Through working with a properly run wet-mill a roaster is able to be more selective in the coffee we choose.  Choosing a single varietal coffee, a specific lot/area of the farm and if we prefer to have our coffee processed a certain way in order to give it a unique flavor is all possible through the micro-mill.

But, there are years worth of work before coffee is ever harvested.  Watch this new training video which walks you through the steps, and years of work required before coffee every gets tasted.

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Coffee is one of the most complicated products in the world when it comes to consistently harvesting, processing, roasting and especially brewing.

More and more you will hear about how important it is to properly harvest coffee.  A Micro-mill is a fairly new term, which is a description for a small mill, located on the farm, which de-pulps the coffee cherries and were coffee is typically dried in the sun.

Not very often do you hear about the steps that happen after this.  These steps are briefly outlined in this video prepared by us.   It was made to help you understand that all coffee doesn’t stop its journey at the farm….in fact, it still has a lot of processing to go through before reaching the roastery.

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The Prairie Coffee Project is a movement, a hope, and a passion to create a better understanding and appreciation of truly fine coffee. It is a group of specialty coffee roasters and cafés across Alberta, Saskatchewan and Manitoba who put aside differences and competition in order to promote the art and craft of roasting and serving exceptional coffee. It is an ongoing discussion and collaboration of the techniques, tools and processes for making remarkable coffee. It is a place for coffee enthusiasts to learn more about all aspects of coffee, and to be inspired by and connect with the professional coffee community.  It is one more step on the journey toward better coffee.

One of the main activities of the Prairie Coffee Project is hosting an annual barista competition and coffee symposium. The Prairies Regional Barista Competition is an event where professional baristas have 15 minutes to prepare 12 coffee beverages and give a presentation to a panel of sensory and technical judges. The performances are evaluated on taste, technical merit and creativity. The top scoring baristas advance to the Canadian National Barista Competition.  To see photo’s from last years competition click HERE.Coffee enthusiasts of any kind, both professional and “home baristas” are welcome to attend this event held on August 6th at Fratello Coffee Roasters.  Admission is FREE and you will have the opportunity through out the day to sample coffees made from baristas/cafes from around Calgary along with complimentary food/snacks.  To top it off, Alley Burger (of Charcut) will be cooking their famous hamburgers to purchase from 11:30-3:00.   So make sure you come and cheer on your favourite baristas from your favourite cafes!

The Coffee Symposium, a new event for 2011, is presented along with the Prairie Regional Barista Competition. It is a series of hands-on workshops and  classes to teach coffee drinkers how to brew better coffee at home, how to taste and evaluate coffee, and how to better understand and experience the joys of complex, nuanced coffee.

Other events such as barista jams, coffee tastings, brewing courses and other gatherings will be planned throughout the year.   And the discussion and conversation around great coffee will continue online.

We want you to get involved.  We are going to need volunteers at these events.  Please sign up HERE if you wish to volunteer or HERE if you want to compete in these events.

For many years the most expensive prices paid for coffee has been a rare coffee found in Panama.  The record for this Panamanian coffee was set in 2007 when an auction fetched over $150 USD / lb (Green) for coffee grown at Esmeralda Estate using the Geisha Varietal.    Since this time, it is not rare for people to pay 10-20 times the regular asking price for this rare coffee.  In a café setting it is no different.   To get a taste of this coffee, you should expect to pay $10-12 per cup.  Is it worth it?  I think so.

So what is with this coffee and what makes it so unique?  I wanted to know as well, so the purpose of going to Panama was to begin to learn about this varietal and appreciate what it brings to the cupping tables.This very rare varietal (Type of coffee tree/cherry) is called a Geisha and was originally found in Panama over 40 years ago, but is said to have originally come from Ethiopia in the 1930’s, traveling through Africa, into Costa Rica and finally arriving into Panama in the 1960’s.   In the past 4-5 years we have begun seeing more countries in Central & South America now planting Geisha trying to see if they to can grow this coffee, and be rewarded with the same pricing.  So far this year I’ve seen Colombia and Costa Rica successfully harvest this varietal and receive upward of $50 USD / lb (Green).

When speaking with Jose David licensed Q Grader & owner of Mama Cata and the Garrido Estates, he tells me about a time when his father first began planting coffee trees.  He remembers his dad telling him how he went to buy coffee trees but the cooperative was almost sold out.  The only trees left were these tiny ugly trees called Geisha, he didn’t want them, but it was that or nothing.

He soon found out that there are many issues with the Geishas.  For starters they are extremely slow at growing and will usually take 7 years before they start-producing fruit (compared to 3-5 years).  Once producing the coffee cherry’s you will find that they yield around 75% less cherry then other coffee varietals.  In order to get these coffee trees producing fruit year after year, you will need to feed them twice as often with fertilizers (6-7 times per year compared to 3-4 times).  On top of the low yielding, slow growing and very hungry trees, you will find out that they are very susceptible to insect damage and diseases.

So why in the world would a coffee farmer continue to grow Geisha?  Funny enough, Jose David’s father decided to keep them primarily because they were beautiful looking trees.  He would have felt bad about cutting them down.   It wasn’t until many years later, once starting to cup coffees from trees, instead of blending them all together, did they realize that what was growing was not only unique, but outstanding in the cup.

To this day, many of these trees still exist and are still producing fruit.   Many things have changed since Jose David began working the farms.  Today they pick coffee and keep that coffee separate on EVERY Geisha coffee tree.  Each are marked for cup quality and characteristics.  Each day’s pickings are dried and processed on their own, with a GPS Settings attached to each lot for complete tractability/traceability. What they have begun to realize is that Geisha’s are not all the same.  Even neighboring trees can have very different cup profiles, and often do not have a “True Geisha Cup Profile”.   In some cases they have found that trees are picking up flavors of neighboring trees, like orange and lemon trees.  Due to this, wind barrier trees, or “flavor blockers” have been planted to protect the Geisha’s.

Elevation plays a large part in producing the most desirable cup characteristics in Geisha.   We found that lower elevations of 1500 meters gave a very sweet cup and also found the acidity in Geisha grown at 1800+ meters produced an acidity which was hard to tame (Lemon & Orange Zest).

Jose David doesn’t stop here.  He has shown me the evidence on his cupping table what his constant innovation has done.  Jose David is always working with different processing methods like Honey Prep or full Natural coffees, but he is the first one that I have seen to do the “Cracker Jack” process or “Half Natural” (TBD).  This involves saving the skin of the cherry after de-pulping, and re-mixing this into the drying coffee that has been Honey Prepped.  Crazy!   Next up for him is trying a wet hulled process, which is common in Sumatra.

It is for these reasons that Mama Cata Estate has become a name known for some of the highest scoring lots in the world.   They are often scored in the mid to high 90’s and are often in the top lots in the Best of Panama auctions.   It is also for these reasons that these very rare and unique Geisha profiles are fetching the prices that they do.  They deserve it.

Please join us at 11am on Friday June 3rd at Analog Cafe at the Calgary Farmers Market to take part in this ceremony. We are very pleased to have Fikerte Neguisse and Maron Abera from Amharic Immersion Calgary lead us in this ancient Ethiopian tradition. They are excited to share this tradition with you. They will be roasting and uniquely preparing  our Fratello Ethiopian Sidamo Ardi right at Analog Cafe.

Fratello Coffee Roasters and Analog Cafe are honored that we can help bring this part of coffee tradition to you in Calgary and hope that you are able to join us June 3rd at 11am!

]]> http://www.fratellocoffee.com/ethiopian-coffee-ceremony-june-3rd/feed/ 0 http://www.fratellocoffee.com/costa-rican-buying-trip-%e2%80%93-2011/ http://www.fratellocoffee.com/costa-rican-buying-trip-%e2%80%93-2011/#comments Fri, 13 May 2011 21:19:37 +0000 russ http://www.fratellocoffee.com/?p=2128 Warning: call_user_func_array(): First argumented is expected to be a valid callback, 'new_excerpt_more' was given in /var/www/html/wp-includes/plugin.php on line 166
At the end of February 2011 we visited our friend Francisco of Exclusive Coffee in San Jose Costa Rica.  Our goal this trip was to re-visit our relationship not only]]> At the end of February 2011 we visited our friend Francisco of Exclusive Coffee in San Jose Costa Rica.  Our goal this trip was to re-visit our relationship not only with Exclusive Coffees, but also our current coffee producer Luis who owns the Rio Jorco Micro-mill.  Below is our observation of the Costa Rican coffee growing market, as well as introduction to two great new Micro-Mills coming to Fratello.

To my amazement and delight, our trip started visiting the new offices of Exclusive Coffees.  They moved into a much larger facility with a state of the art cupping lab.  As always the coffees being cupped at Exclusive are roasted to perfection (which is extremely rare when visiting farms/labs at origin) and the selection of coffees for the most part where shining stars on the table.  Costa Rica has many great growing regions, and now has many first class micro-mills in each of these regions.  To keep our palates focused, we only cupped coffees from Tarrazu and the West Valley.  Aside from the cupping facility, Exclusive Coffees has installed their own Dry Mill to assist in the grading, separation and cleaning of the micro-lots being produced by the micro-mills they work with (approximately 100 micro-mills).

It’s no secret that the current pricing in the coffee market is almost at an all time high.  We’ve seen prices reach $3.00/lb at the New York Commodity Markets this year, the second highest since February 1997.   A weak US Dollar, increased demand for high quality Arabica coffees, global shortages of green coffee due to 25-35% shortfalls of production in most of Central & South America, coupled higher production costs due to costs of labor, oil, transportation costs as well as increases in fertilization are all are all factors which are driving prices up, with no real end in sight.

With these higher prices going to the farmers, what we noticed when touring the farms and micro-mills is how many of these famers have re-invested into the infrastructure of their wet mills.   Along with this, many farms have begun re-planting coffee trees, increasing the amount of fertilizer and making plans for increased production in the years to come.  What we see them doing is INVESTING INTO THE FUTURE OF QUALITY COFFEE & PRODUCTION.  This is huge!  This is something we also noticed in Colombia as well.  Looking 2-3 years out, we can see a lot more production to keep up with the increased demand, which continues to grow every year.

This unfortunately wasn’t the case at every farm/mill we went to.  Sadly, Rio Jorco was one of the mills that disappointed us this year.  I wont to get into why on this blog post, but what I will just say is that we are not going to continue with this relationship this year.  We will re-look at them again, but they need to see some significant improvements…

What is exciting is what we decided to come back with.  Our first 25 bag micro-lot  (Lot#37) of coffee is going to be from the farm San Pablo & La Cabana Micro-Mill.  It is located in a micro region of Leon Cortes of the Tarrazu Valley.   The coffee producer, Javier Meza, grows his 100% Caturra coffee at 1550 meters (5100 feet).  Only 3 people work at this mill and produce 250 sacks of coffee a year (38,000-42,000 lbs / year).  The lot we purchased is fully washed and sundried on raised African beds.  Javier takes great care in slow drying his coffee in hopes of achieving an above average consistency of moisture content and density of green beans.

The second 45 bag micro-lot (Lot #25-01) of coffee is produced by Miguel Rojas and processed at the award winning Helsar Micro-Mill in the Naranjo micro region of the West Valley.  This 100% Caturra lot of coffee was grown at a staggering altitude of 1700 meters (5600 feet).   This Lot is also fully washed & sun dried.

This gives Fratello’s clients two micro-lots of Costa Rican coffee to choose from that are both high altitude grown 100% Caturra, fully washed and sun dried.  You will need to try them both to taste the differences a micro-region makes in cup profiles.

Our commitment to quality continues to grow and prove itself in ever improving quality coffee.  We continue to deep-source our coffee in hopes of discovering unique coffee profiles & stories that hopefully educate not only you, but also your clients.  Thank you for your support, without it, we could not continue to support the families we work with.

We have more photos from this trip available to view on Flickr or Facebook.

We are also passionate at Fratello about the people and places we work with that grow our coffee and the many loyal customers that enjoy it. Fratello has been working hard to reduce our overall carbon footprint at each step of this journey to you.

We would like to take the time to highlight some of the steps we are taking to reduce waste and contribute positively to the environment. We would like to be part of a dialogue with you the consumer on how we can do more to affect positive change! We welcome comments, ideas and feedback so that we can learn and grow green.

When as a company you think of reducing your carbon footprint, Recycling comes to mind first. Running a warehouse and roasting facility where we are receiving and shipping coffee and other goods daily causes a lot of material to be used.

We looked at what everyday recycling programs we could put in place easily and maintain. So far we recycle:

• Paper
• Cardboard
• Milk containers
• Cans/bottles
• Shrink-wrap
• Plastic

We are looking to recycle or donate broken pallets. These come to us in shipments and often break due to use.  We would welcome a cost effective way to reuse or recycle these. Please contact us if you would like to come pick some up!

Coffee that is shipped to us from all over the world arrives in burlap coffee sacks. We have stopped putting these sacks into the garbage, and instead have been donating these. Gardening groups love the burlap sacks for making planters! In conversation with Green Calgary, an environmental consulting group we learned that the burlap sacks break down within a few years. Crafters also love them. Give us a call, and then visit Fratello to take away some burlap sacks for yourself!

We have also recently started donating all of our Chaff (a by product of roasting coffee, similar to the skin of a peanut) to be used in composting.  This Chaff is also going to chicken farms for making nests. Through these efforts, Fratello has reduced its garbage shipped to landfills by 60-70%.

We have also designed and implemented a revolutionary new gas burner system on our roaster which has 98% gas efficiency which is a departure from most if no all other roasters which operate at much lower efficiencies (as low as 50%).

We also have re-usable Blue Bins to do our local deliveries in, instead of cardboard, and have also changed our branded cups to a paper cup using 10% post consumer products (looking into using 100% post consumer products).

Fratello Coffee Roasters is opening our first café April 2011. Analog Café at the new location for the Calgary Farmers Market will run on 100% Bullfrog Power wind energy.  We are also working with Bullfrog to supply our roasting facility with clean energy for both electricity and gas. Our café is only a few miles from our roasting facility so there will be minimal transport emissions getting the coffee to Analog café. Our pastry supplier will be right at the market as well reducing extra transport. We look forward to also benefiting from the environmental practices of the market itself and insuring we take full advantage of any composting, recycling and waste reduction programs they offer.

However, we do not look just at our company, and the city we live in.  To us, the largest impact we can make is through our buying practices.  Our coffee is: Consciously Chosen, Responsibly Purchased & Carefully Roasted.  What this means is we do not treat coffee like a commodity.  We “deep source” our coffee and buy directly with the farmers.  We do this for many reasons; most obvious is to find the highest quality coffee.  But just as important, is to ensure the farms and farmers we work with our doing their parts to take care of their environments.

We seek out farms that are Rainforest Alliance Certified.  This is the most in depth certification available.  Please read the link on our website “Why Fratello Coffee Chooses to Support Rainforest Alliance Certification” for more information on why we choose this certification:

http://www.fratellocoffee.com/rainforest-alliance-farm-audits/

We also purchase certified Organic and Fair-trade Organic coffees on a regular basis.

As we dig deeper into ways that Fratello Coffee Roasters and Fratello Analog Café can reduce our environmental footprint, we will share them with you. Our goal is to work closely with our community right here in Calgary and the coffee communities we work directly with. The journey from seed to cup is one that carries with it many challenges and many rewards. We are hoping in our own way to make that journey a little greener.

Thank you for taking the time to read this article. Please write us, either in the comments here or directly. We would love to spark a dialogue about ways we can further our environmental commitment.

Contact Kevin McConnell at Fratello Coffee Roasters:

Kevin.mcconnell@fratellocoffee.com

Phone: 403 265 2112

Analog Café on Twitter: @fratelloanalog

At the end of February 2011, John and I got home from touring coffee estates throughout Central America with one stop in South America to Colombia. I always get excited about going to Colombia.   The culture, the diverse landscape, the food and the excitement around coffee is contagious.   To top it off, I just love what it takes to get to the farms.  They are much more remote and smaller in size then other growing countries, so it isn’t an easy task.  It takes work.  Due to this, we decided to focus on only one region located in the South of Colombia called Huila; however; within Huila are many micro-regions (and micro-climates).   Huila is generally known as the region that produces the highest quality coffees, and are typically ranked high in the Cup of Excellence competitions.

The first thing you notice when visiting a farm is how small they are.  Typically a farm in Colombia will produce 30-40 bags (152 lbs per bag) of high quality coffee per harvest.  In Colombia, unlike other regions, they produce 2 harvests per year due to their climate and proximity to the equator.  The main crop called Principal will happen in the North, while the smaller Mitaca crop will occur in the South (and visa-versa).

Our first visits occurred in the Northern Huila micro-region Suaza.  The average farm size is 3 hectares with an average of 5000 trees per hectare.  Typical elevation is 1300-1800 meters. In the past 2-3 years, Suaza like most regions in Huila were affected by a coffee tree disease/fungus called Leaf Rust.  This Leaf Rust severally damaged the crop sizes in Colombia by primarily attacking the coffee varietal Caturra.  Caturra and Colombia have been the two most commonly planted varietals in Colombia until recently.  What we witnessed was the mass planting of a new Leaf Rust resistant varietal called Castillo.  Castillo isn’t as sweet as Caturra, but it is a large producer of coffee cherries.  Colombia is at a time when they need to correct the coffee shortages, and fix it fast.  For the past 3 years Colombia has had bad crops, which affected most farmers/families in Colombia, as well as the worlds coffee pricing due to the shortages of high quality washed coffees.

Fratello will be offering two coffees from Suaza in March 2011.  Both have been purchased through our new partners CooCentral, a cooperative located in Garzon Huila.  Working with a cooperative seems to be necessary in Colombia due to the small farm sizes and logistical nightmares.   Finding a good cooperative to partner with is just as important as finding the great farms.  They are vital as they are the people on the ground every day.  They are the people who coach/teach technical issues, who have agronomists who analyze soil conditions for customized fertilization and basically insure the health and yields of the overall farms.   Over & above this, CooCentral has impressive social benefits for the 332 farms in Suaza that have partnered with them.

CooCentral starts by paying more money per lb than any of the other cooperative.  Because of this they get to be more selective with who they work with and ensure that only the farms producing the highest quality of coffee are associated.  Above this, they pay for 50% of the health care needs as well as 100% of any funeral expenses for their immediate families.   Also impressive is the fact that they offer lines of credit to the farms in order to buy fertilizer and other products they need at 0% interest rates.

Currently CooCentral is in the process of re-building 110 new homes, including new kitchen installations for the farms that have been the most loyal.  Next year, they will work on more.

The two lots we are bringing in have been chosen for their unique cup quality and characteristics.  The farms associated with these lots were paid an additional premium for this quality.

Our first lot is a blend made up of 14 different families in the Suaza region.  This was a special preparation of green coffee, which had extra attention in the dry mill to ensure a much more consistent bean size.  What we found was approximately 15% of the green beans were not used.  These families were:

1. Isauro Burgos, from the Cerritos-Galladro hamlet of Suaza.
2. Sigifredo Giraldo, from the Esmeralda hamlet of Suaza.
3. Pedro Jose Girald, from the Esmeralda hamlet of Suaza.
4. Jesus Antonio Mojo, from the Esnarlda hamlet of Suaza.
5. Ariel Pulido, from the Galladro hamlet of Suaza.
6. Sinforoso Cruz, from the Gallardo hamlet of Suaza.
7. Omar Antonio Realpe, from the Horizonte hamlet of Suaza.
8. Luz Mari Hurtado, from the Horizonte hamlet of Suaza.
9. Placido Espitia, from the Toribio hamlet of Suaza.
10. Jose Yadir Munoz, from the Toribio hamlet of Suaza.
11. Dario Munoz, from the Union hamlet of Suaza.
12. Roniro Duque, from the Vergel hamlet of Suaza.
13. Juan Carlos Taborda, from the Vergel hamlet of Suaza.
14. Jose Enrique Jordan, from the Vergel hamlet of Suaza.

Our second Lot is considered a Micro-Lot that is made up of only three tiny farms.  Together they made up a 22 bag lot of extraordinarily great quality coffee which showcases the profile of what Suaza is all about.   This Lot is from:

1. Ariel Pulido, from the Gallardo hamlet of Suaza.
2. Dario Nunoz, from the Union hamlet of Suaza.
3. Juan Carlos Taborda, from the Vergel hamlet of Suaza.

We have some exciting plans for Colombia in the second half of this year, which includes a competition held at CooCentral for many of the farms we visited.  Our goal is to find the highest quality coffee from a Single Estate in either El Pital, Los Naranjos and Suaza regions from the harvest coming this May/June.  Our goal will be to continue supporting this farm year over year in a true Direct Trade partnership that will allow both parties to prosper.   We will continue to update you on this project as more details come our way.

Watch for these two exciting new Lots coming very soon.  For more photos from this trip please visit our Facebook Page or Flickr Page.

We have successfully completed another buying trip in Nicaragua and this year we have done something a little different.   We are still working with Erwin Miersch and his family who have farms in both Jinotega and Matagalpa, but for the first time we aren’t focusing on just a single lot of coffee.  Instead we wanted to taste coffees and approach this up coming year with a variety of Estates, processes and varietals.  This is going to be a fun & exciting year filled with selection.

It is always rewarding when you visit a farm you have a relationship with and notice improvements in their processing.  This year the Miersch family has been very busy re-doing all of their wet mills (which are located on every farm, 7 in total) with custom made de-pulping machines.  These machines are very similar to the “Colombian” style de-pulpers which use 1/40^th the amount of water of traditional wet milling equipment.  This is obviously great, but the best part about them to me is the ability to customize the amount of mucilage you leave on the beans when doing Honey Prep (yellow or red), also known as Pulped Naturals.

As soon as we saw the honey coffee drying in the sun at the Don Esteban dry mill in Matagalpa you could see the difference.   Thick mucilage was on the beans, which gave a red look to them (Red Honey prep).   We have purchased this coffee in the past, and chose to again this year.  The sugars found in this type of mucilage create a sweet full body which you will notice when tasting this coffee.

The other big change I noticed was an improvement in the dry-mill.  A new addition of a color scanner which aids in removing any beans that are damaged or off colored.  This is used together with a screening system, an Oliver density sorter as well as hand sorting tables.

After 4 days in Nicaragua we are coming away with stronger relationships as well as 4 new lots of coffee we will be offering you.  This June we will have a:

1. 100% Caturra Honey Prep from Los Placeres
2. Fully washed Caturra from Mama Mina Estate
3. Fully washed Red Pacamara from Limoncillo Estate
4. Full Natural Java also from Limoncillo Estate.

I guarantee you this are going to knock your socks off!  To view more photos of this trip, click here.

Rwanda COOPAC Fair Trade gives you a sweet whiney aroma, with a long lingering grapefruit acidity.  Mild toffee & milk chocolate flavours finish with a crisp mouthfeel.   This is a Fully Washed process coffee which mixes the varietals Bourbon and Mayaguez which were grown at an elevation of 1500-2000 meters in the Rutsiro & Rubava Districts in the Western Province near Gisenyi.

COOPAC is a fair trade certified cooperative located near Lake Kivu on the steep slopes of volcanic mountains.  COOPAC began with 110 farmers in 2001 and today has over 2,200 members.  This cooperative owns a washing station situated near Gisenyi along the shores of Lake Kivu.

COOPAC is committed to environmental and social sustainability in addition to producing high quality coffee.  Waste by-products from processing are used as fertilizer rather than discarded into the lake, and shade trees are distributed to farmers to prevent soil erosion.  COOPAC has assisted in the construction of a school, health-care clinics, roads and bridges in the community.  The cooperative also has a program to distribute cows and goats to the most productive farmers and provides farmers with an agricultural advisor to teach the latest production methods.

Now this is a coffee & cooperative we can stand behind!   I trust you will enjoy this cup as much as we do.  To try this coffee, order it here.