or Duromina are two examples of cooperatives from the Jimma, Agaro regions that are getting their names known in the specialty industry.

These are the reasons why we are planning a first consolidated container from the Jimma area. The Kata Muduga Cooperatives Union, led by Asnake - a young and forward thinking leader - will offer coffees from different cooperatives. Roasters will be able to order even small quantities from this consolidated container and plantations and cooperatives from other regions will offer bigger lots with a minimum order quantity of 50 bags.

The algrano team is thrilled by this new development in Ethiopia and we are looking forward to connect you to these fantastic coffees and the growers behind them! So... stay tuned!

Gilles

[algrano]

Reinventing the coffee menu for restaurateurs

The disconnect between the attention to detail in the kitchen and the coffee on the restaurant menu can be a bone of contention for many coffee professionals. After all, the disappointment of a bitter-tasting espresso rather than the sensory climax to conclude a gastronomic experience can be all too common. Considered by many in the hospitality industry as an afterthought, this disconnect is what drove Olga Sabristova of Die Kaffee Privatrösterei to make a difference.

“For a lot of restaurateurs, coffee is still a stepchild. It is prepared without love or passion and where nobody attaches great importance”, says Olga.

Her fightback came after more than a decade’s worth of experience working in restaurants where she saw how coffee was brewed as a caffeinated distraction to the main culinary event. At the time, she was working at a company canteen, in Düsseldorf, that sported its own integrated coffee bar which she described was ‘great fun’. It was, however, her own appreciation of gastronomy after taking up an apprenticeship as a chef that brought Olga into the sphere of specialty coffee. She soon realised that beyond the more simplistic descriptions of either Arabica or Robusta, there was a whole world of origins, varietals and cultivars offering different cup profiles to explore. It was during this apprenticeship and attendance at a number of coffee courses and seminars, that Olga was encouraged to experiment further.

“I didn’t have a classic education about coffee such as how to make cappuccino, espresso or macchiato. It’s always about the coffee, but it was about taste. Which milk is matching best? What is the flavour like? You have to be able to smell and taste. This is crucial as a roaster but also as a barista. You’re not only doing Latte Art and nice pictures, you’re a cook”.

Olga was introduced to roasting for the first time during a short internship at Mondo del Caffe in Luxembourg seven years-ago. It was this opportunity that opened the door to the production processes involved in the roastery after first trying her hand at the helm of a Dutch-made Giesen. Although she already knew that she wanted to start her own coffee bar, she had discovered another major piece in the puzzle, and decided that coffee roasting would become a central feature in her future plans.

Today, Olga is the proud owner of not one, but two Giesen’s – a W6 and W15 – which serve her popular coffee shop in the heart of Düsseldorf, as well as a larger production facility outside the city that supplies a wide range of wholesale and online retail clients. Ironically, she now caters for the restaurants she used to work for where Die Kaffee Privatrösterei is featured proudly on the menu. As with any experienced chef, the 42-year-old is passionate about the ingredients that she sources: “You open the bag and it feels like going on a trip around the world, and suddenly you’re back in Ethiopia yourself! I love the whole process. Learning everything about the coffee; the plant, the soil where the plant has been – all these nuances and flavours, which are developing in the roast”.

But roasting for restaurants also has its challenges and over time, she has learnt that restaurants often prefer a blend that meets their needs. “Not everyone is interested in specialty coffee”, she adds. “Sometimes they just want to be able to press a button and a good coffee has to come out of the machine. Others say they would like to have a coffee with a light acidity, chocolate taste or dark berries. Then I look for the coffees and develop a roasting profile before the client tastes it. In most cases, this works well”.

Olga intends to travel to India next year – not only because she enjoys the flavour profile of Indian coffees but the country has a special place reserved as it was the very first coffee that she ever roasted. Although she has a great deal of experience as a master roaster, Olga is committed to learning more from the people in the origins that she buys from. That is when algrano, as a new way to source coffees directly from origin, first appealed to her. She says the Brazilian Sitio Arroza coffee that she bought through the platform was an instant hit with her customers: “It was not for gastronomes because for them it was too expensive but this coffee was very special and my customers loved it. Direct trade is nice, but what really matters is transparency”, she says. “I like having the possibility to contact the growers directly rather than choose from an anonymous list”.

Olga’s mission to reinvent the coffee offer on the restaurant menu is now bearing fruit as local restaurateurs are paying more attention to their coffee selection: “After all, it’s the last cup and taste which their guests have in their restaurant”, she concludes. “Coffee is a great product, which you can develop and process with different preparation methods. They are starting to realize this - which is nice”.

ALGRANO COFFEE IN THE HOPPER

Producer: Teodoro Engelhardt

Country: Guatemala

Varietal: Caturra

Process: Fully washed

FOLLOW DIE KAFFEE AT:

Twitter: Die_Kaffee

Facebook: DieKaffee

Instagram: die_kaffee

Website: http://die-kaffee.de

[algrano]

We are what we drink

Although times have changed since his grandfather and father ran a coffee house more than three decades ago, Honorio Garcia Delgado of Cafetaza has became one of the early pioneers in specialty coffee in the Basque country capital of Northern Spain, Vitoria.

“My father taught me about coffee culture”, says the current Spanish Barista and Micro-roaster Vice-Champion. “In Spain, we still drink torrefacto coffee and robusta - a lot of robusta. Yet, thirty years ago my grandfather and father had cafés and would only serve 100% arabica coffee, nothing else. This paved the way for my life in coffee”.

Honorio followed in his father’s footsteps and opened his first cafeteria at the age of 19 before taking up the craft of roasting. "When I started to roast nine years ago on a small 2kg Toper, the experience was very positive”, Honorio adds. “I was roasting in public so that my customers could see it, and they loved it.”

Encouraged by the positive reaction that he received, the 43 year-old started his first specialty coffee project called Cafetaza; a third wave coffee shop where he has been roasting specialty coffee on a small scale for customers and retail: “I now work with all the coffees myself; from finding green beans providers, developing the roast profile, and production roasting. In the last year, my second project is a coffee lab called Trike Koffee Roasters with the addition of a 6kg capacity Jensen. This allows me to roast coffee in larger quantities and we are now roasting approximately 60kg per week”.

His intense focus on quality and a desire to compete at a national level for a number of years has brought Honorio into the orbit of the SCA and Spain’s own coffee association - Forum Del Café - where he actively contributes to the organisation of coffee championships in the country each year. Honorio cites coffee roasters, Emilio and Marisa Baque, as instrumental in helping him to hone his craft and understand quality control better.

“I’m directly involved in coffee professionally and personally so it is important to work with others to enhance quality – and the one thing that I want to develop is higher quality. I don’t want to roast commercial grade coffee and I don’t want just good coffee - I want to have the best coffees. That is my quest. At Trike Koffee Roasters, we firmly believe in changing coffee quality in spain and we believe that education is the key to improving this”, he comments.

As a specialty roaster and coffee shop owner, Honorio’s recent trip to visit coffee farms in Colombia has ignited his interest in direct trade. Although he regards the geographical distance from origin as a barrier to fully understanding the value chain at the production level, he sees this as an opportunity to learn more and reach the grower directly.

“My limitation is that I’m not a grower. But I want to get closer to origin so buying green coffee and roasting it allows me to understand much more than if I was simply buying simply roasted beans and brewing it. When it comes to roasting, I dedicate myself to the cup quality, to fine tune the device and  reach a certain quality. It’s a game that makes me alive and professionally; it gives me very good sensations so of course I love it!”

His Colombian field trip has been an eye-opener and he has already committed to collaborate with a producer directly: “I realised in Colombia that there are problems with the payment to the growers. They get about eight percent of the cup’s value. This means that the supply chain has to better share the value. I now have an agreement with a producer to commit to buy her entire production of six bags in order to help stabilise her finances. We will also help her to set up a mill”.

Pleased by its ‘impressively strong’ chocolate flavours in the cup, Honorio also recently bought a naturally processed Costa Rican coffee from Finca El Chayote through the algrano platform which he describes as a ‘triumph’ for his customers. It is a purchasing decision that has already helped Honorio to meet his goal of collaborating more closely with growers as he seeks out more transparent trade relationships in Costa Rica, Colombia and elsewhere.

When considering the prospect of offering more delicious coffees through direct, transparent trade, he turns his attention back to Vitoria: “Cafetaza is a place with a lot of demand. It has already raised attention because we do things differently. People in Spain are used to bitter-tasting coffee, especially torrefacto which is bad quality. Things are getting better but there is still a lot of work to do”.

However, Honorio remains philosophical in his outlook: “Somos lo que comemos, y somos lo que bebemos (we are what we eat, and we are what we drink),” he concludes. It comes as no surprise that many Vitorians will be happy to raise a cup of coffee to his specialty approach to philosophy in life.

ALGRANO COFFEE IN THE HOPPER

Producer: Finca Chayote

Country: Costa Rica

Varietal: Villa Sarchi

Process: Semi-Washed

FOLLOW CAFETAZA AT:

Twitter: MrCafetaza

Facebook: /Cafetaza

Instagram: MrCafetaza

Website: http://www.cafetaza.es/

[algrano]

Tim Tim makes a direct comeback

When Dutch traders introduced the Typica cultivar to Indonesia in the 17th century, coffee production underwent a rapid expansion. This was aided by a particularly favourable microclimate near the equator and mountainous regions across its many islands. But in the late 1880s, disaster struck when coffee leaf rust swept through large swathes of the country; virtually wiping out the varietal with the exception of the higher slopes of Sumatra. In response, the hardier Robusta coffee plant species was cultivated in much of the low-lying regions and the species flourished to account for nearly three-quarters of the Indonesia’s total coffee total coffee production today.

However, standing tall amongst the twenty or so varieties that have been introduced over the centuries and are still grown commercially in the country, there is one varietal that can be described as uniquely tied to Indonesia’s rich coffee heritage. Discovered on the island of Timor in the 1940s, Hibrido de Timor – or more affectionately known as TimTim – is a natural interspecies cross between c.arabica and c.canephora (Robusta).

Known for its resilience to coffee leaf rust and characteristic bold cup profile that makes an excellent complement to high acidity coffees, TimTim has become a preferred ‘parent’ plant for many other hybrids. It’s genetic resistance to disease is widely acclaimed by scientists, botanists and producers who regard it as a hardy and a high yielding crop.

Geologist and Founder of Pinesia coffee estate, Gary Sjafwan, began cultivating Hibrido de Timor himself when he was researching the geological features of Java nine-years ago: “I love nature”, he says. “I like to experience the forest, go hiking, and see how growing coffee is also making a better life for the earth. I started planting coffee in Java and Sumatra and was interested in not just the coffee itself; but how the culture in every region is different, just as the character of the people and the way farmers grow it is also different”.

The estate now comprises of more that 800 smallholder farmers across Sumatra, Aceh and West Java who have joined forces to achieve greater economies of scale as they seek to access specialty coffee markets worldwide under the umbrella of Pinesia Family Estates.

As demand for Hybrido de Timor outside Indonesia increases, their production of 700 tons in Sumatra is now dedicated to the sole cultivation of TimTim for both commercial and specialty customers. Although the bulk of their shade grown coffee is washed, fermented for ten hours and double soaked, they also have the facility to offer natural process sun-dried coffee in small quantities.

This stable supply of coffee cherry has provided a bedrock for the estate to branch out into further research and development into other varietals such as the Dutch-introduced ancestral Typica, Maragogype, including the addition of a nursery dedicated to the production of Geisha. Gary says that their research facility on the 100-hectare farm in Flores is a planned effort to meet demand in the specialty coffee segment across Indonesia and further afield.

“The specialty market in Indonesia is increasing but our main target is to sell coffee outside of the country. For commercial markets, we want to keep our our quality stable as we expand the farm into specialty areas,” Gary adds.

A chance meeting with algrano at World of Coffee in Budapest earlier this year has already born fruit and a promising partnership now means that the Estate’s Typica and TimTim, amongst other varietals, is now directly available to specialty coffee roasters in Europe. It is also the first offering of coffee from Indonesia on the transparent trade platform.

This new offering – a quality product of hundreds of smallholder growers represented by Pinesia Family Estate – is yet another opportunity for producers to command a fair price for their coffee that is helping to support their families and communities: “We are not just growing the coffee itself, we are growing the community in the coffee farms – it is the farmer and his family that is our biggest asset”, insists Gary before confidently adding: “Indonesia is a big country and we have a lot of different flavours depending on the character of each region. There is no good or bad coffee, mistakes only happen in the process after harvest. That is why we are taking steps to be consistent in our processing to bring out the unique character of our coffee in every cup”.

algrano coffee in the hopper

Ref: ID-1

Producer: Pinesia Farm

Country: Indonesia

Varietal: Timtim

Process: Fully Washed

Flavours: Sweet & sugary, Nut, Floral, Citrus, Chocolate, Stone fruit

[algrano]

Digital dialogue in transparent trade gathers steam

To catch a glimpse into the coffee value chain of the future, let’s take a quick look at some of the pioneering developments that are dramatically reshaping the landscape today. In a digital age of big data, powerful algorithms, just-in-time logistics and more interconnected communities globally than ever before, a revolution in coffee is taking place – and it is gathering a powerful head of steam.

In a climate of consolidation where eight major trading houses now control more than half (60%) of the world’s coffee bought and sold on the global market, there has been a tectonic shift in the supply chain that now seems unstoppable. Driven by the power of digital technologies fuelled by increased consumer demand, a new era of transparency and traceability is changing the conversation about coffee.

In the eighties, there were lots of agencies in the supply chain so roasters had very little idea of coffee production at origin. The traders offered coffee on a delivery basis to the factories from the warehouse, not necessarily from the farm gate. The internet changed all that and opened the door to establish direct contacts at origin built on trust; and above all, coffee is about trust.

Behind the macro-trend of consolidation in bulk markets, specialty coffee has been confidently moving in the direction of craft beer. A new generation of customers want to know the story behind the single origins and they demand greater sustainability which means fair prices at the farmer level. They want to participate at a deeper level and have confidence that their coffee is traceable and traded transparently.

No one can dispute that digitization is laying new tracks in the way physical coffee is being traded; particularly in specialty markets where price is largely disconnected from the world market and provenance is highly prized.

This shift that we are seeing in the supply chain will change the role of traders. As growing transparency in price and pressure on margins increases, traders will become more like data analysts as roaster's search for the most cost efficient and transparent system to buy and market their product. Service providers such as algrano with digital platforms that connect the buyer and seller directly are challenging the way coffee has been traditionally traded.

And as the third wave in speciality coffee roasteries and independent coffee shops continues to gather pace, the mainstream market is now paying more attention to the journey from the crop to cup. Through its award-winning platform, algrano is responding to this need by helping to bridge the gap between growers and roasters. The platform also helps to overcome the enormous logistical challenges and risks of moving large volumes from one continent to another.

Whether it is a micro-lot or a full container’s worth of green coffee, growers want access to an open digital market space where they can sell their coffee online to the world. They want to tell their story and show their varieties or processing methods to potential buyers. This awareness is empowering greater knowledge sharing as producers can now compare directly with their neighbours - or even other countries. Technology is underpinning these new capabilities as people at both ends of the value chain have the tools to access more information and become more informed.

The head of steam in the engine room of the coffee trade is building, and story is moving. It’s about access to quality, transparency and traceability for roasters and new markets for producers. For a fairer and more sustainable value chain, this is definitely the direction that coffee needs to go. Since algrano was launched at World of Coffee in Gothenburg in 2015 - when we scooped an award for tech innovation - the online community has now grown to represent more than 400 growers and cooperatives from across ten coffee producing countries in central, south America. Over 500 roasters have joined to source coffee that is directly delivered to their door.

Next stop is East Africa and Asia as producers from Ethiopia and Indonesia plan to get on board later this year.

By Peter Lerch, Sales and sourcing department algrano

Biography

Peter has three decades of international experience working in many aspects of the coffee trade. He is a qualified Q-Grader who has worked and travelled extensively across coffee producing countries in Latin America. Peter has developed leading quality assurance programs in procurement, logistics, blending and supply chain management for multinationals including Sara Lee/DE – now JDE – and Strauss Commodities. He has an in-depth knowledge of coffee markets and has worked on the commodity trading floor for Volcafe Ltd. His coffee consultancy, Sinscom GmbH / Consulting company, has advised a wide range of clients in the coffee sector. He now joins algrano to develop the sales, logistics and supply chain management of the Swiss-based company.