Royal.Coffee.Travel

I go to Mexico every year in late April to check in on our suppliers of fine Mexican coffee and see if they have any surprises in store for us as they wrap up the harvest. Last week I made it to both Oaxaca and Chiapas, visiting all of our main sources. Following is my brief field report and shopping guide.


Oaxaca – Days of Coffee and Mezcal

My first stop in Oaxaca was at “La Casa de la Tia”, a small hotel owned by Don Alberto Perez, a.k.a. the “Bearded Man”. I arrived a day later than planned thanks to storms and plane diversions. Don Alberto welcomed me with a jug of his homegrown mezcal to soothe my jangled nerves and general road wear. A large sprig of anise floated in the bottle. I dug right in. I was fine in no time. It was only noon.
In addition to owning a funky hotel and possessing lethal mezcal, the Bearded Man is also a coffee grower and the supplier of our 2 lots of Mexico Organic Pluma Real – La Cabana and El Olivo, recent arrivals in our warehouse. If you are into the “terroir” of coffee, these 2 containers are vintage Pluma, grown right in the heart of the region and featuring all of the Pluma trademarks – body, caramel, sweetness, bluish green cast to the bean, friendly acidity but more plush than bright. Plenty still available.

Next stop was the dry mill beneficio of Calvo Exports, our shipper of the Pluma Tres Oros conventional coffees. Like Royal, they are a family business, nimbly operating around the octopus tentacles of the multinational giants operating in Oaxaca. Their knowledge of the region and old family connections have allowed them to compete successfully in the area and access consistently fantastic and sweet Oaxacan coffees from dozens of medium sized estates still functioning in the area. We have a good stock of this coffee on hand and now feature a special delivery of a coffee put together from 5 specific farms selected by Jose Luis Calvo. Nothing like Pluma for easy drinking, sweet, big bean coffee.

I wrapped up the Oaxaca chapter of the trip with a visit to CEPCO, the Fair Trade Organic cooperative we have worked with for over 10 years. They have endured some internal conflict this past year, but have emerged healthy and are carrying on strong. An entire afternoon was spent cupping over a dozen coffees and these existing stocks taste great. Much of what I cupped there will comprise our April/May/June shipments set to arrive late May and June. Meanwhile, our first delivery of the year from CEPCO arrived at our warehouse in Oakland just recently, with excellent preparation and classic Oaxaca cup profile. Still 100 bags left SPOT. Hit it.

Lastly, I couldn’t write about Oaxaca without mentioning Fino Rojas. While I did not visit the Rojas family or their farm on this trip, I could feel the ghost of Don Guillermo every time I walked in his neighborhood. His legacy lives on in coffee – we just brought in a box of Fino last week. It hasn’t changed, still the big fat sweet soft coffee of yesteryear from those 80 year old tipica and borbon trees. We never know when it will be the last time we ever see this coffee, but you don’t need to be nostalgic to buy this lot; it is vintage Rojas and truly excellent coffee. Still around 200 bags left.

Chiapas – The grizzly hurricane aftermath

From Oaxaca, I traveled to Chiapas on one of those famous all night buses. They played a movie in Farsi with Spanish subtitles about living amongst the Taliban in Afghanistan. Who needs Die Hard 4? Anyway, I went to Chiapas to visit with our number 1 supplier in the area – Union de Ejidos Professor Otilio Montano – UDEPOM. UDEPOM is a small grower cooperative with some 600 members or so, operating since the early 90’s out of the southern Sierra Madre Mountains near Motozintla. Unfortunately, their idyllic little setting happened to be directly in path of the last October’s Hurricane Stan. Stan parked itself over the region for nearly 3 days dumping over 2 feet of water during its stay. The effects of the storm were in evidence everywhere, 7 months after the fact – mangled bridges, blown out buildings near river courses, massive scars in the earth from slides, and roads still nearly impassible.
The storm hit just a month before the harvest was to begin. Virtually every UDEPOM member suffered to some degree, losing either patches of land to the slides, damaged coffee trees, and in some cases their entire houses were washed away. Meanwhile, the processing facility of the coop, located on the outskirts of Motozintla, was completely flooded as a nearby river altered its course and swept through the mill. All of their coffee bags were washed away and the plant was filled chest deep in mud, damaging all of their processing equipment and destroying their electrical capacity. They were able to re-establish their mill on a site just up the hill, but the facility is fairly basic and it appears their processing abilities have suffered slightly due to the setback.
Still, UDEPOM, marches on and continues to ship us kick ass coffee. As noted above, we have seen a slightly higher defect count in some of the deliveries due to the temporarily compromised processing facility, but the coffee itself remains top notch. UDEPOM is one of the pioneers of the organic coffee movement in Latin America. Their internal standards on organic coffee cultivation and processing are strict and well followed. All organic coffee growers must grow under a diverse and well managed shade cover, all must wet process their own coffee and all must have cement fermentation tanks and sun dry their own coffee on cement patios. The farms range in size from 1 to 9 hectares, with some farms growing at nearly 1700 meters. All of the coffee is Bourbon and Tipica.
Our relationship with this cooperative is incredibly strong. We’ve done all we can to help them get back on their feet in the aftermath of the hurricane, from sending down relief funds, to pre-financing their harvest, to paying over Fair Trade minimum pricing for their coffee. Why? Because these are great people and they send us great coffee. If you don’t show you care and truly recognize the good and hard work they are doing, why should they carry on? Growing coffee is damn hard work, and with world wide inflation, costs of petroleum, weakening of the U.S. currency, paying Fair Trade pricing is a token act at best at reimbursement. Heck, if I had to deal with hurricanes, lousy roads, no electricity, and low coffee prices, I’d try my luck as a day laborer in L.A. too.
Okay, enough morality and politics, let it be known our friends at UDEPOM are alive and well. While their production is down a little and their processing ability is slightly embattled for this season, their coffee rolls in well. If you are looking for verified shade grown, sun dried, bright, sweet, cinnamon, raisin, oranges, etc. organic coffee, go for UDEPOM. We’ve got about another month or so of shipments from these folks. Thus far we’ve struggled with keeping their coffee available SPOT, so please plan ahead. Talk to your salesperson and book it for the summer and fall now. This is a coffee and a cooperative well worth supporting, and it will only get better as they rebuild.
----John Cossette

My little journey to El Salvador really got rolling about the time I boarded the plane in Houston. I have never flown to Central America before, and I think I will not be alone in the observation that people want to bring a lot of stuff along with them when they travel there. As I made it back to my seat, I found a rather sturdy looking gentleman with five teardrops tattooed under his eye sitting in my spot. Since my Spanish and his English did not add up to much, and tattooed teardrops kind of freak me out, I decided I would go ahead and sit in the window seat, at least until someone else came to claim it.
(Later I asked our hosts if they knew anything about the tattooed teardrops, because I had a vague idea that this had something to do with being in a gang. They confirmed that there were many Salvadoran refugees who ended up in places like Los Angeles during the eighties and 90’s. They brought the problems associated with the conflict at home with them, founded expatriate Salvadoran gangs. Recently many of these guys have come back to live in San Salvador, some bringing their gang affiliation back with them. Google “Mara Salvatrucha” or “MS-13”, if you are interested.)
After an exhausting day of flying, we arrived at the San Salvador airport the evening of Sunday March 12, which happened to be the date of the congressional and mayoral elections in El Salvador. Our hosts were more than a little preoccupied with the election, as were most people in San Salvador: we were told everyone had stayed home to watch or listen for the outcome of the election. We encountered roads with almost no traffic all the way up to the mill where we were going to stay.
That night we slept at a house on the premises of one of the oldest coffee mills in El Salvador: Las Cruces. Actual milling had stopped for the day as everyone was focused on the election; however, the patios were filled with drying parchment from the day before.
The mill is adjoined by a 100-year-old house that we used as home base. The layout of the house was gorgeous; with bedrooms in the center surrounded by a living area more like a huge wrap around porch—all windows overlooking the patios and the mill. The mill and house are surrounded by coffee farms and shade trees, so the view in all directions is taken up by coffee in one form or another.
The next morning we were woken up by some extremely loud birds which were unfamiliar to me, but looked like a Magpie’s grey cousin.
Later that morning we took off to visit a couple of farms in the area. First we hiked around the Santa Rita farm to take a look at how the volcanic eruption back in October of last year had affected the trees. The effects were still obvious, lots of volcanic ash still lingering on the ground. These trees looked so sad, having lost most of their leaves from two disasters--after first getting covered with ash from the volcano, hurricane Stan came along a couple of weeks later and washed them off (a rare case of a hurricane having a positive effect.)
Just a few weeks later they were hit with an infestation of red spider mites. Apparently these mites found optimal conditions after the volcano. They caused the leaves that were still hanging in there to fall off, so most trees were basically stripped of foliage. Hard pruning has been necessary to save these trees; most are being pruned down to about a foot tall.

Later that afternoon we went up to see Cerro de las Ranas, a lovely mountaintop farm. The difference between Cerro de las Ranas and the Santa Rita farm was heartbreaking. It had not been damaged by the volcanic eruption. Riding steep trails on a four-wheeler, I got to see how terrifyingly steep a high altitude farm like this can be. It was amazing; I can’t imagine trying to pick coffee on those mountainsides.

We spent the next day driving around and looking at various farms in the area. It was beautiful, and I was astounded by how nice the roads in El Salvador are. I swear most of them were in better repair than the roads I drive on in California. The other thing I noticed was that gas and diesel fuel are approximately the same price they are in the states. Steep! In a country where the average person’s yearly income is around $5000, it is no wonder you see so many people hitching rides…

Tuesday night we drove back to San Salvador, into a possible riot situation as the Mayoral race for the city of San Salvador had been exactly even. A hand count was taking place and was due to be finished that evening. It was all happening in a hotel downtown (not ours) and by all accounts hundreds of people had gathered there to hear the result. As we drove to dinner the streets were eerily quiet, no traffic at all. At dinner we were literally the only table there. At about 9 p.m. there were suddenly some very loud fireworks, and our host got a call telling him that the FMLN candidate had won very narrowly. The FMLN is the most popular leftwing party, and I guess this caused the potential rioters to shoot off some fireworks and go home.

So almost before it had started my little trip to El Salvador was over. We got back on the plane around the time I started to wake up the next morning. Luckily this time I sat next to Bob, and his English is pretty good.---Jeri Idso

A few weeks back, my boss and fearless leader, Bob Fulmer, asked me if I wanted to go to Ethiopia. "When are you thinking about going," I asked. "I don't know, pretty soon, maybe in a week or two, whenever we can get our Visa," he casually replied. "I'm there," said I. Just like that, my first trip to the birthplace of coffee and the cradle of mankind was underway. Sure enough, less than 24 hours after we had our passports in hand with the gaudy Ethiopian Visa stamped in place, we were airborne.

The vague intent of the trip was to meet with our suppliers and visit the coffee growing areas. I didn't really care. I just kept thinking Africa, flying over the Nile River, The vast Sahara Desert, driving through the Great Rift Valley, a whole new continent and coffee country I'd never seen. Not just any coffee country, but the place where coffee farming began possibly a thousand years ago, and where its cultivation and consumption are still sacred today. This was a frigging pilgrimage man!

Yes, so we arrived on the Dark Continent after 30 hours of flying and airport terminals. It really was dark, 3 A.M. The first smell I noticed after exiting the ultra swank and brand new Addis Airport was the re-assuring odor of animal dung, internationally recognized third world welcome mat; the modern and the pre-industrial side by side, an enduring theme throughout the trip. Even at this ungodly hour, the destitute were at work in the parking lot with their hands out, looking for anything from anyone, fair warning for the tough times we would witness over the next week.

Hours later as dawn turned to day, I ventured out to the streets of Addis, the capital city of over 3 million people. It wasn't dark at all, the tropical sun was blinding. Cars zigged and zagged maniacally on a huge thoroughfare with no lane markings in front of the national stadium, stopping only for the occasional herd of goats to cross the road. Again, the 21st and the 16th century in perfect harmony. As much as I relished this setting, we were here for coffee, so off we went to the East to the town of Dire Dawa, home of our revered exporter, Muhammad Abdullahi Ogsadey, shipper of the famed Ethiopian Mocha Harrar Horse (accept no substitutes!).
If you've followed our newsletters over the years you are familiar with Mr. Ogsadey, exporter of the Horse Harrar. He has legend status in Ethiopia, and at 85 years old he is still out there doing it, working daily, kicking ass, sharp as a tack. He met us at the airport in Dire Dawa and from that point on it was his show. He drove us to his house for a fine meal of goat and spaghetti. Try it, you'll like it. We were briefed on this year's crop and given a little history lesson from Ogsadey about Harrar coffee and the role he has played in its evolution since the 1940's.

He picked us up early the next day, and firmly behind the wheel, drove us out to the region of the Longberry Harrar coffee, several hours outside of Dire Dawa. His lovely Land Rover flew over the newly constructed highway, slowing only to evade the occasional lounging camel, donkey, cow, or goat. Driving further into the interior, the landscape became more and more arid and the terrain steeper. Looking at the hillsides, every arable inch of land had been farmed as centuries of terraces could be seen. It was on these hillsides and canyons that coffee sporadically grew, not in dense stands, but in tiny plots intermingled with the other crops grown by the families. Water is scarce here and it shows in the look of the coffee trees. It also explains why Harrar coffee is always naturally processed and never washed - there isn't water to spare for it.
We stopped in 2 different communities, both towns collection points where Ogsadey buys coffee and has storage and hulling facilities. He has operated here since the late 40's. We arrived on a Saturday, market day, and the towns were teeming with people. As we drove into the villages, chants of "Ogsadey, Ogsadey, Ogsadey" rang out, and easily over a hundred kids followed the car to Ogsadey's warehouse. As it turns out, the cultural and economic survival of these communities is largely due to Ogsadey. Back in the day before there were any decent roads, Ogsadey was the only man willing to drive back to these parts to buy coffee. The growers' loyalty to him has spanned generations, and he has returned the favor by building schools and mosques in the communities, and paying a fair price to the farmers for their coffee. His fairness and knowledge of the region virtually assure high quality and abundant supply of Horse Harrar.

Driving through the Harrar growing area, I noted every farm had a small stand of very healthy green shrubs that looked like tea bushes growing in front of the coffee. Some of these shrubs were even being irrigated and on some farms appeared to be displacing coffee entirely. This shrub is "qat" (Celastrus edulis) or "chat" as it is called in Ethiopia. The terminal branches of this shrub are snipped off and the delicate leaves are chewed, providing the chewer with an ethereal amphetamine-like buzz. To achieve this state, a good quantity of the leaves need be chewed over a span of an hour or so.

People have been growing and chewing qat for centuries in this part of the world, but its popularity has grown in recent years. While a good deal of the Harrar qat is actually exported to Somalia and Yemen, it is widely chewed in Harrar as well. I soon noticed virtually every male of adult age was chewing as well as many of the older women, while people everywhere were toting their little bundles of qat home in plastic produce bags for the afternoon chew. A sucker for stimulants (how the heck you think I ended up in the coffee business?), I decide to have myself a good chew on some freshly picked leaves. Chewing away on the ride back to Dire Dawa, I soon found myself speaking amharic and somalic with the driver, and found nothing at all unusual about the small station wagon we passed with the 5 goats in the back compartment and the 20 chickens tethered to the luggage rack on top. I awoke the next morning with a splitting headache and a dark green tongue. I stuck to coffee for the rest of the trip.

Following our visit with Mr. Ogsadey, we returned to Addis, to meet up with Mr. Tadesse Meskela, head of the Oromia Coffee Growers Cooperative, growers and suppliers of our Fair Trade Organic Yrgacheffe, Sidamo, and Natural Sidamo. We drove with him some 300 km to the south of Addis to the Yrgacheffe and Sidamo growing regions. It was a memorable drive, descending into the Great Rift Valley at the town of Mojo (neither Jim Morrison nor Austin Powers were sighted) and following it south for hours, past huge lakes, termite mounds, and an endless stream of livestock and barefoot herders. It is in this Valley that the skeletal remains of man's earliest ancestors were found.

The hours in the car allowed for Tadesse to explain how the cooperative was born and how it functions. Like cooperatives in other parts of the world, it was put together to give the growers more control over their produce, and to realize a larger chunk of the final export price as their own. Though they were formed only in the late 1990's, membership has grown to 23,691 members in the 35 separate cooperatives that comprise the Oromia Cooperative as a whole. The cooperatives exist in all of the major growing regions of Ethiopia - Limu/Djimma, Sidamo/Yrgacheffe, and Harrar. Once organized, the growers were able to have their crop certified organic and become certified with FLO as Fair Trade. That membership levels are climbing in every co-op is testament to the success of the model.

Eventually we climbed out of the valley into a setting of lush green mountains and shortly the first stands of coffee were seen as we entered into the Sidamo region. Coffee production here begins at 1500 meters, just where it ends in most of Central America. Whereas Harrar was arid, Sidamo was clearly blessed with a generous amount of rainfall, as attested to by the red laterite soils and the dense shade canopies and foliage. The abundant water supply allows for the "wet processing" of coffee, and why Yrgacheffe and Sidamo are primarily "washed" coffees. Like in Harrar, the farms are very small, but here they all support shade, citrus, hardwood and avocado trees, and the cultivation of qat was infrequent.
We visited 2 cooperatives, 1 each in both the Yrgacheffe and Sidamo areas. It should be clarified that Yrgacheffe is actually a micro-region within the Sidamo region. Picture a fried egg with the yolk in the middle of the white - that is Yrgacheffe inside of Sidamo. Yrgacheffe radiates out from the town of the same name, and describes an area growing coffee between 1700-2300 meters with undefined but generally understood borders. Meanwhile, Sidamo coffee grows in virtually identical conditions but is harvested in a broader area and up to 200 meters lower. While a Yrgacheffe should be a consistently great coffee, virtually indiscernible coffees can also be found in Sidamo.

The cooperative's growers all have their coffee cherry processed together in newly constructed wet mills, built with funds obtained through selling their coffee at Fair Trade prices. The mill we visited in Sidamo where our coffee comes from was located at over 1800 meters! The coffees are then 100% sun dried on raised drying racks, and meticulously hand sorted. The pergamino is then trucked down to Addis to a giant dry mill for final export processing and cup testing. The detailed recordkeeping maintained for all member growers is staggering, and the allocation of funds and payment to growers is well displayed. From our view, the Fair Trade coop system is functioning well here, and is producing excellent certified organic coffee from clearly delineated and defined areas, true "appellation" coffees.

I spent the final day of the trip back in Addis. The shy country women with their colorful robes and headdress were replaced with midriff-bearing beauties, and over used wells replaced with tap water. Still, the barefoot poor were everywhere and goats were as common as ever. I paid a visit to the Central Coffee Processing Plant, the dry mill where all washed coffees must pass through for final export preparation and cup testing and where the daily auctions take place. The place was big enough to build about 10 Boeing 747's inside, and literally hundreds of trucks loaded with pergamino waited in chaotic queues to be unloaded and weighed. Meanwhile, the cupping lab was an island of sanity and control where every single lot of coffee is cupped and rated. They tried to test me with 5 unidentified coffees from the different growing regions throughout the country. I nailed every one of them and guessed altitude to within 100 meters. I guess there is no place like the Royal Coffee cupping room to hone your skills and see everything Ethiopia has to offer.

After spending this memorable week in the birthplace of coffee, I once again feel great about our sources. The new crop arrivals have just begun, but I am looking forward to another stellar year of Ethiopian deliveries from Harrar, Sidamo, and Yrgacheffe from our friend Mr. Ogsadey and the folks at Oromia. While I don't think I'll have any problems laying off the qat, I think I'm pretty well hooked on goat. Goats and coffee. Isn't this how it all started?
-John Cossette