October Coffee News

-Hurricanes and Disaster Prevention
-Visitors to the Coffee Farm
-Credit Card purchases
-New Prices
-Flavor Votes

Hurricanes and Disaster Prevention

October has arrived and so have beautiful colored leaves and shorter days. But where are the crisp cool temperatures we usually have? It is a steamy 82 degrees here in Minnesota at the moment. Having watched Inconvenient Truth for the second time recently, it is hard not to think of global warming when it is so uncharacteristically warm this fall. The hurricanes that hit Central America last month (and some of the damaging wind storms that knocked down trees near us here in MN) seemed to be a reminder too.

Thankfully, our family and the coffee farms were not impacted by the most recent hurricanes. (Thanks to all of you who asked about them.) However, if you are interested in helping reduce the impact of future hurricanes and perhaps even putting a dent in the daunting problem of climate change, we encourage you to check out and support one of our favorite organizations working in Central America -- Sustainable Harvest International. As they put it in their latest newsletter, they are not in the business of disaster relief, but disaster prevention.

Their Honduran field trainer, Juan Carlos Sandres writes, "After the experience of devastation in my country from Hurricane Mitch in 1998, Sustainable Harvest Honduras has been dedicated to sharing agro-forestry techniques with families that were impacted by the disaster. We have been able to improve many vulnerable areas through soil conservation, reforestation, crop diversification and disaster prevention training. We know that when there are natural disasters, the families we work with are more resilient and their parcels of land are much less susceptible to erosion and crop loss."

You can visit SHI's website at www.sustainableharvest.org to learn more about this hard working organization.

We're hoping that the reforestation and erosion prevention measures that our family members practice on their coffee farms will help protect them from future disasters as well!

Visitors to the Coffee Farm

This past month, we were happy to hear from some recent visitors to the Velasquez family coffee farm. This summer, a group of college students from St. Olaf College in Northfield, MN (Cathy's alma mater) had the opportunity to travel to Honduras. Thanks to a chance encounter at the Living Green Expo with the organizer of the group, we helped make arrangements for them to visit Guillermo's brother's farm. They left us the following messages about their trip

"I just visited Abilio and his family a few weeks ago with a group from St. Olaf College. I just wanted to say thank you for a wonderful experience! Keep up the environmentally friendly work!"

"Thank you so much for helping to facilitate the St. Olaf group experience down at Abilio’s farm in Honduras. We had an absolutely phenomenal time. I think we all wish we could have spent more time there. Thank you very much for setting it up."

In follow-up to their trip, they also invited us to participate in a Homecoming event last weekend to sell our coffee. We're excited to be making these new and old connections.

This week another friend of ours has arrived in Honduras and has made plans to visit the farm and stay in one of the "eco-casitas" (cabins) up in the mountain. If you are interested in an authentic visit to a working coffee farm in a cloud forest, let us know and we'd be happy to help you get connected with our family members there.

Credit Card purchases

As we mentioned last month, our website now accepts credit cards! But it also automatically charges you for postage. So if you would like to pay with a credit card for the coffee we deliver for free to your home, let us know and we'll send you a PayPal invoice (you don't need to have a PayPal account). At the moment, this seems to be the easiest and least expensive way for us to offer this convenience to our monthly customers.

New prices

As we suggested in our last email, we are considering increasing our prices and we asked for your feedback. We were humbled by the overwhelmingly positive feedback we received. Here is a bit of what we heard from you:

"I am happy to pay you more for your coffee."

"You need to charge what you need."

"You have our support in raising the price of the coffee. It is the best!"

"I agree with their recommendations [of the U of M grad students to raise your prices.] I also like the credit card option and would be willing to pay extra to cover those costs. I typically pay the cost of a stamp to send you a check, so that money might as well go to you all. I would be willing to pay up to $8.50 per bag if I could pay by credit card and keep the delivery option."

"Raising the cost per pound of your coffee slightly will not cause me to stop buying your coffee. The quality is such that it is still a significant bargain at the 'new' suggested price. I know that one is in business to make a living. It looks like you are responsible for the livelihood of a lot of different people from your growers through you, and based on your break down, it does not appear that anyone is getting rich. I hope that you, and your family growers, achieve a sufficient enough volume to be able to continue paying your overhead costs and save up a little for your retirement. Unless I have run out, I have not purchased other coffee from any other supplier. I enjoy the coffee and your business model is about as close as I have seen to handing my money directly to the farmer/grower for coffee. Thank you for providing the opportunity to purchase your coffee."

Wow! With that kind of feedback, we decided to sit down and rework our price structure. Look for us to roll that out in the coming months.

Flavor Votes

Here is another fun way for you to provide us with some input. The holidays are just around the corner and we'd like to offer some special new flavors again, but we need your input to help us decide. Take a look at the long list of possible flavors that our roaster can do on their website at: http://www.europeanroasterie.com/Default.asp?Page=105

And then email us your top three. Send us your flavor votes before October 29, and your next bag of flavored coffee is free.

We are grateful for your regular purchases and your input. Thank you.