FincaVistaHermosa

Usually when one is busy time passes quickly. The last 2 months have seemed an eternity. Carlos and Edwin Garcia Martin continue to be missed tremendously. In their absence many relationships have grown stronger.

I have learned much about how we all process differently. And different is not wrong. Grieving takes many forms. With out means to preserve a body, funerals take place with in 24 hrs. There were a few hundred at the funeral that mourned loudly for a few days. Sometimes it is most difficult to deal with the present reality, and anything outside of denial seems impossible.

At such a time everything else seems so unimportant, yet distractions seem to be so comforting. Two months ago we were right in the middle of harvest with full patios and Diego, Carlos’ oldest stepped forward and chose to take his fathers responsibilities. Juana and most of her kids have since been in San Juan their home town to be close to their extended families despite not having lived there for 20 years. Diego spends half his time at FVH and chooses to sleep in the bodega alone with the coffee rather than in his home, the managers home. Life is different for many of us.

Early March on a layover in LA I went to visit John Gozbekian at LAMILL where the food is unreal and their culinary approach is mind blowing. Then before leaving I had to pay a visit to TONX as well. Soon after arrival I met up with Ryan Brown from Ritual along with Ben and Jaime from Barismo to embark on a new venture. We cupped at 7 of the largest exporters in Guatemala along side many CoE judges. I will post more on this later… possibly on a different blog. Since then Jaime has written a piece that is thought provoking and hopefully inspiring any reader to get back to the basics. The post is dated March 31, 2008.

And we picked up a few more friends along the way…

Klaus, Aaron, Mark and Ben have also posted pics on flickr.

To read more detail on the latter part of this trip please check out:

Klaus Thomsen (TCC) PART1, PART2 AND PART3

Victrola PART1, PART2 and PART

We were auditioning for the new Spiderman Movie.
Actually a barista training seminar we put on at Anacafe in Guatemala in 2007 for 40 baristas.While our coffee does REALLY well roasted dark and it can stand up to just about anything a roaster wants to dish out, I have always missed the taste of this same coffee the way we traditionally roast it back home. We have a handful of friends that do roasting both in Huehue and in Guatemala city and most of them roast in makeshift equipment that is quite worn. Nonetheless they put out a gorgeous cinnamon colored roast that is always spot on and explosive with ripe fruits.Then when we are in the U.S. it seems everything on the west coast is dark and bitter sweet. Most of the sweets I taste are strictly from caramelization with a muted resemblance of what many of these same roasters once tasted on their own cupping tables. Its not about a roast that is good or bad, right or wrong. It’s a matter of taste really. And bottom line the west coast likes their roasts dark. I’ve actually grown to appreciate a fresh roast that has the balance of spiciness and acidity with bitter roast notes. It seems people like high elevation Guats because no matter how you roast you don’t have to worry about loosing acidity. This is part of why Starbucks acquires more coffee from Guatemala than from any other single source. And the darker you roast the more you rely on good acidity to counter the growing bitters that develop. And of course these are roast note bitters, not natural bean bitters.So. Why is barefoot nonconforming? Well you really have to buy a bag of their coffee to see what I mean. Bottom line - IT’S LIGHT, REALLY LIGHT! Many quality roasters on the west coast won’t dare go this light because they can’t imagine many people liking it or paying for it. And the truth is that they’re probably right. A common reaction from another roaster looking at Barefoots roasts might be to say “that looks great for a cupping roast - lets cup it” and Andy Newbom of Barefoot is bagging it and selling it both retail AND WHOLESALE!A common thread I’ve tasted in all their FVH microlots is GOOD bitters and savory notes balanced in a light roast that typically accentuate only the citrus and the sweets in a dominant way. Attempting to wholesale this requires a great amount of training if used at all in an espresso as an SO because it is so intense. It is more difficult to extract the oils at lighter roasts. This means you need finer grind and probably a higher temp for starters. If you’re not used to lighter roasts you’ll know somethings wrong when you’re pulling a couple oz in 5 sec. However if your too fine or too hot your sweet citrus nectar becomes lemon juice. With lighter roasts the margin of error in the roast profile as well as the brewing method are very small.So if you’re trying this at home, be patient and persistent until you find that sweet spot. Andy has a total of 5 of our Microlots. 4 of them are literal geographic microlots and one is a sort out of the drymill of 100% peaberry.

Yes we love it when friends connect. Noe Castro (on the left) will be working up with the folks at Barefoot all of February and I understand possibly at Ritual or LaMill in March. Some day I’d like to open a coffee bar run exclusively by foreign visiting baristas. I hope in a few years that this idea won’t sound so foreign.

Also a big congratulations to the 07-08 Guatemalan Barista Champion - Raúl Rodas, the sponsoring companies

and all of the 30 others who competed

If you’re a barista wondering… “How can I get hooked up like that?” A resource that I think could be useful in such a venture is BARISTAEXCHANGE. You may very well be one of the first to have joined this myspacey type forum. But have you considered that with enough passion, creativity and effort you can probably travel the world or host a barista from any one of dozens of countries.

If you’re excited about the idea but are at a loss for where to start.. if you have any interest in Guatemala you might give Mike in Panajachel a call.

Or if you’re fluent in spanish contact me and I may be able to help you find a good match.

I got an email on Friday from Alison at Sound Horticulture who is a freelance consultant in the agriculture industry. She gave me a link to a website doing a live radio show on coffee titled “WHAT’S IN YOUR CUP”.

I then sent an email to METROFARM commenting how I feel Fair Trade is not Fair and of course they quickly replied asking me to call in- which I did from GUATEMALA.

With out going into lengthy monologue about why I think Fair Trade is often good, sometimes bad, but rarely ideal or great I’ll spare you listening through an hour of coffee talk and share that the subject was never broached there either. I thought it prudent to be careful with my words NOT because the featured guest owns and operates a 100% Fair Trade coffee company, but because I’m not good at live interviews =)

However I did learn much from Dean Cycon who is both a wealth of information and owner of Dean’s Beans which is also 100% Organic. As a proprietor of a business that operates exclusively on Fair Trade coffees he has done much homework and gone the extra mile in connecting and learning about the people that produce his coffees rather than just purchasing certifications for the marketing power that they do in fact have. If everyone purchasing Fair Trade coffee made half the effort Dean does to connect with origin, Fair Trade would in my opinion be much more in line with the spirit of Fair Trade. I think that agencies that certify Fair Trade products do a fantastic job at meeting their goals and mission statement. However I question how sustainable is Fair Trade?

Bottom line accountability is expensive and I believe it is only quality that is sustainable in the long run. If the only value in a product is that it is guaranteeing a fair wage to people at origin with no quality criteria, there is no incentive for excellence, rather reward for mediocracy. It is concerning to me that so many in agriculture who produce what is the second largest commodity in the world are producing something that intrinsically is increasingly worth less BECAUSE of charity. Again, the issue of sustainability in FT is not really discussed, but Dean does a wonderful job educating listeners about many of the real social concerns related to coffee growers, as well as sharing about some excellent programs that help address these problems.

CLICK HERE TO LISTEN

IMG_2305, originally uploaded by edwinfvh.

There’s always magic in the air when the seed to cup circle is completed. Picture with the half head is Tony from Octane, then M’lissa who I have to imagine is a vital part of Octane, then Chris and David who represent Counter Culture Coffee in Atlanta and finally my father, also Edwin Martinez. Chris and David led a blind cupping of two coffees from Cauca and a washed Yirg with a memorable intense aroma. Others attended and collaboratively shared an ocean of VERY specific descriptors that made me want to go back and cup everything again. I still have so much to learn about cupping…  Click here to see the descriptors.

I try to spend little time blogging.  I find it worthwhile to both be consistent and put up good content.  Seems I rarely do both.  Last week Nina and I had a great time meeting some serious coffee people that don’t HAVE to talk about coffee.  One thing is for sure, for Chris and M’lissa, coffee is not just a fad.  And YES!  M’lissa did beat me to the punch in with her post.

What burden? Education. This is one of the things I’m most excited about in coffee. While everyone knows about coffee, you can’t really ever know enough about it right? If ever in Bellingham, WA make this a mandatory stop. 205 Grand Avenue. Just go there.

Having just opened Alexarc Mastema and Teri Bryant who own the Black Drop are now roasting as Maniac Roaster. Show up between 8 a.m. and noon M-F and you can purchase a hand poured gold filtered cup and some great alternative brewing devices that will be sure to please any eager coffee geek. Alex was kind enough to allow me to stop in during non business hours and hang out during his roasting time.

I walked in just as he was about to dump in his first batch of decaf that he’s roasted in 15 years. Yes coffee is not new to Alex. (The roast came out looking as nice as a sumatran decaf can look - I’ll have to go back just to try this). You may notice a few huge black drops tatooed on his arms and think he’s pretty serious about coffee. And he is, but the reason you need to stop by is because he wants to share this. I’ve been following them since they opened… and just dug up this old link where they get great reviews, 4 years ago! In Bellingham I’ve noticed that the way-over saturated coffee scene is full of coffee that meets the local demand that drowns it with cream and sugar, and it doesn’t take much to be the best in town. The Black Drop has continuously raised the bar time and time again. Stop by their place at 300 W champion and get a free dopio on Fridays. To start off great and improve non stop does not happen by accident. Nice job guys. Congradulations on the new space.

If you’re one of “them” - fanatic coffee geeks who spends 30 minutes preparing, roasting, blowing chaff away and cooling, this post is for you. Whether you are roasting in a popcorn popper, an RK drum in a BBQ or in your modified hair dryer you know the excitement that comes from turning your own green to brown. This “hobby” and passion has spread like wild flower and allowed really cool folks such as Gary and John at www.burmancoffee.com to buy green coffee and resell it with out even roasting it. At a profit. The value added is worth every penny. They do all the work of sourcing for you and break it down so you can order just a few lbs to try with out having to buy 1500lbs. We don’t sell direct to home roasters because it’s alot of work, it’s not our focus, and others do it much better than we ever could.

Check out his pictures HERE - this is certainly the best looking results I’ve ever seen from a home roaster. You’ll note he has a good eye for evaluating green as he found some defects in our coffee. Mario has been kind enough to offer sending a sample of his finished product for us to taste. I can’t wait.

Happy Roasting!

I’ve recently taken great interest in Zambia, in part because some close friends left this weekend to live there for a few years. During the WBC this year I made it a point to watch the Zambian Barista Champion Francis Njobvu perform. CLICK HERE TO SEE IT FOR YOURSELF. As it was a full house, I was lucky to find an empty seat near the front. The woman next to me was waving a flag, and yes it was the Zambian flag. Turns out it was Teija Lubinkhof of MUNALI COFFEE. He used Teija’s beans as well as the mucilage removed with a Penagos to make a jam. The fruit was cooked into a reduction with sugar and lime juice, then skin was sifted out. The 07 crop is being harvested as I write this.

Francis may very well have been the most calm performer in the entire WBC this year. Too bad more people couldn’t try his signature drink. It was quite unique. Teija gave me some green in Tokyo which I will be sample roasting for fun next week. Based on a green evaluation only it looks very promising.

On my way to Tokyo I had a direct flight from Seattle, but my return had a 9hr layover in Hawaii (where I went surfing and got burned) before arriving in San Francisco. Here I boarded an Alaskan Airlines flight and soon after boarding I’m reading Alaska Airlines Magazine and I’m see an article titled “True Brew” - Small roasters take coffee to a new level. And then a close up cupping pic with that beautiful new cupping table at Victrola, their roaster, pics of stumptown and vivacce. A clip from the article:

“The growing emphasis on single-origin coffees demonstrates that coffee’s flavor is deeply influenced by it;s place of origin - its terroir, to borrow a winemaking term. In searching for flavorful coffees, roasters develop a rich understanding of coffee-growing regions and become very speific in their choices. Victrola and Barefoot, for example, have both determined that they’ll be purchasing coffee from small parcels of Finca Vista Hermosa in northern Guatemala.

Newbom visited the farm in February and spent several days working with the growers to identify the four microlots he wished to purhase. “Some of these microlots can be as small as one hectare [roughly 2.4 acres], and we’re selling the coffee with the name of that farm and microlot. They’ll all be separately labeled and sold, and this is the first year they’ve had a reason to separate them from each other.”

Well we have separated them since the begining, but this is the first year we’ve had a realized a demand for this and are pleased that people are taking interest and actually working with us in differentiating our micro lots. As many roasters like to share what coffee they’re drinking… I sometims sample roast our own and enjoy different microlots each morning. This won’t have the same meaning for everyone, but when you KNOW the work that has gone into each bean, including details of soil types and amounts of sun each plant receives, the varietal and age of the plant… the steepness of the mountain side, the honey jasmin smell of the flowering and the feel of the inside of the washing channels and wooden pannels etc… tasting microlots really is taking coffee to a whole new level.

Keep you’re eyes open for the new crop now at Victrola and Barefoot. Barefoot actually has purchase 4 different microlots and a almost all of our peaberry.

We’ve been selling to Press Alternative for a few years and this year we decided to work with another exporter who would facilitate some of the logistics as it is a small amount that we ship out.

Notice the picture above has a date on it. Jose Padilla was diligent in snapping a photo when the marked bags came into the warehouse. The above pic is just a bag full of empty bags for export.

Below you see what the front marks look like. Second picture shows the same 11 mark for Guatemala and the center number has been edited or re-stenciled with the new license number (also a mill mark in this case) and finally the lot number on the right which means they have exported 114 lots this year preceding this particular lot. Lots are most often Containers (37,500lbs), however they can be as small as you wish, even a 1 bag lot if you wanted. The third pic shows them all bagged, restencilled and ready to go out this weekend across the pacific pond.