Growing up on the coffee farm

October 9, 2020
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<Coffee for the Average Josh, Part 2 of 10>

Imagine you are a young Arabica coffee bean, brimming with hopes and dreams. You yearn to make it to the big-time: say, served up at a specialty coffee shop in Seattle.

You may as well aspire to be the starting quarterback for the Seahawks.

If this is your ambition, the road will be long, and the competition will be fierce. It will require an elite level of excellence that separates you from your peers — and a whole lot of luck.

The early years

The perfect farm, the ideal tree

Step one to becoming the Russell Wilson of coffee beans is to come into the world on a respected, well-connected, high-quality coffee farm that is:

  • Located in the tropics (but far from life on the beach)
  • At least 3,000 feet in elevation (5,000 is even better, but stay below the frost line)
  • Experiencing sustained cool weather (this promotes slow, flavor-packing growth)
  • Staffed with patient, selective farmers (bonus points for valuing excellence over profit)

So, yeah, just get dealt all four aces.

You will likely be welcomed into the world as a twin, one of two seeds growing inside of a coffee cherry.

The plant you grow on may be referred to as a tropical evergreen shrub or small tree. It likely started as a bean in a nursery, and it was at least 3 years old before it began producing coffee beans like you. Left alone, coffee trees can stretch to 15 feet or more, but your ideal host is likely maintained as a 3- to 7-foot shrub and counted on to produce coffee beans for 40-plus years.

Ugh, middle school

Uneven maturity and getting picked

Remember when you showed up for sixth grade but could pass for a kindergartner — and learned the bullies had grown 50 pounds of muscle and facial hair over the summer? The very same thing happens to coffee cherries. All start tiny and green. Some grow fast, while others take up to nine months to fully ripen (usually to a cherry red color).

This is bad news if your coffee tree is machine harvested. Machine harvesting is like the first day of middle school — everyone walks in at a different maturity level, and no one bothers to sort it out. There are even a few of those “old-soul” berries who have soured on the whole junior high scene before it’s even started. No matter, the machine plucks every coffee cherry simultaneously, producing an uneven crop that’s not going to taste right in the end.

This is why NFL quarterback-quality coffee is harvested by hand. It’s as if the popular kids have been let loose in the fields; they only look at appearance and could care less about your feelings. After ignoring you time and again, one day you finally fit their exact criteria and they pick you.

Sure, they did it for their own selfish reasons and will soon forget about you, but you’ve been picked! It’s time to take advantage of your opportunity.

Coffee Prep High School

Cleaning up and making the grade

Until now, Mr. Bean, you were protected by a cherry. But grades are about to count. At the coffee farm, this high school experience is called processing. You’ll start as a cherry, and be released into the world as a shiny, green bean. There’s a lot of work to do before graduation day.

Most first-class beans like you are schooled via the “washed process,” so that’s what we will describe step by step. But briefly, there is an alternative method called the “natural process” by which the cherry is basically left to bake in the sun like a California raisin. Only then is the bean removed in all of its sticky, pulpy glory. Far from a clean bean, the natural process is known for producing some spectacularly fruity coffee — as well as some tooty-fruity drivel — so it’s a bit of a dice roll.

But you, our starting QBean, will achieve fame through the washed process:

Step 1: Sink, don’t swim

After being picked, you and your friends are treated to a pool party. If you float, bad news — you haven’t ripened properly. You’re sent to coffee jail. Do not pass go. Do not collect $200. You and your fellow prisoners will be processed and sold on the cheap, turned into freeze-dried instant coffee and shipped to a military outpost in Siberia.

Step 2: Pulp-erization

You sunk? Perfect. Now it’s off to the depulping machine for a true coming-of-age experience, where you are stripped of your fruit flesh once and for all. It’s the world’s first glimpse of the bean you were made to be, in all of your glory.

Step 3: Another bath

The “washed process” ain’t nothing without one more dip in a tank. This time it’s for a little fermentation, which is a fancy science way to wash off the still-sticky fruit instead of having your dog lick it off.

Step 4: How about a shower?

This is one of those pools where you are required to rinse off after you exit, just to make sure all the cherry is washed away.

Step 5: Sunbathing

Who said the bean life lacked luxury? Next, you lay out on a patio or drying table where attentive servants turn you regularly so you get a nice, even tan. (OK, so it’s just to dry off — you can brown later. But after all that washing, it can take a few days to reach your targeted moisture content of around 10 percent, so enjoy it.)

Step 6: Long nap

Next, head to a dark place to siesta for a month or two. Seriously: Coffee needs its sleep. This extra bit of aging helps to seal the bean’s natural flavor. For beans, this extended nap doubles as strength training, helping to ward off future deterioration and unwanted “seasoning” once you leave the safety of the farm.

Step 7: Buff it out

Until now, L.L. Cool Bean, you have been covered by protective parchment, a thin layer that must be shed before finals. Enter some last-minute hulling, polishing and cleaning — beautiful!

Step 8: Final exams

Average Joes look to get by and graduate, but you’ve been aiming for valedictorian. At ideal farms, this step is meticulous and typically done by hand. You are graded on density, color and size. Many times, you are scrutinized for ideal characteristics sought for a particular flavor profile. Here’s hoping you’ve got what they’re looking for, kid.

Step 9: Shipping off

The world is your oyster, bean! Hop into a burlap bag with 130-150 pounds of your best pals, and it’s time to travel. Most often, you will be sealed in a shipping container and floated by sea to far-flung ports, where you are distributed, roasted and consumed.

Fingers crossed, you’ll be drafted by Seattle.

Next: “3 reasons to pay more for your coffee”

This is the second in a 10-part series, “Coffee for the Average Josh,” releasing Fridays this fall. Get your fix of Coffee 101 by signing up to receive an email when the next post drops.

Previous: “Where do coffee babies come from?”  

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‘You are what you say you are …’

October 9, 2019
3

One of my all-time favorite gifts was a few simple words placed in a frame. Pictured below, it’s a reminder my wife had custom-designed for me by our friend, Brittany White. This is the story behind it …

I was Skyping with a pastor in Uganda who has become a dear friend. Ronald’s church was preparing to take a pair of special offerings. One was for an 11-year-old girl whose leg was being eaten from the inside by a parasite and would need to be amputated if funds could not be raised for medical treatment. The other was for a region a couple hours south of his church that was especially hard hit by this year’s dry season. He was asking his people to give money, food — whatever they could.

  • Visiting Ronald’s church in Uganda

“People are literally starving,” the pastor told me. “What is very sad is that the government is not coming in to help. But we have a responsibility as Christians to come in and help.”

“I’m sorry, I’ve got to stop you right there,” I said. “You’ve told me a good offering at your church is $20. The vast majority of your congregation is unemployed. Why would your church help? Don’t you have enough needs of your own?”

Pastor Ronald laughed.

  • View overlooking Fort Portal, Uganda.

“In America, you have an expression that doesn’t make sense to us in Uganda: ‘You are what you eat.’ If that was true, we would all be matooke — a field of matooke. But we have a similar expression in Rutooro: ‘Oli eki ekyokugamba oli.’ It means, ‘You are what you say you are.’

“When I have visited America, I have been amazed at all the generous people. But there are also some people who always think they need more. My goodness, there are children who are complaining they have six pairs of shoes, and they want daddy to buy them another pair. I have some children whose Sunday best is barefoot, and they are walking 5 to 10 miles to church barefoot in the rain. Sometimes on empty stomachs.

“If you are materially wealthy, if you have six pairs of shoes, but deep inside yourself you still think of yourself as poor, it is very hard to give. You never go beyond what you think you are.

“But it is possible to be rich from the inside, even if you do not have much. Even if you don’t have shoes. The Bible talks about being faithful with much — or with little. We are accountable to be faithful with what we have.

“There are people who materially they are rich, but they are poorer than anyone you can think of, because they think it is all about me. Being rich comes from the heart, not from the outside. When you view your wealth as coming from the outside, you begin to see you are not rich enough. You find a hurting person and don’t even help. You think of yourself instead, because you say, ‘I do not have enough.’

“‘Oli eki ekyokugamba oli.’ You are what you say you are.”

Being rich comes from the heart, not from the outside.

Pastor Ronald, Uganda

Whenever I visit and hear him speak, I like the way Pastor Ronald talks about Jesus, whose humble birth similarly turned the definition of riches on its head. He told the rich young ruler to give everything away, lectured on greatness by washing dirty feet and built a Kingdom not with palaces and power but with grace and truth and love.

In short, he knew we needed help with that ultimate definition we all grapple with: our identity, our “oli eki ekyokugamba oli.” Oh, to be rich from the inside.

While you’re here, would you do me a favor?

If you enjoy articles like this one, join the CoffeeJosh mailing list. It’s hurry-free, spam-free and also free … free. As a thanks, I’ll send you a PDF — you guessed it, free — that has 10 of the best coffee shop orders in the Spokane area. (All 10 are drinks and treats local coffee shop owners make for themselves. In this case, expect to pay for your order and feel like it was totally worth it.)

3 reasons to pay more for your coffee

October 16, 2020
0

<Coffee for the Average Josh, Part 3 of 10>

I got my start on coffee like a lot of people do, as a substance to wince-and-swallow like a caffeine pill before a session of late-night homework.

To be fair, some coffee tastes like steaming sludge, as if someone snuck potting soil into the filter. (Hey, it’s already been ground.)

But when I hear talk of undertones and complexities, I’m fascinated but clueless. I love the thought of poetry in a mug — ooh, and latte art! — but I’m nowhere near cool enough to distinguish my Sumatran from my Sidamo. (These are coffee-growing regions in Indonesia and Ethiopia, respectively. I am good with Google.)

So why in the world would a guy with a faulty palate want to pay anything but low-Low-LOW prices for his brew? Geesh! I never said I can’t taste anything.

But taste is only part of the equation. Here are three meaningful reasons to pay more for your coffee.

Reason 1: Exceptional coffee is carefully selected and well-traveled

Consider a single Arabica coffee tree. On an average year, it will yield 10 pounds of coffee cherries.

Once processed, this reduces to about 2 pounds of green coffee beans.

Once roasted, this reduces to about 1.5 pounds of brown coffee beans.

Once packaged, this fills the two 12-ounce bags of roasted coffee you recently tossed into your shopping cart.

What have we learned? One 5-minute trip to the grocery store for you equals one year’s production by an Arabica coffee tree. If you are an average American coffee drinker, it will take you one year to sip away the annual yield of between 12-25 coffee trees, depending on which amateur internet mathematician you believe.

Now consider:

  • The best coffee is hand harvested. In order to only select ripened cherries, each tree requires three to four passes per growing season.
  • The best coffee farms compensate pickers by quality as well as quantity, something that adds additional layers of complexity to a process that — on a lesser farm — is done once per year by a machine.
  • The processing of cherries into green coffee beans takes multiple steps over several weeks, many of which require attentive manpower.
  • Most coffee is consumed thousands of miles from where it is grown, requiring long boat rides, multiple middlemen — and occasionally nervy waits in storage containers at corruption-prone ports.

I’ve lived most of my life in Starbucks’ home state of Washington, where I’ve nurtured a craving for Honeycrisp apples grown in nearby orchards.

By contrast, I’ve probably only enjoyed a handful of cups of coffee that were grown within 3,000 miles of where I sipped them — and those were on vacation.

In honor of International Coffee Day, there was a BOGO special for a pound of one of my go-to local roasts: Thomas Hammer’s Starry Night organic.

That’s two pounds — the annual yield of 1.33 coffee trees — for $12.75.

That’s $12.75 for coffee produced by 1.33 trees growing at more than 5,000 feet elevation.

That’s 5,000 feet up in the mountains of Indonesia, approximately 8,000 miles away from the nearest Thomas Hammer.

$12.75 for, say, a month’s worth of morning happiness?

How you like them apples?

Reason 2: The birds and the bees and the flowers and the trees

Well, this just got uncomfortable.

“Josh, you’re not going to go there, are you?”

Yes. Yes I am.

I am going to talk about the environment.

Birds

Did you know that in addition to being the home of the Giant Panda Webcam — Hi Tian Tian! — the Smithsonian’s National Zoo & Conservation Biology Institute runs a “Bird Friendly” certification process for coffee growers?

Some regions have taken to carving out coffee farms from dense forests. In a Smithsonian study of bird species in Peru, these sun-drenched farms remained hospitable to 61 bird species. By comparison, “partial shade” farms support 79 species. Natural, shade-grown farms, with layers of canopies reaching as high as 35 meters? A whopping 243 species of birds can be supported there. 

Bees and flowers

Smart aleck: “Arabica trees self-pollinate, so they don’t need bees.”

Dwight Schrute: “False.” (And he was a beet farmer, which is a backspace away from being an expert on the subject.)

OK, so technically Arabica trees can self-pollinate with the aid of the wind, but studies have shown that the presence of bees increases Arabica yield as much as 50 percent. Importantly, the cross-pollination efforts of bees could help increase the relative lack of genetic diversity among Arabica trees, a trait that causes scientists to worry about its long-term survival.

Look, if there is even a chance of coffee becoming extinct, someone better set me up a Giant Arabica Webcam.

Trees

OK, I’ve hinted at it long enough. What do the birds and the bees and the flowers need to thrive? It’s the trees.

And not just coffee trees. Actually, the Arabica is finicky and does best when it doesn’t grow too tall and take direct sunlight. What’s needed by all parties is a diverse ecosystem with trees of all sizes.

But here’s the rub. While shade-grown coffee plants typically produce a greater yield, sun-drenched farms allow more trees closer together.

Yep. It’s about making as much money as possible.

Endorsements and certifications on coffee such as Fair Trade, Rainforest Alliance, Bird Friendly or certified organic are among those that incentivize farmers to adopt practices that care for the environment as well as the people. Coffee carrying these certifications is typically more expensive.

Look, you don’t have to always buy coffee with a certain label, but it’s worth purchasing from places that can trace the roots of the brew. Increasingly, you can find coffee roasters that partner with specific farms, developing “single-origin” brews intent on delivering quality to the consumer as well as care for the farmers and the environment.

When I find coffee being produced with purpose and compassion, I celebrate. Not only does it typically taste better, if feels better going down.

Reason 3: Coffee is brought to you by humans, many who live in poverty

Kona coffee is among the priciest in the world.

Because of the taste? Nope. Some would argue it’s average, and very little of it is grown at the elevation typical of the world’s best coffee.

Here’s the reason: Kona is a coffee-growing region on the island of Hawaii, and Hawaii happens to be the only middle- to high-income economy in the world where coffee is a serious export.

The other coffee-producing countries are chiefly low-income economies that lie along the “Coffee Belt,” fertile lands located between the tropics of Cancer and Capricorn.

The chief reason Kona coffee costs more is that the 2020 minimum wage in Hawaii is $10.10 per hour. A coffee picker not far away in Guatemala may make more like $3 — per day.

Now let’s be real. Me paying another quarter for a cup of coffee isn’t likely to find its way into the pockets of a Guatemalan coffee farmer living in poverty. The world is unfair and sometimes corrupt.

So what can a guy without a refined palate do about it?

Look, while I may not be qualified to write flavor profiles for the packaging on my favorite roasts — sample text: “Ooh! This one pairs perfectly with my Belgian Chocolate Toffee creamer” — I can try to know where my coffee came from and support businesses who care about these things, too.

I am capable of consideration, of staring into my mug with gratitude for the far-off farms, wild landscapes and human hands that made today’s brew possible.  

It’s a place to start.

Next week: “5 factors of great-tasting coffee”

This is the third in a 10-part series, “Coffee for the Average Josh,” releasing Fridays this fall. Get your fix of Coffee 101 by signing up to receive an email when the next post drops.

Previous:

  1. Where do coffee babies come from? (Oct. 2, 2020)
  2. Growing up on the coffee farm (Oct. 9, 2020)
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