January 2013 Coffee News

-MN 2020 Article
-Coffee Q&A

We hope the start of 2013 is going well for you! After several busy weeks filling all of our many December coffee orders (our biggest month yet!), we had a relaxing holiday break with family and friends. Now with the kids back at school, we turn our thoughts back to coffee matters. Thankfully our January newsletter has practically written itself! We were fortunate to be featured in an article by Lee Egerstrom of Minnesota 2020 entitled, "Minnesota's Influence on the Coffee Trade." We also share a coffee Q&A exchange we had with Whole Farm Coop's Tim King. 

MN 2020 Article
When we sent out a promotional postcard to a few St. Paul neighborhoods in December, a copy found its way to the hands of Lee Egerstrom a veteran journalist and Economic Development Fellow with Minnesota 2020. He gave us a call and the result was a very nice article that has circulated through the local internet media including the Twin Cities Daily Planet. Egerstrom writes:

"There is a strong 'buy local' angle to premium coffees imported, roasted, distributed and brewed in Minnesota. Several local companies are actually offering coffee with a conscience as they are among the most socially responsible coffee purveyors in the world. One of the most unique local coffee companies is Velasquez Family Coffee, based in St. Paul, which combines the concept of community-supported agriculture (CSAs) with socially responsible importing practices gaining strength within our local coffee economy. It is like a CSA because the coffee beans come from several members of the Velasquez family near Comayagua, Honduras, said Cathy Velasquez who works full-time on the family business....Read more."

Coffee Q & A
We were also pleased to participate in an email Question and Answer exchange initiated by Tim King for Whole Farm Coop (our first and largest wholesale partner -- and our own household's favorite source of locally grown groceries). While some version of the Q & A will be circulated in the coming months by Whole Farm Coop, we thought you would enjoy an advance preview.

Q. We’ve all heard about shade grown coffee. Can you tell us what that means exactly?
A. Shade grown coffee maintains the natural forest canopy of old growth forest. Coffee plants are transplanted below and between larger trees. We've written a lot more about this on our website and have a few pictures of what it looks like on our farm.

Q. I’ve seen coffee like that in Mexico. It looks like a forest but I think its more like a garden. Is that true?
A. I think it is equal parts forest and garden. The forest growth is carefully controlled and trimmed, weeds are managed by machete, organic fertilizer is applied. But at the same time, the wild plant and animal life of the forest continues all around the coffee and there are parts at the edges and in the steepest areas that just keep being completely wild. Tropical rainforest grows so quickly that even a small time without human contact and it has taken over again.

Q. How often do you have to plant new coffee trees. How do you care for the other trees that grow with the coffee?
A. Coffee trees can produce well for about 5 years and then they are cut back significantly and spend 2-3 years regrowing before they produce again. In any given year, about 1/4 of the coffee is cut back or regrowing to maintain good production. New varieties of coffee plants are started and planted from time to time. These past few years because coffee prices were so high, a lot of new coffee was planted in open spaces. Coffee Rust ("el rolla") has become a problem throughout Honduras and Central America, but our family coffee farms thus far seem to be mostly spared because they are using several varieties of coffee that are more resistant. Occasionally, Guillermo's brothers have planted new hard wood trees throughout their property to help bring back more of the old traditional forest. Shade from the trees is controlled by trimming branches from time to time.

Q. When is the harvest season in your part of Honduras?
A. On the farm where Guillermo grew up and his parents still live, the coffee harvest begins in November and ends in February. One of his brothers and a brother-in-law have land on another side of the mountain that goes as late as March or April.

Q. Your family hand picks the coffee. I think it is hard to understand that if you have just seen a roasted coffee bean. What does your family pick? How does that work? Can the harvesters pick from the same tree more than once during a season?
A. The coffee plant produces white flowers in the spring and summer that turn to green berries and then ripen to a beautiful red between November and March depending on the location. To make sure only the ripe coffee is picked, it needs to be picked by hand several times during the harvest season, often 3 or 4 times, and the coffee picker tries to only pick the red berries. Often this harvest time coincides with the rainy season and the coffee grows on steep mountains, so the job often requires walking on steep muddy paths below dripping forest trees. The red coffee berries are first put in a small basket tied around the waist and then compiled in large sacks that are carried on one's back up the hill. A few pictures about the picking process can be found on our website.

Q. What happens to a coffee cherry before you can dry it?
A. The red coffee cherries are brought to the farm house to the "beneficio" -- the area where the coffee is processed. The cherries are pored into a machine that separates the pulp from the 2 hard coffee seeds inside. (On our farm the coffee pulp is collected and composted and there are trenches dug in the area to prevent all of the sugars from the pulp from washing into the rivers). The coffee seeds are covered with water and soak for about 24 hours in a large cement container. This soaking time allows the sugars in the coffee to ferment slightly which makes sure the coffee is flavorful. After this soaking time the coffee is rinsed and then spread out to dry.

Q. Can you describe how your family dries its coffee? Are there other ways to dry coffee?
A. In the past, all of our family's coffee was dried on cement patios. When the coffee was sold on the open market, it didn't matter if the coffee was completely dried. It could still be sold with some moisture in it. But now that they are selling most of their coffee to us, it needs to be completely dry for storage so it doesn't get moldy. Because coffee harvest time is also the rainy season, this creates a logistical problem. Sometimes coffee can be brought into the valley where it is drier and spread on patios there. Some of our family members are also experimenting with green houses and drying serandas. More about all of this also on our website. Right before the coffee is ready to ship, the coffee is hulled at a local mill (there is one more layer of a dry covering that needs to be removed). It is sorted to remove small or damaged beans, and then packaged in 150 lb burlap sacks.

Q. How does your family get its beans to Minnesota?
A. Once a year, we work with a couple of other parties (including Farmer to Farmer in Wisconsin) that have coffee in that region to fill a container that is transported by ship from Puerto Cortez, Honduras to a port in the US. The container then goes by train to Minnesota and our coffee is unloaded in LeCenter Minnesota where our roaster, European Roasterie, stores our coffee on pallets in their warehouse. We send them roasting orders each month according to our needs for that month so our coffee is always freshly roasted.

Photos of the whole process from coffee seedling to sacks of coffee at our roaster can be seen in our coffee photo slide-show on Facebook (and while you are there, make sure to "Like" us).

Holiday Flavors Still Available
We sold LOTS of our holiday flavors in November and December and just about ran out of a few things (Whew! It was close!). We've reordered a little bit more for January, but once they're gone, that's it. Once again, the 2012 holiday flavors are: Wind Chill, Gingerbread Spice, Drunken Uncle and Almond Toffee. All four of these flavors are available in 8 oz packages, whole bean and ground and in limited quantities of decaf for $6.50. Visit our website for descriptions and details. Our regular flavors continue to be available during this time as well.