Tuesday, 31 May 2016
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From the Court Room to a Coffee Farm: an Interview with Thrive Farmers' Ken Lander
From the Court Room to a Coffee Farm: an Interview with Thrive Farmers' Ken Lander by Michael
Meet the man who wants to change the way you buy coffee. Ken Lander is cofounder of Thrive Farmers, a coffee company championing a farmer-direct model in which the farmers retains ownership of their coffee until the final sale. Thrive's unique model allows the producers to share in a larger percentage of the profits. We caught up with the former trial lawyer to ask him about what it takes to create a sustainable coffee supply chain.
What inspired you to start Thrive Farmers?
My inspiration for thinking about making a living as a coffee farmer was out of necessity. In 2008, I lost all of my real estate holdings in the U.S., which was my exit strategy to leave with the family and move to Costa Rica in 2005.
We lived on a coffee farm, grew coffee, and that was the only and most immediate source of income other than returning to the States and being a lawyer again.
Trying to make money as a smallholder coffee farmer was a lost cause in the current system of volatile commodity markets and rising costs of production. The coffee I was growing on my farm (6,000 to 8,000 lbs green) was being roasted and sold for $30,000 on the demand side of the value chain, and my net profit on a good year was $600. I didn't understand the disconnect until I convinced a group of farmers in my community to sell our coffee in a coffee shop, roasted and directly to tourists. That integrated value chain made sense, and from that point forward, I knew that connecting the farmer directly to the consumer was the key to success in coffee.
I met my business partner, Michael Jones, whose father-in-law was a Jamaican Blue Mountain coffee farmer. Michael was also trying to understand the value chain of coffee and why his father-in-law's coffee sold for $80 / lb roasted in Japan, and his father-in-law was getting $4 (gross revenue) of that $80 on a good day.
From these experiences in understanding coffee farming as a farmer came the inspiration to do coffee differently, making the farmer a stakeholder in the value chain where the value was being realized. We created a platform to take the farmer to market and share the revenue in a way that created a predictable, stable and higher income for his or her hard work on the farm.
Tell us about the vision of Thrive Farmers. What sets Thrive apart from other coffee companies?
Thrive Farmers exists for and is passionate about one thing: empowering coffee farmers to thrive!
What sets us apart from other coffee companies is that we take the farmer (not just his or her product) to market as a partner. We know that unless you change the economic reality of coffee farming, more and more farmers and their children will leave the industry. The key is taking them to market as true stakeholders and partners.
Before founding Thrive, you worked as a trial lawyer, then you moved your family to Costa Rica to work on a coffee farm. What was that transition like?
I can tell you that a place does not change you. The transition was very hard. A hyper-type A person who enjoyed having 500 balls in the air at one time was my condition in moving to Costa Rica. Many a panic attack occurred as I realized that other cultures actually live a slower life, do less, and are much happier.
Early on, my training and passion to be an advocate of others made me question the justice in a family working for generations, just to survive on something that I paid $3 per cup for without thinking twice. It wasn't until I reached the place of fully relying on the same amount of money my neighbors were accustomed to that I realized that my life could be about finding a better way, not just for me, but for the worldwide community of coffee farmers who work so hard with such little compensation.
I was humbled by their passion to the craft and trade, and by their commitment to continue the work of the generations before them.
Do you still live in Costa Rica?
I sure do! I am writing to you from the front porch of my house on my coffee farm (Finca Flor Mar) in San Rafael de Abangares, Costa Rica.
What coffee are you drinking right now?
Right now I am drinking a coffee from fellow Thrive Farmer in Helsar de Zarcero in the West Central Valley of Costa Rica. All of our coffee from our farm went to Thrive Farmers this year!
As an industry, we talk a lot about premiums for quality. Do you think this is the best way to improve the livelihood of farmers?
No, I don't necessarily think premiums based on quality are the best way to improve the livelihood of farmers. However, quality has to always be the standard from the beginning of any relationship in coffee. Premiums necessarily indicate, in my vernacular, a premium above the market price. As long as the market price is in play at any level, there will never be stable, long-term and predictable pricing, which is key for a farmer to build an economically sustainable business.
The word premium has the significance of “prize,” and in Spanish, a prize is a “premio.” What coffee needs at scale is two things: First, long-term, stable, higher and predictable pricing that is based on the real value of the coffee in the consumer marketplace, not some volatile C-market. Second, coffee needs identity and partnership for the farmer in the value chain.
It is interesting that when you have these two things, quality coffee results. Why? Because there is an alignment of interests between the farmer and the consumer. Economic sustainability leads to consistent quality, and a long-term relationship brings identity and partnership with the farmer.
It is interesting that when you have these two things, quality coffee results. Why? Because there is an alignment of interests between the farmer and the consumer.
Who are some of the producers you're most inspired by?
Hands down, I am most inspired by the producers who caught the vision of Thrive Farmers from the very beginning, like Franco Garbanzo of La Violeta, Frailes de Tarrazu, Costa Rica, and Vinicio Gonzalez of Concepcion Pinula, Guatemala. They were able to see beyond one crop year, realizing that the only way to see their kids in coffee in the future was to pave a way to do the business of coffee differently. They had faith in the vision before it was a reality, and many days I looked to these first farmers and their faith in us as a source of strength to continue.
I am also inspired by farmers like Estuardo Falla in Antigua, Guatemala and Lydia Matamoros in Naranjo, Costa Rica who are estate farmers, continuing in third, fourth and fifth generations of estate coffee farming. They had faith in the vision of Thrive Farmers from the beginning as well, and their affirmation of our business model proved the need for stable markets is not just one for small farms. Farmers like these have enormous impact on the smallholder farmers around them. They have a heart for their people, and use their resources to help their communities, their workers and their families to reap the benefits of generations of farming coffee.
They and other estate farmers have been incredible supporters of our platform as we have scaled.
All photos courtesy of Thrive Farmers.
From the Court Room to a Coffee Farm: an Interview with Thrive Farmers' Ken Lander was first posted by Michael on The Coffee Compass, The Coffee Compass - Your Guide for Craft Coffee
Monday, 30 May 2016
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Sunday, 29 May 2016
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Saturday, 28 May 2016
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Friday, 27 May 2016
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Josh Littlefield Embarks on the Great American Coffee Tour
Josh Littlefield Embarks on the Great American Coffee Tour by Michael
What inspired you to quite your job and go on a nationwide road trip centered around coffee?
The specialty coffee community has been a welcoming home for me over the last 4 years. From NYC to New England, at competitions and all over the country, so many folks I've met have been just wonderful. This seemed like a perfect time in my life where I could take some time to do this. I've been saving for the last year and the time is finally here! It's my chance to connect with those folks and showcase all the great things they're doing at their home shops! I'd also like to create a platform that is approachable for the general public. I'd love for folks to check out this project who have no idea what specialty coffee is all about and introduce them to this crazy world we work in!
Where were you working before?
Joe, Intelli, Seven Stars, Irving Farm, a moble coffee truck, kinda everywhere! And restaurants. I was also managing back of house production for Spring Street Social Society, a dinner club, cabaret, social club thing in NYC.
Before working in coffee you went to culinary school. How does that affect the way you approach coffee?
Good job Detective Butterworth! Surprisingly, I'd say in noticing the importance of workflow. I'll be pretty honest, the basic techniques of cooking really aren't that difficult (NOT baking, that is actually very difficult!) the real thing that sets cooking in a commercial kitchen apart from a hobbiest is your work flow, your preparation, your ability to make 10 or 100 dishes in a row, having them be identical and not making a massive mess along the way. I'd say that leads into coffee. You need to be a master of preparation, aware of what your equipment can and can't do and have a expert understanding of your ingredients. Have all the refractometers, scales and shiny things you want, at the end of the day it's two ingredients, coffee+water. A deep understanding of the whole process, the ability to make 100 coffee's identical, tasty and keeping it tidy in the process? That's where it's at, yo.
Tell us about your travel plans. How are you getting from point A to point B?
What cities are you going to?
Oof, a whole bunch I'm pretty much hugging the East coast, starting in Portland, ME, all the way down to Florida then working in a up and down pattern until finishing in LA.
Is there still time to book for a guest shift? How does one do that?
Yes! Yes! YES! I've pretty much only planned the route, I'm now in the process of cordinating guest shifts with folks. Please shoot me an email, I'd love to work with you!
How can our readers follow your progress?
What's next after the tour is over?
Josh Littlefield Embarks on the Great American Coffee Tour was first posted by Michael on The Coffee Compass, The Coffee Compass - Your Guide for Craft Coffee
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Sunday, 22 May 2016
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Saturday, 21 May 2016
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Friday, 20 May 2016
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Thursday, 19 May 2016
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Will the Ona Coffee Distributor Make Your Espresso Taste Better?
Will the Ona Coffee Distributor Make Your Espresso Taste Better? by Michael
One of the most basic barista tasks is also the hardest to master. Over the course of a shift, a typical barista will pull hundreds of shots of espresso. In order to pull a decent shot, the barista must evenly distribute the ground coffee in the portafilter and compress the grounds with a nice, level tamp. It sounds simple enough, but after training dozens of baristas I can attest that it's one of the last barista skills I see people master. Although steaming milk, pouring latte art, and making pour-overs might intimidate new hires, it's tamping that keeps a self-aware veteran awake at night. Even a minuscule inconsistency in the distribution of the coffee can result in the dreaded phenomenon of channeling. Simply put, channeling is when the water passing through the bed of espresso finds a path of least resistance. This results in a small portion of coffee coming in contact with too much water while the majority of the coffee remains underextracted. The result is a shot that is simultaneously sour and bitter with a thin mouthfeel. It's an unpleasant sensory experience no one should pay money for.
As a barista educator who received above average tamping scores during my last couple of barista competitions, I have a confession I'm reluctant to make: I still see shots I pull channel. Of course, those shots never make it across the counter, but there's nothing like re-pulling a shot during a rush to throw off your bar flow. That's why I was very interested a couple of years ago when WBC technical judge Şerif Başaran told me about a barista in Australia who invented a distribution device that was so effective Başaran handed out his first perfect score on distributing. I emailed a barista who was unknown to me named Sasa Sestic, but was disappointed to hear he only had a couple of prototypes that weren't for sale. Fast forward a year and a half later and Sestic is the reigning World Barista Champion and his Ona Coffee Distributor (OCD.) is making waves in the global barista community. After getting to use the OCD for the first time at SCAA, I wanted to see if it lived up to the hype. So after getting home I ordered one from the American importer of the OCD, Brew Global.
Initial Impressions
As a working barista, I'm skeptical of any product that hasn't been bar-tested. As such, in a slightly reckless decision I decided to use Quills Coffee's loyal customers as guinea pigs and use the OCD for an entire bar shift. Over the course of a moderately busy closing shift I used it to distribute around 100 shots.
Immediately, I verified that the OCD makes the top of your espresso puck perfectly even. So even, in fact, one coworker didn't realize the coffee still needs to be tamped after distributing! (I tried pulling a shot without tamping- I don't recommend it.) There's is some debate, however, concerning what impact distributing the top of the espresso has when the majority of the grounds are below. But if you're trying to evenly extract a shot of espresso, it's hard to see how starting with a perfect flat surface before tamping is a bad thing.
Over the coarse of the bar shift, I didn't have a single shot channel. In fact, in all of my subsequent use of the OCD I've only had one shot visibly channel on me, and I think that was due to a megadose from the grinder. (It wasn't during a formal testing session where I double-weighed every shot.)
Third, I found it much easier to evenly tamp the grounds after using the OCD. I always check to see how level my tamp is when pulling espresso, and I believe my tamping was more reliable with the OCD than without.
Extraction
Ostensibly, a more even saturation of the espresso grounds should result in both a higher total dissolved solids (TDS) and extraction percentage. As such, I pulled out our trusty refractometer and started taking some readings. I compared three spins of the OCD to my normal distribution technique (3-4 horizontal taps on the side of the portafilter with my hand).
In order to achieve as accurate data as possible, I weighed each dose to the tenth of a gram and alternated shots with and without the OCD in order to minimize the effect of grinder temperature on any one set. I pulled each shot with the same grouphead of a La Marzocco Linea PB in order to get as consistent water delivery as possible. This, however, was an extremely small data set and is nowhere close to conclusive (click here for the spreadsheet). I would love to see other people repeat the experiment (or send me more VST filters!)
Taken as a whole, the set with the OCD averaged much lower extractions than the set without: 20.45 compared to 21.37. This surprised me, as shots brewed with a naked portafilter with the OCD appeared to saturate more evenly than those without. Conversely, the spread with the OCD was smaller in every category. Although extractions with the OCD were lower across the board, shot times, strength, and extractions were more consistent.
So why was the OCD more consistent from shot-to-shot while being less effective at extracting in this data set? My guess is that it was to do with the partial tamping that happens when using the OCD on it's highest setting (which I used for this experiment). In the process of distributing the grounds, the OCD partially compresses the puck. The barista then tamps the puck even further with a tamper. I think the single motion of my more conventional tamping technique allows for more dense compression of the puck. This would explain why the second set averaged almost an entire second longer of shot times. If I can bring myself to drop another $20 on VST filters, I would like to try the experiment again with the OCD on its lowest setting.
Problems
In addition to lower extraction percentages, I did encounter two potential problems, which were also articulated by most of the baristas I asked to give me feedback.
One, the OCD introduces another step to espresso preparation. If the device adds even 3 seconds to espresso preparation in a busy café that could easily amount to an extra half hour customers are waiting for drinks. I found, however, with proper mise en place a barista could introduce the OCD to their espresso routine in the same amount of time it takes to distribute other ways, if not less. Furthermore, I believe the OCD will make up for any potential lag with the time it will save in re-pulling channeled shots.
Two, sometimes a small amount of coffee grounds stick to the bottom of the OCD. This seems to happen without rhyme or reason, though it happens less on the lower settings. The waste was always less than .1 of a gram, but over the coarse of the day it adds up, dirtying the counters in the process. The mess is easily remedied by keeping a brush near the espresso grinder, but the waste is unfortunate. Some users online reported less cling over time, but ours shows no sign of letting up.
Concluding Thoughts
In spite of the aforementioned problems, I strongly recommend the Ona Coffee Distributor. The OCD all buts eliminates channeling and makes tamping easier for new baristas. My experience using it on bar and in the lab point to greater consistency from shot to shot than other distribution techniques. The OCD also makes it easier for different baristas to achieve the same results. As such, I think using the OCD increases the likelihood of serving your customers a tastier cup of coffee. If nothing else, any barista competitor who doesn't use the OCD is throwing away tech points!
Will the Ona Coffee Distributor Make Your Espresso Taste Better? was first posted by Michael on The Coffee Compass, The Coffee Compass - Your Guide for Craft Coffee
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Tuesday, 17 May 2016
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Monday, 16 May 2016
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Sunday, 15 May 2016
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Friday, 13 May 2016
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Thursday, 12 May 2016
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