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the blog of Stephen Leighton

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My opinions thoughts and general darkness from my mind

A Cup of Blackcurrant Juice

So if you didn’t know I spent the last 6 days in Kenya, returning to the UK late Sunday night. The great thing about these trips is that you get very exposed to a country’s coffees along with the opportunity to meet lots of coffee people, amazing people that ask deep questions and provide thoughtful but probing answers to the questions you raise.

I think the thing that I like best about traveling is I always come away learning so much, I have a post in me explaining the way that Kenya sells its coffee, something I’ve been keen to understand for a while, but thats for another day.

The trip was equally split between cupping new coffees (I think I may have found some very special lots for us in the coming year) alongside visiting washing stations and growers.

At the cupping table I was exposed to nearly 200 cups during the short time I was there and I was struck by a number of things, the biggest was the cup profile.

The “Kenya cup profile”

I used to expect a certain profile from Kenya. This would be predominantly blackcurrant, with HUGE acidity, citrus fruits, or a red wine like acidity, full of red fruits and deliciousness. Kenyas have long been one of the highlights for any roaster when the season rolls around.

But the last couple of years, farms and washing stations I knew who used to do a great job have not done so on the cupping table. In fact, I have struggled to find repeat coffees from Kenya for a long time. There are lots of reasons for this, some I’ll explain in more depth below, some down to huge coop’s who deliver coffee at different times from many hundreds sometimes thousands of growers that will all effect the cup profile from year to year. But there are some more issues I’d like to explore in depth

Yield vs Cup Quality

Everyone I spoke to in Kenya is concerned with Yield, how much coffee you can achieve from one coffee plant. This was the top topic for growers, cooperatives and private estates, wet and dry mills owners, agronomists and agronomy companies and exporters. All the way along the origin chain this was top and indeed hot topic.

Visiting a agro company SMS (Sustainable Management Services) they were very proud to tell us how they had taken small holders from 1kg yield per tree to 2.5kg per tree and are aiming for more like 5kg per tree. Impressive, but there are a number of ways of doing this that will impact directly on the cup profile we see from this and other origins. For me this antidotally impacts on the cup quality, when you’re working a coffee tree to its maximum. Now don’t shoot me down here, I’m happy to admit it’s an area I know way too little about and is all conjecture, but even if we discount this, it works the soil much harder, the plant much harder. If we put that into a human idea of working harder with less rest and less food, we tend not to do our best work. We see this across much of agriculture and I have seen nothing that convinces me coffee is the exception.

Estates are disappearing, the COOP is the future

Estates are disappearing. Many of the large estates that once surrounded Nairobi are disappearing and becoming part of the urban sprawl. There is much more profit in building plots than growing coffee, with the average one bedroom apartment costing around £2000 per month in the capital city, you can see why things are going this way. Estates had long been the main source of coffee from Kenya, this is a good and bad thing. Estates generally yield much more coffee per tree (as I said above, I’m not convinced this is a good thing) but they are also much more organised in the lots they put together, and in general the coffee cup profile they produce. This is a sad loss for the Kenyan coffee market and makes it even more important that Coop’s pick up the quality baton, and those estates that do remain need to be rewarded for their work.

Reward for your toils

I think this is something we can all agree on, that it’s important to be rewarded for your toils. We all like to make money and Kenyan coffee farmers, although not rich, benefit from one of the most organised and efficient systems I have seen in a growing country. If what I was told was to be believed (and I have no reason to think otherwise) most growers will receive between $3.00 – $4.00 per lb. Now thats pretty impressive, and the differentials for providing quality are fairly small. So there is a lack of incentive to do anything but increase yield and not worry about cup profile, if I were a farmer I know what would be top of my list. The specialty buyer is in a niche market (i.e. me and my kind) and we are fairly demanding, or to put it more politely, a pain in the backside. I know this I am fully aware of it, and in Central South America, the growers we work with forgive my craziness as we’re able to reward producers with prices above the market price. This makes Pain in the backside Leighton’s visits a bit more bearable, but where the rewards are high and you don’t have to put up with my silly questions and stupid ideas, where is the incentive to do anything but increase yield?

Varietal advice

In Kenya as I said I spoke to SMS who give advice to small farmers and were telling them to change their plant stock where they can. Coop’s were doing the same to their members and in fact were actively growing seedlings for them to renew their stock. The general advice seemed to be “rip out the very tasty and much in demand SL 28 and SL 34 varietals and plant Batian and Ruiru 11”.

And why? Well like above, yield is much improved by these and they seem to be better suited to climate change (see below). But whats the effect on the “Kenya cup profile”? Well, from the cuppings I did whilst in Kenya and over the past 18 months I think we’ll see a shift in what we are tasting from Kenyas and I’m not wholly convinced it’s for the better.

Climate Change

It seems no one can blog post about coffee anymore without looking at climate change. Central America is going through a rough time with coffee leaf rust (roya), a fungus that attacks the leaves of the coffee plant and brocca which is a a small beetle from Africa, though its now found worldwide and destroys crops by using the fruit to lay its eggs. Both of these have been rising and much attributed to climate change. In Colombia the effects of increasing temperatures (it’s risen by 1 degree C in 20 years) and the increased rain fall at unpredicted times (effecting the development of the coffee flower) is having an effect. Africa is not immune to these changes and ever farmer I have spoken to in the last 3 years mentions how the harvest time is now unpredictable when you used to be able to set your watch by it. Now climate is playing a bigger and bigger factor in the Yield, the quality of the cup and how the coffee tastes. Things are moving and things are changing and this involves what we should expect from different farms and countries.

So in conclusion…

Is this the end for Kenyan coffee? Will we see everything in the specialty market change? I don’t think so. Tasty coffees were still there on the cupping table and through the doom and gloom there were some real highlights. But I think we will start to see a change in expectations from Kenyan coffee (and others if we look at the market globally), paying more for quality is a good start but we also need to begin searching harder and building better relationships with the people who produce outstanding coffees. The market for quality coffee is growing and the incentive to supply it is diminishing, this can only mean one thing…when demand outstrips supply then prices have to rise. I don’t think that’s a bad thing.

Imparting taste and decaf process

So this week we launched a new coffee. Nothing new there, but this was a little different.

On my recent trip to Colombia I cupped a heap of coffees. There was one on one of the tables that confused me. Colombia is famous for not doing any natural process. There was one coffee on the table that wasn’t natural, I knew this, but had some of the hall marks I have come to expect from naturals. But it was delicious. Like really delicious.

 

On the reveal I was told something that rocked my coffee world. The evening after I cupped it I couldn’t sleep, every-time my head hit the pillow, it bounced back up again with questions questions. So what was this coffee ? A decaf. It wasn’t the decaf that was keeping me awake, it was something far more important, something far more difficult to comprehend.

 

But not only a decaf, its caffeinated brother was on the same table as this, and I scored this lower in my cupping scores. The decaf process always imparts some kind of taste but its normally bad, it makes the coffee less tasty ,less interesting. This had made it more, made it more interesting more depth more flavour. Something had happened to make coffee better that was man made.

 

The decaf process is a new one. Most decaffeination happens at either Germany (CO2 method) or Canada (swiss water) or Mexico (Mexican water). I liked the mexican water as it adds some value at a producing country means more money can go back to where coffee is grown. It also means theres normally less food-miles on it. A slightly strange thing to worry about when coffee already travels half way around the world, but something that I think about.

 

This decaf process for this coffee, happens 40km from the central place our container gets loaded with our colombian shipment. It means we get the coffee quicker, with less miles and adds value in Colombia. It also uses an interesting product to do the decaffing.

 

To extract caffeine from coffee you need a solvent, something it will stick to to remove from the coffee. Ethyl Acetate is such an adhesive, and something thats naturally found in in lots of food stuff.Colombia is well known for growing coffee, but also sugar cane. The grow lots and lots of it. So they use Ethyl Acetate (EA) from the sugar cane, and dissolve it into water for the caffeine extraction.

 

Another claim they make is that EA decaffeination removes irritant substances that benefits people with sensitive stomachs.

 

I’ve poped some of the promotion images they sent me to show the process below for those interested.

 

So the one I was sampling was already spoken for, but from the caffeinated version we cupped we looked for something similar, and took the plunge getting our own decaffeination done for the first time from a complete lot. It also meant we could keep some caffeinated for you to try the same experiment. The first time I tasted it decaffed was last week when the container arrived. Thank god it was tasty and what I expected.

 

As far as I know we are the first people in Europe to bring this in, I am sure we wont be the last. But this isn’t the big question. The big question is the imparting of taste, what else could be done to make a coffee something else.

 

I am not saying we should, in fact this is the reason for the sleepless nights its a terrible horrible thought. But its a thought I can not get the questions out of my head.

 

The other question, is how can a decaf be so so tasty.It really did surprise me. Great a blog post full of questions more than answers, just what the world needs.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Clarification

So the past post made a bit of a splash (more so than I ever expected) thank you so much for the kind words and support. But I think it’s important to add some clarification

Has Bean will continue to buy the way it always has done; there are no changes or ramifications from the way we have always sourced, apart from that we won’t try and make our own in-house certification. Also, it’s important to remember that relationships are difficult, complicated, and impossible to capture in one book, let alone two words.

It’s time to let actions, and more importantly the coffee talk, instead of the words.

Direct Trade Sucks

So the last blog post here was about my sourcing visit to Bolivia. I planned to continue the blog post whilst doing the same task in Colombia, but a last minute change of plan from one of my hosts threw it all in the air.

The farmer had decided, after months of our joint planning, that he would now be out of the country.

After arranging expensive flights and hotels, having confirmed it was all okay, I was left stuck in Colombia for 3 days with nothing to do. As it turns out another exporter was kind enough to spend some of that time letting me cup with them, and I think we found some stonking coffees that we bought once we got back and will be showcasing later this year. But I was left with lots of time to mull over concerns that have been on my mind for a while.

Before I go to this, I’ll rewind to earlier this year.

Earlier this year we launched our direct trade idea, a model used by other roasters whom I respect, as a way of showing they look after their farmers / producers / co-ops. I agree that farmers / producers / co-ops should be looked after and it’s important to make sure they get paid well, very well. But ever since I launched this I began to feel it was a bad idea for Has Bean (stay with me).

Direct trade is a way the needs of the farmers / producers / co-op can be met, be that monetary, be that pride in improving quality, education, whatever. But it’s also about the farmers / producers / co-ops having an equal voice to that of the roaster, and protection too – but what happens if problems swing the other way?

At the time of our launching the ‘Fairer Than That’ idea, I was in negotiations with a producer in El Salvador about a very important coffee for us. One we bought initially from the number one Cup of Excellence, one that we’d bought every bean of from the farm for four years, and a farm I had visited 3 times and loved. The farmer, due to his hard work, was being approached by many coffee roasters about buying his coffee, but the farm is small (the way we were able to buy everything from the farm for four years shows how small it was). There was not enough coffee to share.

Regardless of how much money we offered (we never even got to the money negotiation), and because the producer’s voice got ever louder, we didn’t get our coffee.

This isn’t about sympathy; there are lots of other great coffees out there, but we invested a lot of time money and travel in building up this farm, and the voices became unbalanced away from us and we could no longer negotiate.

There is good news from this; Santa Petronas, San Raphael Pacas, Loma La Gloria, and Monseratt wouldn’t have made it here this year if this hadn’t happened. I am very pleased with these coffees, and there are many other great coffees to be found.

So from launch I had this concern that the Fairer Than That / direct trade model wasn’t perfect, but I persevered as we had launched and made a big noise about it. I looked enviously at others using this kind of model and thought “I could do that.”

But that’s part of the problem. As a coffee industry we are all saying the same things; we are sending this confusing message, which means something different to everyone. And when we try and tell the world what we mean by it, I think most people don’t get it. We make it more confusing.

I buy amazing meat from my local butcher. I don’t ask him if the farmers got paid. I taste the quality, I listen to what the butcher has to say, and I trust him; this makes sense, right?

So fast forward to my ill fated Colombia trip. Another relationship was falling down, because the producer had a different set of priorities to making our long standing commitment to meet up. I am not just belly aching here; much time, effort, and energy was invested into my second trip for a second year, blown up only when I kept pestering to confirm the trip one week before leaving.

It’s not a relationship when it’s one way. I like the idea of equal-stakes-equal-voice, but in this case it was not equal. If I broke that equilibrium, quite rightly I would be a bad man, but it doesn’t seem to be the same both ways.

I likened it to being trapped in a loveless marriage; one was trying really hard, but the other didn’t feel the same way. It’s a problem when your partner loves you for the wrong reasons, or doesn’t trust your motivations. I guess it’s my job to fix or change that.

The extra time in Bogota on my own – in the evening eating alone, not knowing anyone in the city – gave me lots of time to think, and to run (a great city to run around). Most of my thinking time (and on the flight, and even more since I got back) was about direct trade and Fairer Than That. And you know what, I’m not happy with it at all.

I don’t think it helps the message: I think it clouds it. And it’s important to be happy, or otherwise to change something to make yourself happy. A ginger man once said: life’s too short.

When you make a mistake you can either keep going ahead or stop and about turn, and that’s what I am going to do.

We are not going to label up our buying practices in the “direct trade” model we discussed in Fairer Than That. Not because paying a good price isn’t a good thing; it is a very important thing, but it’s also a complicated thing. I can talk about the $10 a lb Colombian we bought last year when the market was at $1.80 if you like, and I’d sound great, but from all the deals we did last year, none were lower than $3 and most around $4 and above, which is a great price. But what does it tell you?

$3 in Colombia won’t buy you just anything in Nicaragua or El Salvador – it will buy you a great (and I mean great) coffee. It’s all figures and numbers that make no sense. Coffee buying and relationships are complicated, and I want to try and make it easier for everyone.

We’re also not going to cheapen the great coffees we have acquired through importing partners by not giving them a sticker, or make noise about economics when we should be talking about taste. We paid over $7 a lb to a producer for a coffee from an importer last year. This was a huge price, for a huge coffee, but we couldn’t put it under the banner of direct trade because we used an importer. When you have constraints like that, it’s crazy.

Instead we are going to buy the way we always have; some direct, some not, dependent on the partnership and the logistics, but we will always remain transparent and faithful to the following:

1. I promise to pay a good price for the coffee I buy. This is built on trust between grower, roaster, and end customer – trust, and long term results;

2. The price we pay will ALWAYS be above the market price and any Fairtrade floor prices;

3. I promise to visit the producers we buy from directly as often as I am able to, and ask them face to face if they are happy that they sell to us, and with how we roast their coffee and promote their farm name;

4. I will work with our partner producers feeding back things I learn about the coffee market and what I think the market needs, where we can add value to the chain. Collaboration is important;

5. If we use middle men (exporters / importers / brokers) we will make sure they are good people and that the producing end still get rewarded for their work. these people will become facilitators, not leaks where money doesn’t make it back to the ground floor. If we cannot be assured / shown this, we will not work with them;

6. I will promise to work with good people, in general good people produce good coffee;

7. You’re just going to have to trust me.

You’re going to have to trust me even though it doesn’t have the name direct trade / Fairtrade / grown by nuns / kissed by monkeys, or any other certification. I don’t want to make the same noise or the same mistakes as others using direct trade. Relationships with many producers is too complicated to give it a title or a badge or a sticker. After all, it’s not about words, it’s about actions. Feel free to judge me on them.

Direct Trade and what it means to Has Bean

So I keep throwing this term around direct trade, and not really quantifying what it means to us.

In fact as an industry we say this term a lot, when it means many different things to many different people. So as an initiative for this year we will be making it a little clearer, with a video and at the end of the year compiling a report with the prices of these coffees we call “Direct Trade” (a stollen idea from the wonderful people at Counter Culture in the USA). It wont be comprehensive as in every coffee we stock (last year this ran into hundreds) but where we are able to we will give as much information as we can.

All the bags under this banner will have a little sticker on like below

To launch this we have released a video explaining the whole process and a website, www.fairerthanthat.com and we will continue to develop the idea over the year. If you have any thoughts about the kind of thing you would like to see in this type of report then let us know.

The last 12 months

Some of you may not remember (OK most of you) but last year I did a blog post here prediciting the last twelve months for Has Bean (or really setting an agenda for what I wanted to do) so time to see if I did what I planned

http://www.hasblog.co.uk/the-next-twelve-months

In My Mug

So I said

I see in my mug as a really important part of what we do. I plan over the next twelve months to do much more out the roastery shoots, and continue to find the amazing coffees we have in the past. I also hope with the help of Aiden to develop the app, and get more people able to use it (as desk top and an android and windows 7 version all planned)

The desk top app went live, and in my mug has been in Colombia, Ireland, Cardiff, York, Ethiopia, Norwich, Bristol, Google Offices Dublin, Nantwich all off the top of my head.

I think the way its moved and kept changing has been good and I think the same will happen in the new year, lots more ideas to implement.

So this one changed a little but I think that In My Mug has gone from strength to strength. I think a PASS

Blog posting

So I said

I want to try and be more focused on my blog postings. I’d appreciate if you can let me know what kind of thing you would like me to focus on. My varietal posts are something I want to personally do some more with and collate in some way, but thats a personal indulgence. Do let me know but the blog will be more used.

So I’d say this one has not been so successful. The highlights have been the audioboo’s, I have enjoyed them, and ethiopia seemed to go down very well.

Direct Trade

So I said

the very end of 2010 saw us bring in our first ever container from Brazil. At the time of writing our second has landed and were awaiting the first delivery from Bolivia. This is going to be an ongoing theme of 2011 for me doing direct trade, but also finding out much more about the farms.

More on this the beginning of January 2012 but we did direct trades in Nicaragua, El Salvador, Costa Rica, Bolivia with a deal done for Colombia and Bolivia that will arrive very early this year. Direct trade has become a foundation stone we have begun building on, and something were going to formalise a little more in 2012, but I think this has been a resounding pass and will continue to get better

Has Bean App

So I said

We have already started this one with Nigel but an ipad version is planned of the app and we will continue to develop this. Let us know what you want need and we will make sure we keep making it better

Ipad version (TICK) increased app sales (TICK) more downloads than ever(TICK) pass. If you want more from the app let me know were keen to keep improving

Blends

I said

The blends will continue to develop and change (even if the names don’t) I have some ideas for a killer filter blend for 2011 and I also want to keep looking at how we can do better with some guest type blends.

I think I am very very happy with our espresso blends, we have a range that covers many bases for many people. I think Blake has been the biggest success, whilst Jailbreak was a 2010 thing, I still think it rocks. I have some more plans for this in 2012 but thats to come another time.

Trips

I said

I have a trip planned in February to central america where I will be looking to cement some already built relationships and look to find some more exciting coffees for 2011-12 I’m also have some plans afoot to get to Africa this year if I can. Africa is somewhere I think I can do better, and will continue to try to do so.

Trips have been more than ever this year. Started with El Salvador then Costa Rica, then Colombia and most importantly Ethiopia. I said I wanted to do Afrcia better, and this was the first step.

Africa and Asia

I said

As I said in the trips section we need to do better here, and I want to make sure we do exactly that. Africa we have three coffees at the time of writing and asia we have six. I want this to be more, so the cupping table will be overflowing.

We had more Africans this year than ever. Ethiopia we got much better at, Rwandas we had two brilliant coffee,s Kenya we had four (thats right count them four) amazing coffees. Did we do Africa better ? Yes, can we continue to improve 100%. Asia needs some more work, and I vow this year, that will happen. Kind of pass.

Barista Competition

I said

I announced in April last year I wasn’t going to do any more competition blends for barista competition. I think looking back at the past year, I’d have a big hole if I did this, so I expect to continue to work with great baristas, and continue to learn from them, as and where we can.

PASS lets move on

Brew Guides

Is Said

I have loved the brew guides so far, the last one of 2010 eva solo was one that not so many people use, but the first of 2011 will be a very popular brew method, and the plan is to build up a large library of these, tackling some of the difficult ones, like espresso, milk steaming etc that will take lots of work to get right.

There are some other ideas I have for 2011 but things need to be lined up before then and thought through but I see it as a very exciting year ahead.

Brew guides have rocked. We did the cupping and the french press ones. We have more for 2012, but two is not bad I reckon. I have three booked in for this year, with a whole heap more ideas too. Not quite a pass.

A mixed year in my goals, but I’m happy with them.

But in other way’s my stuff I wasn’t expecting it was amazing. I shall look back at 2011 with a great deal of fondness, a new roastery, a great year for stunning coffees, some great additions to the Has Bean team, and some AMAZING wholesale customers who are doing great things with our lovely coffee.

If 2012 is half as good its going to be a special year.