blog
Ethiopia – New Coffee Info
We’ve made a commitment to sell in our blends only coffee from farms and farmers we know and visit. Because availability, weather, political and economical factors often change, we have to update our blends to maintain the same flavor profiles while using different coffees. This happens several time per year. If you would ever like more information or if you would like to visit our farmers, email furythinkcoffee@gmail.com to arrange it.
We have recently changed one component of our 8th Avenue, 4th Avenue, Broadway, and Mercer Street blends to an Ethiopian coffee called “Ardi.” Ardi refers to coffee processed in a special way and produced in a village called Kalenso, east of Hagare Maryam in Southwestern Ethiopia.
Aklilu Kasse is a third generation farmer and producer. He is the producer of Ardi coffee. That means he collects and processes the coffee to the point of being ready for export. He doesn’t grow the coffee. The coffees for Ardi are collected from small farmers around Kalenso at purchasing stations. They are paid cash upon delivery at a rate of $1.75 / lb. It’s not really that simple. They are paid 16 Birr per Kg of coffee cherries. The exportable product is one sixth of what the farmer delivers and the exchange rate of Ethiopian Birr to $ changes often. The “farms” range in size from a few trees to a few acres. Saying the farmer receives a certain price per pound is misleading because what they actually get is a certain amount of money for the year based on what their farm yielded. Most of the farms aren’t intended to support the farmer or family. They live primarily through subsistence farming. Coffee often is the only form of labor for money available to them and is the only way by which they can buy school supplies, medical services, and clothing.
These payments for coffee are made to the farmers at a rate set by the Ethiopian government. In order for them to have more, Aklilu has developed a system for them under which they are not required to labor extra to deliver only ripe, highest-quality fruit. They can pick whatever they want from their trees. Then Aklilu pays farmers to sort the coffee. This allows for less labor during the growing season and more steady income during the harvesting and processing season. In addition, the lower quality coffees which have been sorted out are consumed and sold again within the local community, allowing farmers to often be paid three times for the same coffee: they sell their coffee to Aklilu, then they’re paid to sort it, then they’re paid again for the non-exportable coffee.
Ardi is organically and sustainably grown in clean and safe working environments. Education is available to all children of Ardi farmer coffee. Ardi is one of three ingredients in the Think Blend at the locations mentioned above. Currently, the other components for those coffees come from Brasil and El Salvador. Look for specific information at each store for each of its farms.
Again, please ask questions. Feel free to ask for Matt Fury, he will spend any amount of time you wish discussing our coffee. Email furythinkcoffee@gmail.com to meet or visit one of our farms.
She stirs the drying coffee every 15 minutes.
Aklilu checks the sorting of red cherries.
Fury gets schooled by Dawit.
Taking Sides
We buy our coffee responsibly. Sometimes it’s clear we should support a coffee producer and sometimes it’s not. We currently offer on our Single Source menu Ixil A’achimbal, a community-grown coffee from the state of Huehuetenango in Guatemala. The coffee is farmed, harvested, and processed by native Ixil Mayans.
This is the third year in which this coffee was able to be exported as high quality coffee on the international market. It has taken about twenty years for the Ixil Mayans to gain back enough land to grow and export coffee. In 1989, Guatemala’s 36-year civil war ended. After many years spent hiding in the mountains of west-central Guatemala, a group of Mayan Ixil ndigenas returned to their village to find that their ownership of the land was not recognized by the new government. After five years, a collective of 80 families was able to purchase a meager 25 acres of land–not enough to sustain them, but enough to sustain hope. In 2000, The Ixil population, with the help Agros International (www.agros.org), was able to purchase a 635 acre tract of land to grow bananas trees, citrus trees, and coffee plants.
“The goal of Ixil A’achimbal’s coffee project is to produce coffee of the highest quality in order to earn a reasonable return. The natural environment of the Ixil A’achimbal area makes this a possibility, since the community (and its coffee plantings) sit above 4,600 ft.; the people of the Ixil A’achimbal communities make it a reality by planting only Bourbon and Typica coffee trees, and meticulously caring for the coffee from seedling to mill. The coffee is passive organic, hand-picked, hand sorted for defect, and sun dried on raised wooden racks. After the villagers have done the initial sorting (without the benefit of any machinery), the coffee is loaded onto burros, taken down to trucks, and whisked off to a cooperative mill in Guatemala City for final processing and export. The bourbon beans are meticulously processed and sorted, and the resulting cup is beautifully nuanced, with a delicate smoky tone and medium to light body. The price for the coffee was set by the coffee growers themselves, and is paid to them directly.” (Taken from the Atlas Coffee website, http://www.atlascoffee.com/products.html).
Atlas coffee has purchased all of their coffee for the third year. We are purchasing as much as we can through our roasting partner Plowshares Coffee (www.plowsharescoffee.com), who trades with Atlas.
Guatemalans recently elected Perez Molina as president. Perez Molina was a General in the Guatemalan Army of the 80’s and ran on a platform of two major components. The first was “Mano Duro,” a stance on gangs and drugs. The second was to increase the country’s income through aggressive national export control efforts. We don’t want to be too controversial, but feel free to research what these things have historically meant in Guatemala.
WE HAVE TAKEN SIDES. We support the Ixil of A’achimbal and are open to assisting them against aggressors. This entire blog entry consists of individual opinions. None of the information or opinions here came from Agros International, Atlas Coffee Imports, or Plowshares Coffee. For more information, or to visit any coffee farm, please contact furythinkcoffee@gmail.com.
BRASIL
We went to Brasil. In our Think Blends, two of the component coffees in our blends are from farms called Fazenda Lacador Sementes and Fazenda Nossa Senhora Aparecida. Lacador in the the Cerrado region of the state of Minas Gerais and Nossa Senhora is on the northern border of the state of Sao Paulo.
The Cerrado, meaning “closed,” is an expansive region of farmland stretching flat and deplete forever and in all directions. Not really, but that was the impression. Crops do seem to have been planted in endless rows in an unnatural and sterile environment. But, we learned that that is what the Cerrado looks like. And it is anything but sterile.
Jose Orlando is the General Manager of Lacador Sementes Café. He is in responsible for the land, flora, and fauna and he loves his job. The farm didn’t match the romantic idea of the steep tropical farms of Central America or Africa, but Jose, like any small Finca owner considers his job a sacred responsibility and the land an extension of him. Jose spent hours showing me how the environment of the Cerrado works and how the farm fit into the environment. Because the Cerrado is a vast enclosed area, they farm in an enclosed way. Nothing from the farm ever leaves the farm into the neighboring farms or into the watershed. The farm is certified by a variety of social and environmental watch-groups, but it’s not necessary. It’s a responsible farm and with Jose Orlando in charge, it will stay that way. Fazenda Lacador Sementes Café is owned by Airyon Jose Magne. It is one of three components in our Bleecker Think Blend.
The General Manager of Nossa Senhora Aparecida is Serrafin. He is so cool, we love this guy so much. Serrafin has the same job as Jose Orlando. He exudes joy and peace. Unless you mess with the farm. We watched him “interact” with coworkers. It’s best to do things his way. He keeps Nossa Senhora clean, sound, responsible and BEAUTIFUL. It really is lovely, like wine country and with the same water issues. The Quercia family, who owns Nossa Senhora, is funding a huge reservoir project. It holds over 25 million gallons of water and will significantly reduce the farm’s draw on the already overworked river and aquifer. It’s a very expensive and responsible project that should be internationally commended and probably will be. Adriano Reis Da Silva is the farms coffee quality control manager. He was incredibly accommodating. He spent hours teaching us about the farm’s finished product. We cupped coffees and prepared for the arrival of this year’s crop.
For questions about our environmental or social responsibility efforts, or to visit a farm, contact our Director of Coffee furythinkcoffee@gmail.com.
Fazenda Nossa Senhora Aparecida
Serrafin, Nossa Senhora Aparecida Manager
Lacador, they really grow coffee here.
Adriano, Quality Control for Nossa Senhora Aparecida
Jose of Lacador Semenetes Teaches Fury about the Land
THINK GOES TO SCHOOL, PRESCHOOL.
The children were intrigued by a special visitor today. Matt Fury, a good friend of Arlo Scherr’s family came in to share his coffee expertise with the class! During his time with the class, he shared lots of helpful information about coffee beans, how they grow and where they come from, in addition to answering the children’s thoughtful questions. Most interestingly, the children learned that coffee beans aren’t beans at all! They are really seeds that are found inside a small red berry. Asher: “That’s amazing!” The process of selecting ripe berries, and separating the seed, (the actual coffee bean), from the fruit is an involved process. The children and teachers discovered some helpful videos online that allowed the children to see each step. They were able to apply the information that Matt explained to them. For example, the children now know that the good coffee seeds are inside the red berries, not the green ones. They enjoyed watching the videos and pointing out which ones they would pick and which ones they wouldn’t. Cassidy: “That’s coffee seeds, Kristin!” Henry: “Those pickers are doing hard work!” Alona: “Because they are very strong and they are coffee pickers!”
Sea Turtles Journal Friday, October 21st, 2011
The Sea Turtles are a class of Brooklyn 3 year old learning enthusiasts who kindly invited us to answer their questions about the origin of coffee. Thanks Sea Turtles !!
Looking at photos of coffee
Coming back from Brasil
It was our first time in Brasil. Not what we thought. Somebody´s gonna have to learn Portuguese because we´re gong to spend more time here. Check back in a couple days for a full report.
VIVA LA COOPERATIVA
The place was easy to find, up a steep hill. It was beginning to rain. We had to wait a while. We wanted to paint. There were new chairs. Ali and Oscar said we couldn’t join.
We have friends who have a coffee farm in Payacuca, in the mountains south of Matagalpa. The Castellon family farm is ten percent coffee. The rest is food. Both are excellent. The coffee is of the Caturra variety. We found the Castellon farm by looking hard. We wanted to buy coffee directly from them, but we couldn’t. They mixed all of their coffee with that of their cooperative, 8 de Julio. Cooperativa 8 de Julio consisted of about 30 farms, seven organic. We had been selling Castellon coffee, but since it turned out there was no such thing, that it was 8 de Julio coffee, we thought it would be good to buy from the cooperative. Nope, 8 de Julio is part of a larger cooperative, Central de Cooperativas Servicios de Matagalpa de Aroma de Café or CECOSEMAC.
Hmm, cooperatives within cooperatives. It’s not really our thing. See, we discovered when we started travelling that many cooperatives were nothing more than a person or company who bought lots and lots of coffee from anonymous farmers. They would then get various price-hiking certifications (covering their office, not farms) and sell their coffee for a premium. The practice continues. We were unable to really trace any coffee or determine who was getting the high prices for the coffee.
We also learned that we have to travel. We have to see for ourselves what goes on. It is fortunate, because our travels have led us to this cooperative. The smaller cooperatives that make up CECOSEMAC consist of families with farms that are near each other. They don’t have enough coffee to process or export. Combined, they have enough to process, but they don’t have the money or time to try to sell their coffee in the international market. So, they got an office and a name and now they can. CECOSEMAC is completely made of farmers. It’s completely run by farmers. Oscar is the president, Ali is the vice-president.
They said we couldn’t join until we had worked a cosecha. Cosecha is the harvest. They said they like all of our words and phrases like “partner” “working together” “relationship” but were we going to come and work the cosecha and were we going to contribute to the cooperative?
Yes, we do contribute and we will be back for cosecha. The new chairs were ours. They bought them with money from our Farmer Dividend program. We’re on our way to paint with more of that money. We will be there for the harvest, to pick coffee, process coffee, carry bags of coffee, load trucks with coffee. We want to join. They are really nice people and we want to hang out with them. We also want to buy the coffee. We want to really be partners, members.
CECOSEMAC Office in Matagalpa
CERTIFIED
We were running out of time and it was dark. It was going to be a mistake. We were paying a lot of money to travel 70km by taxi to a coffee processing plant operated by Luis Alberto Balladerez. We sell his coffee by the cup from our Single Source menu.
We call it “Single Source” because we get it from the smallest geographic area possible and then find one person or family responsible for it. Single Origin coffees usually come simply from an individual country, but they are blended from different sources.
The facility, call Las Segovias, is located somewhere in the town of Ocotal, in Northwestern Nicaragua. We were lost. Our driver stopped at a roadside hangout. Someone asked someone to find someone who knew a guy that works there. His name was Abel Gutierrez.
Abel didn’t work there, but he was adamant that he wished he did. He passionately described why Las Segovias was the best place to work and why it processed the best coffee. He told us the conditions were terrific. The equipment was the best. He told us that Sr. Balladerez grew great coffee and knew how to process it. He knew how to treat people. He was at church and do we want to go and get him from church. We hadn’t asked anything.
No, we didn’t want to go get him from church. This man from a roadside café, with nothing to gain or lose told us everything we needed to know. We sell delicious coffee that comes from a good person. It was worth the last minute expensive trip in the dark to have heard this. We sell NICARAGUAN coffee from the farmer LUIS ALBERTO BALLADEREZ with pride and integrity.
THINK BARISTAS TRAVEL
Barquito
Noah (Barquito) Welch is a barista for Think Coffee and the newest member of our Farmer Relations Team. He recently went on his first coffee trip checking on some of our farms. What follows are his own words and opinions concerning his experience.
How Central America Tastes
I spent the last month of my life in Central America, riding on flame-decorated US school buses, breathing diesel fuel and staring at shotguns. We ate Ceviche. We bought knives. We went to the zoo and museums and lots of farms. Lots of old women were entranced by my blue eyes. We frequently said “Hey, we’re students from the US studying coffee-is it okay if we film you?” People usually responded with “Yes-of-course-hop-into-my-truck-and-lets-spend-eight-hours-together-talking-about-our-workers-and-the-environment-and-the-political-state-of-affairs-in-our-country-and-yours!!
Here are some things I learned on the trip, all of which are important.
1. When Think says “farmer,” we tend to mean upper-middle-class, well-educated, English-speaking entrepreneur-owner of a few farms. They have inherited farms from their parents, and they usually own more than one. They are almost all men. They employ managers and guards and workers who actually plant the trees and trim the trees and mash the compost around. During harvest, larger and poorer families come to hang out and pick coffee cherries and have fun and make significant amounts of money.
These wealthier farmers tend to be good people. They provide well for their employees. On Finca El Injertal, in Huehuetenango, Guatemala, we were driven around by Jorge Funes. Jorge was fresh from the hospital for a leg operation, his first day back to driving. There is a school on this farm, for the children of workers. The kids and teachers were excited to see us, and asked us to send school supplies. We will. The fact of a more advanced, wealthier industry than one expects isn’t a bad thing. It’s good for the overall betterment of living conditions. But it’s important to know that this is the state of things. Think about small, but prosperous, farmers in the Midwest.
2. This higher-class thing isn’t true of all of our farms. The Castellon family, in Nicaragua, is an amazing group of people who produce all kinds of organic foods – beans, mangoes, corn, yucca, sugar. Coffee is a small part of their farm. They sell whatever they can to get by. They do so proudly. My compañero, Medio, and I arrived at the Castellon house after a four-hour hike into the mountains. They were sitting in the dark, watching Church on TV. They were unfazed by our arrival, gave us strawberry cream cookies and orange soda, mangoes from their front yard, and the largest bowls of soup of I have ever seen. We walked around on their land. We talked about Daniel Ortega, the Nicaraguan president, and how much a pickup truck costs in the US. We slept in their house with the seven or eight members of the family, and left in the morning to help their son Norvin obtain a passport and US visa.
3. Central America is underrated. It is, at times, terrifying and bizarre, but I imagine the United States can be, too. Everyone in all of these countries-El Salvador, Nicaragua, Guatemala, Honduras—wants to talk honestly and thoroughly about anything.
They want to share time with you. Coffee is something that they are proud of. So is conversation. Don’t sweep these people under the rug! Don’t let them become oil and chocolate and cheap clothing to you! They’re brilliant, and sweet, and important, and far more than what they export.
What’s great about Think, I’ve realized, is that we try to approach a pretentious industry without the extravagance. We taste what we taste, and we see what we see, and we go far to talk with whom we talk, and we’re candid about it all. We’re not weird. If you speak with us, we’ll respond, and tell you what we know, and ask questions because we’re interested, not just because our questions sound smart. We tell you about our trips, but we want you to come with us.
Think likes workers and the environment and the flavors of high quality coffee. It is our goal to combine these things honestly and respectfully.
Getting around on the Castellon farm in Nicaragua
Size Matters if Used Well
We spend a lot of time messing with coffee. We travel, taste, research, discuss, argue, pay pay and pay. It all costs money. It’s scary how much money we spend trying to purchase our coffee in a socially, environmentally, and fiscally responsible way.
As has been blogged in recent weeks, we will now only offer coffee that we personally know to be socially and environmentally responsible. A Think Coffee representative will have been to every farm represented at our cafes and will have an in-person-human-to- human relationship with those who grow our coffee.
We have been able to work toward this goal because we have loyal customers, a lot of them. We have been able to IMPROVE QUALITY AND RESPONSIBILITY with size. We are proud of how hard we work towards this end.
We just blind tested our latest blend against some of our favorite and some of the most popular blends in New York. Our blend won! I’ll be honest, I was nervous. I LOVE some of the other blends we were trying. We are so happy to provide our customers with the fruits of our labor and their loyalty.
Thank you for being our customers. You have allowed us the resources to improve.
If you have suggestions or questions about our coffee please email me: furythinkcoffee@gmail.com. I will spend whatever time you want discussing our coffee. I can answer a quick question or show you one of the farms on which our coffee grows, whatever you want.
The Competition (not in any order)
- Some Think employees hoping we win: Niniha, Alex, Ben
EZ Erik Writes In
I had just returned from a goat farm in southern France and was about three months unemployed when I started cat-sitting. It provided me with a great place to stay in New York, and Little Cat and Monster were quality companions. But then I began to feel like maybe I should get a job. Then Matt Fury said “OK, you’re hired.” I said, “OK, I’ll take it.” And that’s when Think Coffee took me in.
I had an interest in coffee that was definitely more than passing. Despite what some people might tell you, I already had five years of experience as a barista and a roaster at another shop far away. But when I showed up at Think, I realized I would be spending a lot of time around people who took coffee seriously. I thought I had met coffee nerds before (I won’t name names. I will name a café though: Dogwood, Minneapolis. Take that.) At Think I met some people who could go toe to toe with those nerds, and it would be an ugly, espresso-fueled fight – and I’ve learned a lot from them.
I latched on to learning about coffees’ sources. Nobody’s said this to me directly, but here’s what I’ve put together since I started working here: there are three processes that coffee must go through before you get to drink it, and each of those has significant political and/or economic consequences for a lot of people. I’m talking about cultivation, processing, and roasting. The conditions under which the first two are done and the practices of the roaster have enormous impact on the agency, income, and well-being of everybody involved in the coffee.
Of course, without an end customer, none of the people from the farmer to the roaster would be in the business. So Think’s mission to demand transparency in that supply chain means a fourth important point in coffee – its retail sale – is done with an integrity that frees me from the vague squeamish feeling that working in coffee previously left.
Hang on, I've got to think about this
Shopping for Coffee
We have coffees from 14 producers in ten countries. We buy those coffees from five or more different roasters. We want to have a relationship with every coffee producer represented in our store. We don’t believe buying coffee from someone who says they have a relationship with a coffee producer counts.
So, we ask lots of questions, demand lots of information from our roasters, and generally become a big pain in the butt for those supplying us with coffee.
When we don’t get clear answers, we travel. Unfortunately, we haven’t been able to travel often enough to keep up with the lack of information available. So, we have relied on third-party verification organizations to provide certain certifications like Fair Trade, Rain Forest Alliance, USDA Organic, Shade Grown, etc.
We have, by traveling, learned that these certifications often don’t represent the principles we thought they did.
WE WANT TO TAKE THE RESPONSIBILITY FOR THE COFFEE WE SELL.
We will now personally visit every farm and cooperative represented at our cafes. We will form a personal relationship with the farmer or cooperative representative. We will share all information we have concerning these efforts with anyone who asks.
Look for more information posted at our cafes and please find our Farmer Relations Manager, Matt Fury, if you have questions or would like to visit with our farmers. furythinkcoffee@gmail.com
We've added Noah "Barquito" Welch to the farmer relationship team.
Community ?
Many thousands of coffee community members decended upon Houston in April. We were Shops, Roasters, Importers, Farmers, Baristas, and enthusiasts from around the world.
The Specialty Coffee Association of America has a convention each year. I went, first time. There were some really cool competitions highlighting the skills of some of our baristas. Equipment manufacturers were able to show their new stuff. Classes and lectures were offered. Food, lots of food. It was spectacular.
Here’s the thing. Think Coffee doesn’t have a lot of travel money. We want to put our money where our collective mouths are, so we fly to various countries learning about farms and people. Then, when we talk about “relationship coffee” or “direct trade” or any other trendy coffee expression, we will know what we are talking about. If we go see these farms and meet the farmers, we can be responsible members of the coffee community. Oh, the thing. Going to the SCAA convention was really really expensive. It was more expensive than our last trip to Africa.
Going to Africa wasn’t super fun, but it did connect our customer community with our farmer community. Going to Houston was fun, big steak – nice hotel, but we will probably meet our coffee friends at origin from now on.
Join us anytime.
COFFEE TRAVELS: NICARAGUA AND THE CASTELLON FAMILY
The Castellon family were supposed to be found in the barrio of Payacuca in the town of Tarragona, Colombia. We have been drinking and selling a lot of their coffee lately, and I wanted a chance to thank them for their great efforts and give them money as part of Think Coffee’s Farmer Dividend™ program. I was also looking forward to introducing myself and our company, and to learning about their lifestyle and farming practices.
Ten minutes after landing in Managua, I learned there was no such town as Tarragona. I asked an attendant at the airport if maybe it wasn’t on the map. She thought maybe I meant Terrabona, which she said she thought she remembered she’d heard it was located in the general region I was describing. “Okay,” I said. “How do I get there?” “You can’t,” was her response. “Go to Dario. Ask someone there.”
The Castellons live in Payacuca, which is a large region of mountains and not a barrio of a small town. I am still surprised that I was somehow able to find the Castellon farm. I emerged from the mountains dehydrated and shivering. They gave me water, food and, of course, coffee. They also wondered why a skinny white guy had just crawled up the mountains all day to their front porch and asked for Luis Bojorge Castellon. We spent the rest of the evening discussing it.
Coincidentally, the head of the 8 de Julio Cooperative (of which the Castellons are a member) was there that night. I learned that our “Castellon coffee” was actually 8 de Julio coffee. I also learned that not one member of our supply chain had ever been to this farm. They were incredibly happy someone would bother to come learn about them. In turn they were interested in Think Coffee and our business practices. The head of the family, Don Luis, gathered his children and showed me the farm. Horses, cattle, grass, tomatoes, a really nice out-house. There was also coffee.
The coffee cooperative called 8 de Julio consists of 35 farming families. Five of these families grow organically, and each of their farms are connected on a combined area of only five square kilometers. Together, their coffee almost fills a single shipping container. Each farm grows and processes its coffee separately. It is for business purposes they join forces, in order to be able to get their great coffee on the market. Please try the Nicaraguan coffee from our Single Source menu. It’s thick with sticky tamarind, sensuous vanilla, and Central American spice.
We are working to get a temporary visa for Norvin Castellon, Don Luis’ only son. He wants to come and experience our side of the business and talk about his family’s farm. These are beautiful, friendly people with whom I am very excited to work in the future. I felt like anyone would have been welcome to show up on their porch. If you’re considering it, though, maybe contact me and make sure. I can only think of one person who is not welcome. You know who you are.
COFFEE TRAVELS: ARRIVAL IN COLOMBIA
Last month I traveled to Huila, a mountainous tropical department in southern Colombia, to investigate how some of the coffee beans we buy and sell are produced, processed, and exported. My plan was to focus on the municipality of La Plata in eastern Huila, where small independent farms produce exceptional coffee.
After landing in Cali, I first made my way to Neiva, Huila’s capital, a sweltering summer city. I meant to visit the Huila branch office of the Federación Nacional de Cafeteros, Colombia’s national coffee producers’ organization that has successfully created the Juán Valdez brand campaign for Colombian coffee. There I was able to procure a quick meeting with Dr. Gonzalo Chavarro Barreto, Technical Division director. He was unwilling, or unable, to provide any information on coffee production in La Plata, or suggest potential contacts there.
As I walked to back to my hotel I passed through the main campus of the Universidad Surcolombiana, a public university, and noticed numerous spray painted slogans praising past and present Colombian political and social activists and radicals, including several declaring support for Colombia’s farmers.
One hour later, I boarded a sweaty bus for the two hour trip to La Plata.
COFFEE TRAVELS: DISPATCHES FROM NICARAGUA
Hi,
Having a good time. I have bugs. Got some lotion for it. I started the purchase of some green coffee to see what happens. Delivered two farmer dividends. The Castellon family of Nicaragua was super super excited when I climbed all fricking day to find them to give them money and they totally understood the whole deal with farmer dividend and it was so bad ass I cried a little bit after they tucked me in that night. There was a gun fight with some bandits and I didn’t get killed. Nobody seemed to excited about it so I just remained calm and hoped not to get killed which I didn’t.
Miss you.
-Matt
COFFEE BLOG NO. 3
The father of Audenar Guzman, the owner of La Viña farms in Colombia, passed away last week. La Vina is part of our Single Origins program, and one of our baristas visited the farm and family just a couple of days after his death. It was amazing that Audenar could give us his time. We would like to offer our condolences to Audenar and his wonderful family.
Jan 17. Crowder, a barista from our Mercer Street store, who is hanging out with some of our farmer friends in Colombia, reports that he is slowly making his way around Huila, where many of our Colombian single origin coffees grow. He is traveling with the head of the coffee growers group in Huila to the town of Plata. We don’t know a lot about these places yet, so we are looking forward to Crowder’s presentation in February. One thing we’ve learned is that what others have reported is often inaccurate, drastically changed to match what people want to hear or just copied and pasted from one website to the next. We’re fortunate to have Crowder looking out for our customers, coworkers, roasters, and farmers.
Jan 18. EZ, a barista at our NYU Bookstore location, has been researching El Salvador. El Salvador was very advanced in coffee agronomy, production, and distribution before their civil war. The industry is now burgeoning as a newcomer on the international coffee scene, but through our travels and research we know that these are some of the most advanced and knowledgeable farmers anywhere. So, we are trying to become involved more with this small country. EZ has been researching some of the families that were influential and grounded in both the coffee industry and civil war. He is doing this to help us understand the context within which we are attempting to form closer relationships. Some of these families have transformed into powerful corporations. Ready Redner, our super smart and helpful intern, is working with EZ to compile his data into a useful and intelligible information base. With the help of friends like EZ and Ready, Think Coffee can be very respectful and respected as we form partnerships, increase transparency and integrity, and learn about those who touch our coffee first. Please try our StictAltura example of Peaberry Salvadoran coffee on the Single Origin menu.
Jan 19. We’ve welcomed Seung Hee! She is and will continue to observe us and train with us as part of an international partnership with interests in Korea. It is a pleasure to be around and work with her.
Jan 20. We hope you’re enjoying our Think Blend. If you’ve been following, you know we’ve spent a lot of time with it lately. We are striving to make it taste exactly right, meet cost constraints, and fall within our guidelines of acceptable social and corporate practices. There are currently six countries used in our blend: Ethiopia, Tanzania, Indonesia, India, Guatemala, Mexico. Detailed information is available to anyone by appointment.
There was a BrewDown at RBC Coffee in Tribeca. The turn-out was big. Our man Bill McAllister tore it up! This dude is seriously and frustratingly uncompromising in his pursuit of providing people with perfect coffee. He totally showed and represented. Bill made Think Coffee look good, he made our brew methods look good, he made Solomon Worka and the farmers who grew the Ethiopian coffee look good. Damn, everybody looked good. Thank you Bill and congratulations!!
This week’s coffee tasting is Friday Jan. 28 at 1pm in the Cupping Room, downstairs at our Mercer Street store. It will consist of one coffee brewed one way, but roasted several different ways. This is by special request from our French Culinary Liaison. ”Liaison” is a French word and we are fancy people, so we used it.
COFFEE BLOG NO. 2
Jan 1. We’ve changed the world. No really, we have. Go look at our Interpretation of the Continents From a Coffee Buyer’s Perspective at our Broadway Bookstore location at 726-30 Broadway inside the NYU bookstore.
Jan 6. We visited some friends at La Colombe in Philadelphia. The writer of this blog is highly resentful that he was not shown the Liberty Bell or the “Rocky” statue during his strip. We did see a great roastery, though. We shared a lot of information about packaging, shipping, sourcing, etc. There were really cool tubes that sucked coffee to and fro throughout the place. You should Google Todd Carmichael, one of the owners. Very entertaining. Their head roaster, JP, took us through their magical logistical process. They roast a lot of coffee.
Note: We use a lot of roasters. Our house blend is roasted by our partner Porto Rico Importing Co. All other coffees are roaster by various roasters across the country. We enjoy highlighting individual coffee farmers and small American businesses.
Jan 10. Welcome Gabrielle Redner! She has begun an internship with Think Coffee. Gabrielle is a senior at NYU, studying sustainable international purchasing practices. Think Coffee is a member of The Purchasing Coalition, an innovator of sustainable purchasing practices. Gabrielle will be assisting us with research, statistics, and field support.
Jan 11. Speaking of Think Coffee agents, Crowder of Think Mercer is leaving for Colombia on Sunday. He is forming logistical relationships for The Purchasing Coalition, asking our farmers what they need from us, and learning about how various certifications like Fair Trade affect farmers. If he returns, there will be a cool presentation in February.
Jan 13. Our Hero Roaster of the Week, Richard of Redhouse Roasters in Union City, NJ has brought us some Nicaraguan coffee that really makes us all look good. Richard, most Nicaraguans, and our founding fathers Shaun and Jason, already looked good but the rest of us needed a little something. This coffee comes from Jorge Castellon. Their farm is in Payacuca near Tarragona. They produced only 1700 lbs of coffee this year. It is magnificent, please try it from our Single Origin Menu. We are very pleased to be visiting the Castellon family in February and to deliver our Farmer Dividend(tm) payment to them in person.
THINK HOLIDAYS 2010
COFFEE TRAVELS: ARRIVAL IN ETHIOPIA
Ethiopia’s capital city is dark and frightening. Upon arrival, my friend (who was really just a recent acquaintance) drove me around with his companion. There were no streetlights and everything was completely dark. I felt as if we were in a scene from a zombie movie–soulless corpses to demolish us at any moment–while riding in a stage coach in 19th century Montana, the roads were so bad. As we were perilously bumping along the poorly constructed, run-down streets I wondered if I’d ever find my way to a hotel. In my jet-lagged state, I can say that I was honestly frightened.
Before arriving in Ethiopia, I explored a little of Istanbul during my nine-hour layover in Turkey. It was there that I happened to meet the man who helped me set up a ride and a hotel room in Addis Ababa, the capital city of Ethiopia, where I was set to arrive the next day. It’s a good thing he did. We arrived late on a Saturday night and vacant hotel rooms were scarce. (Saturdays in Ethiopia, apparently, are popular for “secret lovers.”) Needless to say, I would have had a difficult time finding a place to sleep. But I woke up the next morning in a pleasant enough room. The city was very different from what I had imagined, it was very cold and wet. Small children rolled around the muddy streets, growling at me. During those first few hours it was difficult to convince myself that somehow this country produces such fantastic coffee.
I stumbled into a coffee house, though, and a woman lit incense as I sat down. A little girl was playing at the entrance. She was very cute, but when I tried to take a photograph of her she ran screaming into the busy street. For the rest of the trip I more careful not to offend anyone else in this way. The woman began pan-roasting beans as I sat down, and filled the entire room with smoke. She then beat those beans into a powder that she brewed into fresh coffee. As she served me, coffee spilled onto the table. All of a sudden I felt comfortable and warm, and happy to be there. This scene repeated itself several times daily for the remainder of my stay.
Roaster Spotlight: Georgio’s Coffee
On Friday November 29th, we took a road trip to Huntington Station, Long Island where our friend Georgio roasts small batches of the only the very best. Georgio and his wife Lydia, a Colombian from a long line of coffee-minded kinsfolk, have been in the business for 30 years. Photos of ancient coffee roasters adorn their walls like medals on a Boy Scout and we can only imagine their fascinating little corner store is filled with many years of coffee memories and roasting discoveries, among other things.
Conversation with Georgio, though, is one-sided and more aptly described as “listening to Georgio speak.” While the dude doesn’t really do the two-way conversation thing, Lydia on the other hand lends the bean shop an air of dignity and wisdom, which we very much appreciated. Needless to say, they both know a ton. We talked a lot about how to simultaneously satisfy long lines of busy New Yorkers as well as the connoisseurs of boutique single source beans. We care about all of you! Lydia and Georgio had a lot to offer on this and other pressing topics. We’re so excited to know and work with them on future projects, we thought you should know know about them too.
Coffee Roundup: Nepalese Coffee and Meeting La Colombe
Hey, coffee lovers. Welcome to the first of our weekly coffee report, otherwise known as Fury’s Roundup. Each week our official coffee dude, Matt Fury, will share with you what it is, exactly, he’s been up to. (Heads up, this is actually from the week before last. More to come!)
Tues, Nov 23 We met with a friendly free-range NYU student named Gabrielle about Nepalese coffee. She studied for a semester in Nepal. Who knew? Apparently they have a consistent coffee harvest each year, but consume all of it domestically. Until now, that is. A family of coffee farmers is sending us a sample, so look for it at our Single Origins Bar in the coming weeks. We consider any snow leopards found in the beans an added perk, and assume they were free-range as well.
Our Government Man, TCB Phillips, is busily readying himself for the Customs Broker Exam in April. TCB is learning the ins and outs of importing, shipping, and customs brokerage in order for us to better understand the farmer to cup process. There is a 7% success rate on these tests (daunting!), but TCB has a smart beard so it should be okay.
Mon, Nov 24 Todd and Jacob of La Colombe coffees came over for, well, coffee. They were the first respondents to our open invitation for discussion on a new type of purchasing coalition. The idea of the coalition came from my experiences in Ethiopia, (stay tuned for more on that). The new coalition would allow smaller cafes and roasters around the country to partner directly with coffee growers without the overwhelming time and budgetary demands of world travel. We’ll keep you updated.
That evening, I gave a presentation on my trip to Ethiopia and Think Coffee’s relationship to its complicated and enigmatic coffee world. The audience, consisting of only attractive people, participated a lot. The pictures were great, I’ll be posting some of them in the coming weeks.
Friday, Nov 19 Brother Bill the Real Tasty Friar has been leading some interesting tastings in The Cupping Room, located in the basement of our Mercer Street location. It was determined by the general public that the Costa Rican currently on our Single Source Menu is “bad-ass.” Also, when brewed as regular drip coffee, Think Espresso Blend was more popular that Think Blend. We’re in the lab studying that information now.
More to come…