By Beth Ann Caspersen, Quality Control Manager, Equal Exchange

To land in the city of La Paz is like no other place I have ever been. The air is thin and soothing but requires you to slow your pace of movement. The sky sparkles with crystal clear light and the intense rays of the sun strike your skin with heat, only to be cooled down by the stiff breeze of the Andes. At 11,811 feet, La Paz is the highest capital city in the world and you get the sense that you are so close to the sun. Your breathing is heavy but calm and the crisp winter air transports your body into a state of realitization. Perhaps this is the reason the city was named 'Nuestra Senora de la Paz', (Our Lady of Peace) was for this profound sense of peace and tranquility. Today the city is more commonly known as La Paz and the landscape is unbelievable. From the snow capped mountains to the lush coffee farms, I spent hours looking out the window of our jeep at the incredible scenery. I found myself gasping several times each day at the natural wonderment and trying desperately to capture this magical landscape with my camera. So perhaps these words and a some pictures will do it justice- enjoy.












Our goals for the trip were to have a mini coffee tasting competition at the Cooperative Mejillones in Calama for 2 days, work with 6 cooperatives through my yearly seminar "Cooperacion en Calidad" for 3 days in Caranavi and then head up to the historic city of Coroico to train and test 30 cuppers for 2 days for the international competition known as the Cup of Excellence-- (CoE). I was traveling with my friend and Quality Control Manager Rene Viadez Colmena from the exporting cooperative Fecafeb and what started out as an entourage of 3 coffee cuppers, ended 7 days later with 30.



I arrived in La Paz at 7:30 am on the 19 of July and from there it was a whirlwind of driving, setting up, seminars, celebrations, breaking down and re-packing the car. We brought everything we would ever need for our week of cupping--- in the jeep--- a small sample roaster, ceramic cups for cupping, tea kettles to boil water, a moisture analyzer to measure the humidity of the green coffees we were going to cup- you name it- we had it.

Cooperative Mejillones:

We arrived to the beautiful town of Calama at 7:30 in the evening. After feasting on a delicious chicken noodle soup for dinner, we quickly got to work on sorting, roasting and analyzing 36 samples that had been submitted by the coffee producers in the cooperative. We tasted and scored the coffees during the first day and chose the top ten coffees to be cupped during the second day. Our results led to 10 winners with the top 3 prizes being "carpas solares." These 'solar tarps' are used to cover and protect coffee during the drying phase in processing. Most small coffee farmers dry their coffee with the rays of the sun on either a cement patio, black plastic or raised screens. In order to protect the drying coffee, many producers have installed solar drying tarps that hang over their drying beds like a sturdy tent, to protect the beans from the frequent rain showers that are common at high altitudes. If coffee comes into contact with rain during the drying process, there is the possibility that mold will grow and this will adversely affect the quality of the coffee. The cooperative Mejillones has had problems with drying their coffee in the past and these prizes represented a sense of understanding for our market. If the coffee is not properly dried, the beans are difficult to roast, may grow mold and/or may absorb the flavor of the jute bags in which they are stored. These drying tarps as prizes for the event truly encouraged reinvestment into the farms and emphasized the importance of this step in drying quality coffee.

Cooperacion en Calidad 2007:

This is the 4th year I have had the seminar "Cooperacion en Calidad"(CC) and I find that I am learning more and more each year from cuppers all over the world. CC is a 3-4 day seminar focused on the needs of the coffee cooperative movement through sharing information and creating a common vocabulary. In 2004- 6 Nicaraguans came to the US for 1 week to spend time in the EE laboratory working on creating this common vocabulary and understanding our needs for specialty coffee. In 2005- 2 Peruvians came to the US for 1 week for the same seminar. In 2006, I took the show on the road to Northern Peru for the 3rd CC in Chiclayo and worked with 3 cooperatives- Cepicafe and Cecovasa in and Fapecafes in Ecuador. The program has been very successful and this year was a record breaking year for participants. The Celccar cooperative graciously hosted the seminar in the small and very warm city of Caranavi.  Currently, Equal Exchange works with 6 primary cooperatives in Bolivia and each was invited to work with me for 3 days.  However, some of the other cooperatives that export through Fecafeb asked to participate and what is usually a 6-8 person seminar turned into 20 participants! Although challenging at first due to the size of the group it proved to be an invaluable experience. Part of being a cupper is to take the time to taste and reflect on what you taste. In addition, I firmly believe a supportive and educational environment is extremely important while cupping coffee.  Everyone is born with a different nose and mouth with some people being natural cuppers and others that have to work hard to educate their palettes. During these kinds of trainings I always tell the cuppers that 'we have respect for everyone's opinions' as part of the encouragement I believe it requires to help people express their opinions. The cuppers were at various levels of experience and each cupper had the opportunity to exchange ideas, ask questions and further our goal to create a common vocabulary for each step in quality control.

Our focus for the seminar was to work on the basics of cupping vocabulary through the five basic categories of Aroma, Flavor, Acidity, Mouthfeel (body) and Aftertaste. Many coffee tasting formats used in the coffee industry use similar categories but focus on a set of numbers that are associated with those categories. We used the 5 basic categories mentioned above and eliminated the use of numbers for the seminar to focus on the fundamentals of flavor and descriptions- Sweet, Sour, Salt and Bitter. Coffee may be characterized as sweet and sour- but do the flavors work in harmony or opposition? Is the sour flavor bright and lemony or sharp and biting? Most of the coffee cuppers had not had the opportunity to taste coffees from other countries, so I brought our washed Ethiopian Sidamo from the Oromia cooperative, which demonstrates sweet blackberry and jasmine flavors with sparkling and refined acidity and our washed Mexican coffee from the Cesmach cooperative in Chiapas to demonstrate a citrusy sour and sweet cup with smooth mouthfeel and tingling acidity. Both coffees are distinct from the creamy, balanced, chocolate-y and orange-y notes found in our Bolivian coffee flavor profile and provided the cuppers with the opportunity to try different specialty coffees. At the end of each tasting session I led a discussion about the coffees- which were always cupped "blindly" (this is the protocol for most cuppings), in other words, cuppers did not know what each of the samples represented.

Roasting coffee on a sample roaster does not require a degree in rocket science, but it does require patience, attention to detail, careful note taking and analysis. The variety of coffee you are roasting, the level of moisture in the beans, the type of coffee roaster used and the energy used to power the roaster, each play a role in how the coffee roasts. Watching the changes in color and smell of the beans as they roast tells the story of the coffee and it is the artful eye of the roaster that is needed to make changes during the roast to produce the tasty attributes hidden inside each bean. (I must mention here that poor quality coffee beans cannot be dramatically improved through roasting; however excellent quality coffee beans can be destroyed by a less then attentive roaster.)  After a brief explanation of roasting philosophy and practice, we split into two teams, roasting on different machines. For each roast we had one person take time, one person take notes and one person roasting the coffee. We use this system to teach coffee roasting seminars for the Roasters Guild at the Specialty Coffee Conferences and as an avid volunteer, I thought this system would prove to be useful and it was.

Sorting green coffees and teaching (for some reviewing) the Specialty Coffee Association of America (SCAA) classification system is simple in theory, but as is usually the case, practice makes perfect. I consider the SCAA system to be well thought out, but many of the cuppers we work with always have questions about the beans that are not classified. Coffee grown at high altitudes can be 'burned' during the process of maturation by freezing rain and this can produce a dark skin on the beans that appear to be a black defect (Blacks are primary coffee defects that according to the SCAA are "Agricultural. Blackening, results from over fermented pigment associated with micro-organisms")but the black color is actually removed during the roasting process because it is not a pigmentation, but black skin. Our group had so many thoughts and opinions about the imperfection that we agreed to roast it and cup it. We wanted to see if the flavor of the burned coffee beans, known as 'quemados' would negatively affect the quality of the coffee and the group found that the coffee contained a bitter and slightly woody flavor, but that the sweetness of the mature beans was more prominent. Our results were inconclusive and many of the cuppers thought that more testing was needed.  This was an excellent exercise for group learning and I will continue to work on learning about the affect of these beans on overall flavor of the cup.

Coroico:

We left for the city of Coroico in a jeep and a mini-bus. Our group of 3 had become 15 and we left the hot city of Caranavi to join 15 other cuppers in the city of Corioco for our last training stop.

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 In September and October of 2007, the Cup of Excellence (www.cupofexcellence.org) will be held in the beautiful old city of Coroico at the Hotel Gloria overlooking the valleys below and once again, the snow capped mountains beyond. The city of is located at 1,700 meters and the views are stunning. The quaint downtown was busy with tourist traffic however I must admit, there wasn't much time for sightseeing- most of my views were from the hotel balcony. I agreed to travel to this majestic city to work with 30 cuppers from all over BoliviaOur training (once again), focused on teaching the basics for cupping coffee and understanding the basics of flavor and although this workshop was repetitive for about half of the group, many of the cuppers were pleased to have more time to practice and verbalize their thoughts. Our first tasting was spent tasting sweet, sour and salt.  For the second tasting we combined these three natural flavors in various combinations and each cupper had to decide which was which. Our third tasting with all 30 cuppers was of different fruits from Bolivia.  Many cuppers I work with have a good understanding of flavor, but this exercise was meant to help them realize that tasting coffee is very much about life experience. By using the familiar flavors of fruit from their own country, they were able to demonstrate the knowledge they already had and to think about how many of these flavors can be found in coffee. We had 8 different fruits with various levels of maturity. We started with large yellow bananas and continued down the tasting table with papaya, watermelon, yellow apple, oranges, mandarin oranges, grapefruit and we finished with pineapples. The goal of the exercise was to determine the various levels of sweetness, sourness, bitterness or saltiness that each of the fruits contained.  Tasters went on to describe the various levels and changes in flavors they experienced and the difference in maturity for each of the fruits presented.  It was very useful and even helped a few of the more timid cuppers to publicly express their opinions.

The goal of the training was to build capacity within the coffee movement in Bolivia and also to identify Bolivian coffee tasters to participate in the Cup of Excellence program. Our quest began with a simple cupping format as we use in the 'Cooperacion en Calidad' seminar by Equal Exchange to focus on describing the flavors experienced at the cupping table. We used the Cup of Excellence (CoE) format for the 2 cupping which is far more complex, with 9 categories and focused on a 100 point scale.  Much like the system used in many school systems, 75 points would represent a 'C' grade- average. A score of 84 or more points would put the coffee into the Specialty category, with 90+ points being exemplary.  Each coffee taster was required to fill out the form and submit it at the end of the tasting. The scores given by each cupper were then analyzed and helped the CoE team to choose the best cuppers for the competition. They hope to find 20 or so tasters. These coffee cuppers will take part in the National Jury and will work to find the top 40-50 coffees presented by coffee producers from all over Bolivia. Of the 20 Bolivian judges, 5 of them will be selected to participate on the International Jury for the CoE (I was a judge in 2005) with 20-30 International Judges grading the coffee for one week in October.







I was extremely honored to train more then 30 coffee cuppers during my visit to Bolivia. To stand before the next generation of coffee tasters and producers (many of them were coffee producers) and recall the coffee quality improvements that have followed was an amazing experience. Equal Exchange started buying coffee from 2 tiny cooperatives in 1998- Alto Sajama and Antofagasta.  They have increased their production and the cooperatives have grown in membership with our purchases of organic, fair trade coffee. The specialty coffee movement in Bolivia has followed suit with the name of Bolivian coffee improving in quality and international reputation.

I have to thank everyone that participated in the cupping seminars over the course of this wonderful week. Without the organization and expertise of Rene Colmena Viadez of Fecafeb our exporting cooperative partner in Bolivia, none of these trainings would have happened. We were assisted by coffee cuppers with little experience and many with great experience to which we owe a huge thanks for their participation. To my friend and driver extraordinaire Samay Shuit Salinas, to Felix for excellent roasting, Nestor and all of the organizers for the Cup of Excellence, it has been an honor to work with you. I look forward to many visits in the future and the opportunity to share your delicious coffee with many of our customers that just can't get enough of café de Bolivia!

Welcome to the Equal Exchange MySpace Blog......

Equal Exchange is looking for a new artist to feature on MySpace.  

Who qualifies?

Any artist/musician with a Myspage page!

It helps if the artist(s) have an enthusiasm for working towards social justice.  We want to recognize artists that support fair trade and sustainable agriculture.

We will post your picture and a direct link to your site.  You will also receive an assortment of complimentary Fair Trade products, specifically gourmet chocolate and coffee.

Please share your thoughts by posting a comment on this blog.... 

Brattleboro, Vermont Declared  the 2nd Fair Trade Town in the U.S.

The Fair Trade Brattleboro Resolution was approved at the Selectboard Meeting this evening, making Brattleboro, Vermont the First Fair Trade Town in New England & the second in the nation!

We are thrilled to announce that the majority of the Brattleboro Selectboard voted to support the Resolution, a proclamation developed by the Brattleboro Fair Trade Steering Committee. This fulfills the final criteria for officially becoming a Fair Trade Town, set forth by the UK Fairtrade Federation.

The community is invited to join the Fair Trade Brattleboro Steering Committee and allies to celebrate this exciting declaration! We will gather Tuesday, July 11^th, from 6:30-8:30 at the restaurant 39 Main, located in downtown Brattleboro.

Since the Third Annual Muna Fest Fair Trade Festival, held December 2^nd, AYLLU Inc (a 501c3 organization based in Brattleboro) has initiated to certify Brattleboro as a Fair Trade Town.  Currently, the only other Fair Trade Town in the U.S. is Media, PA, which will celebrate it's one year anniversary of having Fair Trade Status on July 14^th. On April 11^th, the second town in North America, Wolfville, Nova Scotia, became Fair Trade as well. Many other towns in the U.S. are working to gain Fair Trade status, including our neighbors in Western Massachusetts, Northampton and Amherst.

The Fair Trade Towns movement began in the UK, in 2000, and currently there are over 250 towns in Western Europe that are considered Fair Trade. The criteria set forth by the Fairtrade Federation based in Europe includes five main items that a town must meet, such as a minimum number of businesses that offer Fair Trade products for sale, educational events, to have formed a steering committee that meets on regular basis, to have had a significant amount of media coverage, and for the town council to pass a Resolution. A thorough overview and list of criteria can be found at: www.fairtrade.org.uk/downloads/pdf/fairtrade-towns.pdf

Fair Trade Brattleboro values buying locally produced goods, and we encourage everyone to purchase Fair Trade products when consuming products that are only grown in the Southern Hemisphere, mainly by farmers living in extreme poverty. We ask you to 'Buy Local & Buy Fair'.

Nicaragua
June 2007

Zonification Project

A tried and true method to understand great quality is to understand each part of the quality chain, from the varieties selected, to the actual flavor profile.   Although it seems like a cliché to coffee professionals, the coffee industry is working to achieve the same goals as many wine producers, by exploring quality at a new level.  I am here in Nicaragua working with the consortium of cooperatives known as Café Nica (also the name of our very first coffee) to deepen our understanding of what different producers located in various parts of the country have to offer the end consumer.  This Zonification project will help the small farmer consortium to identify flavor characteristics of different microclimates in Nicaragua by collecting information regarding varieties grown, management, cultivation and processing and characterize the profile of the coffees produced by entering the information into an established database for records.  Over the last 4 days I have been cupping coffees with 5 other coffee cuppers and a myriad of young coffee professionals to explore the 2007 harvest that has since been bought up by buyers like EE.  The purpose of the project is to provide a physical and sensorial analysis of each coffee to identify great characteristics and pinpoint the problems.   The coordinator Raul Gutiérrez of Café Nica has put together a very well thought out database of information based on cupper and final cup score.  At the end of the day, the information will help each producer to know what they did right, and what they need to improve.



I was thrilled to be invited to this event (unfortunately last year I was unable to attend) and had the opportunity to cup with many quality personnel that I already knew and a few new people, including John Weaver from Twin Trading a likeminded, mission driven company based in the U.K.  We found so many delicious coffees with aromas and flavors ranging from chocolate (milk and dark chocolate) to floral (orange blossom, jasmine, honeysuckle) and classic Nicaraguan citrus flavors (like mandarin, lemon, tangerine and orange).



As is usually the case with cupping 630 samples over the course of one month, a few poorly prepared samples were tangled up in the mix, with astringent, vinegar, sour and rotten fruit flavors.  Although unwelcome by many of the cuppers, we will be able to provide needed information to the producer about why their coffees presented a poor flavor profile.



Being that all of the cupping's are done 'blind' with codes, we did not (and I still don't!) know where they are from.  I was only able to participate in part of this month long project that will end on June 8^th; however we should receive word in the coming days about the origin of each coffee we cupped.

Saturday and Sunday

With a free weekend in-between cupping's, I went to visit a few friends up at Prococer in Nueva Segovia—(for those of you familiar with our tasty Maragogype' beans, this is the origin of this spectacular coffee.  We will be importing the same limited edition coffee again this year and it will be available in the fall.)  On the way to some of the farms, we stopped to have a quick drink of freshly prepared cane juice and see the process for creating the yummy sugar that is used to top 'Rosquilla'.  These are small cookies that everyone here in Nicaragua loves and I especially enjoy those that are topped with solid, almost toffee like chunks of sugar.  We always pick up a bag on the way home.  The process for creating sugar cane based drinks and solid sweet sugar was a little bit intimidating at first with bees flying about and boiling hot liquid and it was the first time I had seen sugar cane processed.  The stalks of sugar cane are put through a hulling like device that strips the hard bamboo cover of the cane and presses the juice into a vessel, to then be transported over to the holding tank and then to be boiled down and put into wooden molds to be sold into the local market.  The consistency of the hot sugar cane looks like maple syrup and as it cools the color appears to darken up into a lighter shade of brown sugar.  The pure sugar cane is also made into a fantastic home brewed alcoholic drink with a likeneness to rum, with a slightly gritty but satisfying consistency, but certainly not as refined as Nicaragua's "Flor de Cana".  They say that you will get tired after drinking it.  After two sips I felt a little bit tired, but I would blame that on the heat more then this homemade beverage.    

I then arrived at the home of Mayela Bellorin Merrera in Jicaro and promptly set out on the back of a small motorcycle with my friend and agronomist Neyron Pevalto Rodriguez to visit some of the producers from Susucayan.  In June, there really isn't much happening on the farms, however it was a perfect opportunity to get know some of the producers and check out the condition of the farms.  Neyron is the agronomist that works with the cooperative and I was obviously with the right person because he knew everyone!



We arrived unexpectedly to each house with open arms and curious faces.  Who is the gringa riding on the back of the motorcycle?  I sat with each producer to tell them of our cooperative model and our mission- to know our producer partners, not only today but for the long-term.  Many of the producers' eyes lit up when I told them that we were a cooperative too and each producer reinforced their own cooperative message by talking about the importance of their cooperative Prococer. Noel Alejandro Aguirre Espinoza told me of the 'becada' (scholarship) that his daughter received to attend secondary school from Prococer.  Creciencia Lopez, a founding member told me that she was most impressed by the strength and stability of the cooperative in providing good prices to the members and Bernardino Lopez Lopez was curious to understand the international market.  Each conversation was different yet yielding the same result- you know me and now, I know you.  By the time I said, 'va pues' (basically this is an indication that we are getting ready to leave, 'well then') each producer asked 'when will you return?".  I told them that February was the most likely candidate, but we would have to see what the harvest would bring.  It will be difficult to decide where to stay when I return with so many hospitable Nicaraguans offering me a place to stay…..

The harvest appears to be much better this year, 2007 was a difficult year for producers because the harvest was down 50% and even 70% in some areas.  As an agricultural crop, coffee has a cycle, with high years and low years in production and although producers may take the utmost care of their trees, the will of the environment plays a strong role in how much coffee is produced.  If all goes well in the coming months, as it appears to be, with strong sun during the morning and steady rain arriving in the afternoons, we should see a very nice harvest.  The 3^rd flowing was just finishing during my visit and this is a great sign for 2008.  Renovating the coffee farms is especially important and May and June are pruning and/or replacement months. All of the farms we went to visit had Caturra coffee (a subspecies of Arabica) and the branches were budding in groups, forming small green cherries that would eventually grow, become deep crimson red and plucked from their branches. Another good sign for a healthy harvest.  However, Neyron was quick to point our trees that were in need of pruning or replacement to each producer we visited.  With this advice, Bernadino went straight into the house to get his cutting shears and cut the branches of the tree in question to allow more light to the existing, healthy branches.

Monday, my last day

Cupping coffee is hard work.  We cupped 30 coffees today, definitely not a record for me, but I am absolutely exhausted!  Would you like to hear what 6 coffee cuppers sound like?  I think it is a combination of hot soup drinkers, airplanes taking off and, who knows what else!



I have to thank all of our friends, Raul Gutiérrez of Café Nica for doing such an amazing job with the Zonifciation project, which I think will yield beautiful results in the years to come.  All of the cuppers that participated in the Zonification project, without them the project would not exist.  Neyron for taking me to visit all of the producers, clearly the producers for spending time with me and last but certainly not least Mayela and the entire Bellorin family for delicious food, a comfortable bed and the start of a new friendship.

¡Hasta la proxima vez!

Beth Ann