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Quality Control in Oaxaca
Cooperative Coffees roasters and producer organizations from across Mexico gather together from Sept 4 - 11, 2009 under the umbrella of the Catholic Relief CAFE Livelihoods project in Oaxaca to discuss and experience first hand the challenges around producing consistently high quality coffee.
This was an excellent opportunity producer representatives and roaster participants to “follow the bean” from the fields to the processing plants and finally to both sample and production roasts – replete with a myriad of production systems, commercial outlets, cooperative models and quality profiles.
We discussed the successes and challenges during five days of exchange amongst representatives from farmer coops MICHIZA in Oaxaca, Maya Vinic in Chiapas and COCIHP from the Huesteca in San Luis Potosi, as well as with Cafe Justo - an innovative model for marketing “exportable” roasted coffee from farmer groups in Chiapas direct to their solidarity network in the USA.
As an overview and introduction to what coffee and all it has to go through -- from the dry parchment state to peeled and selected “cafe oro” -- to assure appropriate quality for export, we visited the dry processing plants Soledad Etla run by CEPCO and Galguera Gomez a private plant for a step by step tour. There they walked us through their plants, explained their systems and each machine in their line-up... all that is necessary to sort and select by size, weight and color.
Meanwhile, back at the MICHIZA offices, our roaster team comprised of: Joseph Lozano of Third Coast Coffee Roasting, Austin, TX; Keith Tomlinson of Peace Coffee, Minneapolis, MN; Brad Brandhorst of Larry’s Beans, Raleigh, NC and Monika Firl of CoopCoffees / CoopSol each presented their respective topics, including: concepts of quality – who defines them and why does it matter; roasting curves – what are we looking for and how do we get there; the final quality profile and how certain green defects can turn a great coffee sour.
For example here - Keith reveals Peace Coffee technical secrets to assure a smooth and consistent roast every time!
We explained and demonstrated "hands-on" the acceptable range of sample roasting results (time – heat – level of browning) that is appropriate for cupping. In contrast to production roast techniques, the concept of “sample roasting” is to light roast the coffee to allow the bean develops its flavors, but without allowing defects to hide behind the roast. Stepping up to the cupping table, we are really looking to see the beans' inherent potential for quality.
Of course- amidst the discussion - there was plenty of time for sniffing, swirling and slurping from a wide range of samples... always an eye-opening experience and provides the raw data for lots of exchange of between roaster and producer alike!
By the end of our week together, the concept of quality had taken on an entirely new meaning....
MICHIZA community representative Eugelio Rojas summarized it like this: "As a coffee farmer I know something about the way we should take care of the plants in the field and the best practices for processing the coffee cherries to parchment. But we have never taken our knowledge all the way to the final product on a cupping table. This kind of exchange has opened our eyes to the quality challenges we still face... and more importantly, how working together we would be able to overcome them."
A huge thanks goes out to MICHIZA for all their work organizing and hosting this event... and to CRS for their continued support of small farmers and Fair Trade!
