April 2010 Coffee News

-Fair Trade Coffee Harvest Challenges
-Celebrate Earth Day
*Really Recycled Invoices
*Earthy Events
*Buy Direct from the farm

Fair Trade Coffee Harvest Challenges
In Honduras, the coffee harvest is pretty much finished, so we're making arrangements to have it imported to Minnesota in the next few months. Even though we have been getting and selling coffee from our family for nearly 10 years now there are still a number of challenges we face in getting it from the coffee farm to your coffee cup. (If you'd like to delve into the issues a bit deeper, check out this interesting article about Fair Trade coffee that Cathy's brother emailed us recently.)

Labor - Finding temporary workers to help pick coffee can be a real challenge when every other coffee farmer in the country is looking for workers at the same moment. It has gotten even harder in recent years, since many young men have made the trip north to the United States or to the Honduran coast to work in the maquiladora factories that make your T-shirts and such. Our family members work hard to pay good wages and provide good living conditions; and somehow they manage to find people to help them each year. But it is often stressful at the height of the harvest when the coffee is ripe and threatened by heavy rains and workers have not yet been found.

Drying and Processing Coffee - Coffee sold on the open market can be sold wet or even still in the coffee berry. To send coffee to us, our family members need to take several additional steps to dry and hull the coffee beans. This is especially challenging when your coffee farm is in a rain forest and the coffee harvest coincides with the winter rainy season. Some of our family members are experimenting (somewhat successfully) with green houses and fans to dry their coffee. When we were in Honduras in January, we also talked about pooling funds as a family to purchase land in the valley (where the climate is warmer and dryer) to have cement patios available for drying coffee.

Fluctuating Prices - The reality of commodities is that prices on the open market fluctuate wildly. When we started this business, coffee prices were at an all time low, about .50/lb. They have bounced up and down over the years and this year are quite high -- at about $1.40/lb -- which is actually above the Fair Trade price floor of $1.21 (see the article for more on this). Throughout this time, we have steadily paid our family members $2.20/lb, but with the extra costs (and work) of drying and processing and preparing coffee for export, this year they aren't really making that much more from us than they might if they just sold it to the local coffee buyer. But knowing this is a long-term venture, our family is committed to reserving coffee for us to sell here. And we will continue to evaluate the price we pay them to make sure it continues to be fair.

The exporting and importing process is also complex and something we are learning a lot about right now, because for the first time we are hoping to serve as our own importer rather than shipping our coffee with one of Guillermo's cousins as we have done in the past. We'll write more in future emails about that part of the process (after we've hopefully figured it all out).

Celebrating Earth Day
The 40th anniversary of the first Earth Day is coming up this April 22. We thought we'd share a few of our ideas for celebrating Mother Earth.

-Really Recycled Invoices -- Over the years we've accumulated a stack of scrap paper with just one side used (a habit Cathy learned from her mom), that is now taller than the stack of new recycled paper that we usually use for our invoices. So -- to save trees and money and maybe just make getting your invoice a bit more interesting (what will be on the back of yours this month?) -- we're going to start printing our invoices on scrap paper.

-Earthy Events -- There are LOTS of great green events this time of the year. Here are three that we'll be attending. Stop by and say Hi.
*Sat. April 17, 9-4 - The World Jubilee (lots of great fair trade products),  Gloria Dei Lutheran Church, 700 Snelling Ave S., St. Paul
*Thurs. April 22, 11-3 - First Street Towers Earth Day Fair, Skyway level, 100 South Fifth Street in downtown Minneapolis.
*Sat & Sun, May 1 (10-6) & May 2 (10-5) -- Living Green Expo, MN State Fair Grounds. http://www.livinggreenexpo.mn/

-Buy Direct from the Farm -- We just learned of Mirasol Farm Bath and Body products, "earthbound pleasures" created by some of our long-time coffee customers. We encourage you to check our their all natural soaps and lotions. If you are looking for food from the farm -- check out Land Stewardship Project's CSA Directory and Stewardship Farm Directory.

Alonzo's Bourbon Coffee and on-sale Holiday Flavors still available
Alonzo's heirloom bourbon coffee was very well received last month, so we will continue to offer it until it runs out (we have about 400 lbs so it should last for a while). We've roasted it a bit darker than last month -- a "Vienna Roast" our roaster calls it -- to contrast it with the lighter Alma's "Full City", but it's still lighter than our darkest Maximo's "French Roast". As before it is packaged in 12 oz bags either ground or whole bean for $8.50 a bag. 5 lb bulk bags and unroasted green beans of the bourbon are also available by special request.

And yes, there are still a few more bags of our December holiday flavors available -- now available for $4.50/each or any five discounted bags for $20. Complete descriptions and an updated count of how much is left can be found on the homepage of our website.

Tear Off Posters
Finally, thanks to those of you who requested posters last month to help promote our coffee. If you'd like one (or a few) to hang up at work, in your apartment, at school or in your place of worship, just let us know, we can print up more.