March Coffee News

-French Visitors to the Coffee Farm
-Visit to our Coffee Roaster (with photos!)

The word from Guillermo's parents is that they were greeted warmly on their return to Honduras. Their neighbors in the mountains by the coffee farm have showered them with gifts of chicks and hens and bananas and daily visits to hear about their long trip to Minnesota.

French Visitors to the Farm
We just received an email from a young French man who visited Rio Negro this past weekend where Guillermo's parents and his brothers have their farms. While those of us here in Minnesota were digging out from over a foot of fluffy white snow (and enjoying a fun snow day on Friday for sure), he and his two friends from France were hiking in the tropical forest. He wrote, "Thank you to the Velasquez Family. I am enchanted by Rio Regro. The people are very friendly, the place is marvelous, peaceful. The water is fresh and good. I will definitely remember it when I return to France."

A Visit to Our Coffee Roaster
Last month, we had so much to write about that we didn't tell you about our visit to European Roasterie in LeCenter with Guillermo's family. We thought Guillermo's sister Alma and her coffee-farmer husband Alonzo and Guillermo's parents would enjoy seeing the impressive facility where our green (unroasted) coffee is stored and roasted. So we made the 45 minute trip south to LeCenter.

As usual we were greeted very warmly by the nearly 60 employees who work there. We were given an extensive tour of the facility. Our family was proud to see their bags of coffee stored among the many thousands of bags of coffee from all over the world that European Roasterie buys, roasts and sells. We saw the large roasters where our coffee is carefully roasted each month by expertly trained roasters. And we saw where workers carefully flavor, ground, pack and label our coffee exactly according to our specifications.

Alonzo was honored to be asked to talk to a large group of the staff to explain how he grows, harvests and processes the coffee. While the workers at European Roasterie know a lot about selecting and roasting coffee, they wanted to take advantage of the opportunity to learn from a real coffee farmer about what happens on the farm before the coffee reaches them. Here are a few photos from our visit.