Support local art!

www.alyssadanna.com

Classical Revolution presents classical music in non-traditional settings as a way to “bring classical music to the people”!

There’s room for punk rock vegan chefs and game enthusiasts alike (often the same people). Prior gaming experience never required!

Bring any game you want, enjoy the company of your fellow nerds and eat delicious foodstuffs!

NOTE FROM BARISTA: “We love our nerds!”

THINKgallery presents new works by
Anka Lavrir, Kaiser Kamal, & Colin Ruel.

Open Reception: Friday Feb 3 ~ 8pm
Free Wine!  Come support local art!

Think Coffee Mercer
248 Mercer st
(b/t 3rd & 4th st)

Anka Lavrir: ankalavriv.carbonmade.com

Kaiser Kamal: absolutearts.com/mkjzoul

Colin Ruel: colinruel.com

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We have recently changed one component of our 8^th Avenue, 4^th 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.

 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.