COSTA RICA CLOZA
Costa Rica is a well-known coffee country, and one of our favorite places of origin here at Mission. The country has been a forerunner of environment-conscious coffee practices, a well-known instance of this being the infamous honey processing method for drying coffee. Honey processing reduces the farmers’ need for water due to letting the mucilage hang out on the bean, then removed during the milling process. Honeys of various color grades have really taken off within the specialty coffee industry, likewise, an increased environmental and social consciousness of what goes into a cup of coffee.
Photo Credit: @cafeconamor.cr
Costa Rica is a rather environmentally conscious country as a whole, advocating for sustainable farming practices amongst the country’s other major crops, serving as a model for conservation and green political action, and incorporating ecotourism as a meant to preserve their biodiverse environment. In combo with the country’s environmental savvy applied to coffee farming and production practices, the country features pioneers and pillars for women involved in coffee. The International Women’s Coffee Alliance (IWCA) is a pillar utilized by female coffee farmers and producers as a means to gain industry insight and join together to strengthen a presence in the international specialty coffee industry.
This is where we are thrilled to say our newest coffee comes into play. Kathia Zamora is the fourth-generation owner of the Cloza Estate, a farm and micro-mill in the Naranjo de Alajuela region. She, alongside her mother, are founding members of the IWCA-Costa Rica Chapter. The mission of the IWCA is to empower women in the international coffee community to achieve meaningful and sustainable lives and to encourage and recognize the participation of women in all aspects of the coffee industry. (More information on this incredible alliance can be found here). Kathia’s farm has also obtained the Women Care Certification, which represents her commitment to supporting the empowerment of women in the coffee industry. Certifications like such can serve as crucial pathways to women empowerment throughout the coffee supply chain as the market for certified coffee is rapidly increasing.
Photo Credit: @cafeconamor.cr
Kathia is also an integral part of the Farmer’s Project, an initiative consisting of 5 coffee-growing families founded by Jonathan Jost and Marianella Baez Jost of Café Con Amor. The initiative consists of over 200 Hectares following sustainable practices while employing 35 Full-Time Workers, 24 Part-Time Workers, and 165 Seasonal Pickers. The farmers aim to learn from one another, share best practices, and navigate the international specialty market together.
Photo Credit: @cafeconamor.cr
We are very incredibly happy to be able to support this initiative by purchasing Kathia’s coffee. It brings with it an awareness of women in various positions of the coffee supply chain; in this instance from farmer to exporter/importer to roaster (and sometimes Barista when Tiff is behind bar). We chose this coffee because of the opportunity it presents us here at Mission to learn about and create awareness for women throughout coffee, as well as the importance and impact of coffee producers unifying to help farmers sell coffee for a proper, fair, sustainable price.
We also chose this coffee because we love how it tastes! We were impressed with what this bean brought to the cupping table. Costa Rica holds a soft spot of origin travels and first coffee farm experiences for a few of us here at Mission, so we are always geeked to get samples from this region. We are always infatuated with Costa Rican coffee’s sweet and luscious body, yet this one brought a fun melon note with it that we wanted to play it. This only enhances that smooth sweetness we are so fond of. There is also a nice caramel sweetness layered with the melon, finishing with a sweet lemon taste that brightens things up. The honey processing results in a very fruit, bodacious sensation while retaining the clean acidity and cup complexity that washed coffees can bring to the table.
The IWCA is a global network of self-driven chapters in pursuit of its own goals. All are united by the IWCA mission to empower women in the international coffee community. A donation can greatly help a local chapter, and be carried throughout the coffee supply chain. If you are willing and able please follow this link to make a donation.
ETHIOPIA REKO
In a previous blog, we touched on the responsibility of buying power in of Ethiopian coffee and the role the Ethiopian Coffee Exchange (ECX) plays. This system remedies disparity amongst coffee producing communities, though it trades that equality by limiting the transparency and identity of the farmers and their product. Our newest Ethiopian coffee is an example of a coffee that is able to transcend that system through the collaboration of a washing station, a coffee producer / exporter, and a specialty green importing company, who all hold the same vision for transparency and quality as we do here at Mission Coffee Co.
A few of the producers who deliver coffee to the Reko Washing Station. Photo Credit: Trabocca
Our Ethiopia Reko gets its name from the washing station in Kochere where it was processed. The Kochere region is one of the woredas, or districts, in the Southern Nations, Nationalities, and Peoples’ Region of Ethiopia. The washing station is itself named after a nearby mountain, Reko, which is notoriously hard to climb; the word translates roughly to “challenge.” The name holds symbolic value and represents the challenges that both Faysel A. Yonis, founder of Testi Coffee, and Masreshu Sima, founder of the washing station, face providing high quality, traceable coffees. This particular coffee is a great example of how impactful relationships cultivate transparency and respect towards farmers and shines a spotlight on the wonderful cherries they produce.
Pictured above are coffee cherries being laid on raised beds for drying, probably towards the beginning stages of this process due to their still vibrant color. Photo Credit: Trabocca
The Reko washing station makes a conscious effort to support and sustain surrounding coffee communities. During harvest time (which normally takes place from mid-October into late-January) farmers are able to bring their red cherries to the washing station. Cherries are pulped with an old-school Agard pulping-machine, and are sent to fermentation tanks, where they sit for roughly 36-48 hours (enough time so the remaining fruit, also called mucilage, is loose). The mucilage is then washed off the coffee with water from a nearby river. The freshly washed cherries are then moved to raised drying beds, where it rests for 10-12 days. These structures keep the cherries off the ground and allow for air to circulate more easily. This results in cherries that are more evenly dry, facilitating more consistent coffee.
Fully washed coffee (or coffee that had it's cherry removed) dries on raised beds. Photo Credit: Trabocca
It is at this point where Testi Coffee comes into play; sorting and screening of the recently dried parchment beans. This family owned company aims to provide farmers, their families, and their communities more crop opportunities, and also facilitates social program initiatives to additionally aid the coffee grower community. More information on Testi’S Project Direct is available by following this link . Testi Coffee then holds a relationship with Trabocca, a specialty coffee sourcing company that emphasizes traceability in their green buying. The relationship between Tetsi Coffee as a producer and exporter and Trabocca coffee as a sourcer creates an impactful opportunity to facilitate buying transparency to the Reko washing station and the farmers that utilize it.
A washing channel, used post fermentation during the washing process. This ingenious process utilizes density in connection with water flow to sort various seeds throughout the differing channels. Denser beans sink in the first channel, and the remainders move on, sinking when their density beckons so. Photo Credit: Trabocca
Our Ethiopian Reko is mix of Kurume, a well-known Ethiopian variety and mixed heirloom varieties. Kurume, unique to the Kochere region, has a bright acidity due to the high altitude of the region. The mixed heirloom varieties represent the somewhere between six and ten thousand coffee varieties that exist in Ethiopia. Such an extensive number of coffee varieties under the heirloom name is due to multiple factors, including the country’s extensive history with the plant, regional name differences amongst differing woredas, natural and forced cross-pollination, and the lack of transparency in sourcing Ethiopian coffee.
The roasted bean will hold juicy tasting notes of apricot and tangerine, with some reminiscence of pomegranate. Jasmine and black tea-like flavors will also come forward to create a zingy, complex, exciting cup. Having been previously featured as an component in our seasonal Polar Blend, we are eager and excited to present this coffee in single origin form.
Regalo de Dios - Changing Perception about Nicaraguan Coffees
I’ve spoken to a handful of coffee folks recently who have a set expectation of what coffees from Nicaragua taste like. This “Nicaragua” profile is predictable and lacks uniqueness from farm to farm, or even region to region. It’s not bad. It’s not great. It just kinda is.
There is a morsel of truth in that over-generalization. While I would argue that saying all of a country’s coffee “taste the same” is a flawed statement (it’d be analogous to saying that all French wines taste the same…), there is a reason why many people have built and substantiated this perception of Nicaragua coffees.
When I first visited Nicaragua back in 2014, I had an eye-opening experience that changed my perception of the coffee growing world. Before that point, I had spent most of my time traveling and seeing farms who were focused on (and had investment capital to) producing only the highest quality specialty coffees. These were places that invested in expensive processing mills, bought complex and fussy coffee varieties, and paid added labor to teach pickers how to grab only the ripest red cherries. In Nicaragua, I first got to see coffee not as a specialty product, but as a crop that people grew as cash crop. More specifically, I finally met people who were just trying to make ends meet through growing coffee. And, getting money (and food on the table) was a firmer imperative than focusing on quality or boutique processing.
A small farm I visited in Jinotega back in 2014. They did their best to dry coffee, but had to leave it exposed to the elements.
This is the truth for most coffee farmers. We like to glamorize the exotic, foreign coffee producer as this romantic image of a guy (or rarer, gal) making it big in the coffee world. Yet, this continues to be the exception, not the rule. And in a country like Nicaragua that has a lack of strong infrastructure, and having recently being shook by socio-political turmoil, there have been opportunities for large corporations to take advantage of the situation. This isn’t necessarily a bad thing, but the idea for these corporations are not to produce the best cup of coffee available: it’s to provide a means towards collecting as much coffee as they can, and making it as easy for local farmers to bring their coffee to the drying mill…even if it is at a cost minimum.