Organic coffee: Why Latin America's farmers are abandoning it [lib suicide watch ]

Seattle Times ^ | 3/6/2010 | Ezra Fieser

[Moe Tzadik]

GUATEMALA CITY — Some 450,000 pounds of organic coffee sit in a warehouse here, stacked neatly in 132-pound bags. It's some of the world's best coffee, but Gerardo De Leon can't sell it.

"This is very high quality and it's organic. But ... the roasters don't want to pay extra these days," says the manager of FEDECOCAGUA, Guatemala's largest growers' cooperative, which represents 20,000 farmers.

De Leon is asking $2 per pound for the unroasted coffee, about 50 cents more than the going price. But he says he'll soon have to sell it as conventionally grown coffee, which sells for less.

That's why many Mesoamerican farmers here are starting to give up on organic coffee: The premium price that it used to fetch is disappearing.

[BlueDragon]

I don't recognize what make of roaster that is, but I do remember trying to use an AlpenRost as a sample roaster.

Terrible results.

That was back when I roasted about 20 bags a month on larger roasters (but not so large they didn't still qualify as what is termed "small batch" roasting).

Am not in the coffee biz, anymore, but I do miss the variety. I don't miss that sorry excuse for a drum roaster, though. As a 'sample' roaster, it was no good. I could never get rid of the plastic taste. Lining the small dump bin with foil might have helped.

Never buy an AlpenRost --- not of the vintage pictured, anyway. I could do better or as good, in a frying pan over an open fire.

I see the one you have has a cooling bin. I'll assume it's air suction cooled, much as larger roasters. It appears there may even be a thin, narrow sweep at the bottom? I can't tell from the photo, but passing under the beans, lifting & stirring a bit would be good.

What kind of overall time profiles do you use? A bit less than ten minutes? 12?

I've gotten the impression that with micro batches, shorter roasting times than typically used with actual commercial roasters, is better.

Trying to match the roast profile I used in larger roasters would tend to 'bake'. I found that out when using a 30 Kilo machine, roasting both large, and smaller amounts.
The larger batches would develop well under a certain profile...trying to match that profile, in the same equipment, with a load 1/4 the weight, wouldn't give identical results.
The smaller loads not only would want to roast faster, but liked it, too.

But then again, there are lots of variables. Air temp, air flow volume, what the radiant heat transfer rates of both the drum itself, and the individual coffee are like, etc., not to mention moisture content of the bean, in the first place(!)- bean density & size, all enter into the equation.

As far as your claim that roasted coffee is "stale" after three to five days, most pros would differ on. It outgasses for about three days.

And yes, I typically always like it best right out of the roaster. (I should have ALWAYS cupped the next day, avoiding the initial out-gassing, but I didn't)
I've probably brewed thousands of cups that way, snatching a handful from the cooling bin. BUT --- some coffees & blends actually mellow out after a few days, even a week, with the overall cup improving as harsher edges sort-of round off. Been there, done that. Heavier bodied coffees can tend that way...

[Svartalfiar]

yep. when its burnt, you call it a darker roast.

If you want strong coffee, you use more grounds when you brew it. :p

[Svartalfiar]

yep. demand by itself is what people are actually buying. which actually has apparently gone down, because the price was so high.

What I dont get, is why he has to sell it as conventional coffee..? why not just cut the price by $.25 or so and sell it as slightly cheaper organic coffee? Or does Guatemala have a fixed price floor on organic coffee?

[Grunthor]

Why don’t we get the Afganny poppy farmers to grow coffee instead?

[Svartalfiar]

One of my dad’s coworkers has a friend in Columbia who owns a coffee plantation or something, and brings back a bunch of coffee when he visits, and brings some up to the office for everyone :) It was delicious!

[Grunthor]

“my wife once bought a five-pound bag of this hippie coffee, on sale at the local co-op. It was the best coffee I’ve ever tasted”

Only good thing about hippies I ever noticed was their food.

[Grunthor]

“Folgers Black Silk.”

Heaven in a cup.

[Grunthor]

I look for the beans that appear moist in the hopper, then freeze them at home and grind right before use. I suppose some people might think dark roast has a “burned” flavor, but to me, it’s the richest flavor. The coffee flavor just isn’t as strong in medium roasts, and I don’t drink light roasts. I make coffee *very* strong. And I love Starbucks. Coffee preferences are very much a matter of taste, and there is no “superior” style of preparing coffee.

---

I like what you said there. Light roast coffe isn’t coffee, it’s tea imo.

[Grunthor]

One of my faves from when I was in Germany

http://www.cheap-coffee-online.com/dallmayr_coffee

[ctdonath2]

I suppose some people might think dark roast has a “burned” flavor

Um ... that's because it is burned. Seriously. Dark roasts are actually turning to charcoal at that point. If you like that flavor, fine.

Lighter roasts allow more nuanced flavors to emerge, akin to tasting fine wines. The whole roasting process is complex: if you're not familiar with "first crack" and "second crack" and "city roast" vs. "full city roast", then the palette has a long way to go.

Visit Sweet Marias for an intro to connoisseur coffee.

[xsmommy]

i was in college in Pittsburgh at the time, and currently live in DC, don’t know the various altitudes, but let me know what you figure out!i have never tasted coffee in the US as good as i had when i lived in Colombia, no matter where i bought it or what i paid for it. The coffee farms we visited were in various parts of Colombia. The stuff they sold in the grocery stores in vacuum packed blocks was superb, that’s what i brought back.

[xsmommy]

you are lucky to have a contact like that! i have also visited Costa Rica and their coffee is also very good, but does not compare, IMO, with Colombian coffee.

[null and void]

Ah. My theory was that the higher altitude meant that they coffee in Columbia was brewed at a lower temperature (boiling point drops with altitude). But if the vacuum packed blocks you brought back were better than US purchased Columbian coffee, well.

Another beautiful theory ruined by ugly facts.

*sigh*

[xsmommy]

i hate doing this bc i can’t stand the grammar nazis and i don’t capitalize while freeping and take periodic crap for that, but i do have to say that the country is COLOMBIA, and the coffee is COLOMBIAN. not like obam’s alma mater... the Columbia School of Broadcasting... ; )

[null and void]

Ack! Sorry!

So was the Colombian coffee purchased in Colombia and brewed in Pittsburgh better than the Colombian coffee purchased and brewed in Pittsburgh?

[xsmommy]

yep : )

[null and void]

Thanks.

[The Shrew]

Awesome coffee.

Enjoy!

TS

[Lurker]

The best coffee on the planet:

Period.

L

[BlueDragon]

maybe. but at a certain point, when the coffee is specialty grade, then "best", is subjective.

The best cup I've ever had was a particular Central African, that is no longer available.

Cupping samples out to various people invoked the uniform response;

"That is the best cup of coffee I ever had."

Price does not in all ways denote both most exclusive and incomparable, finest quality.

But I'm sure the Wallenford folks appreciate your input.

I'd read somewhere in the not too distant past, that they began "bagging" it...the last I saw any, it was in a small wooden cask!