We are home now, & so eager to host our first tastings, & to share more of our journey with you all! We will never look at coffee or a coffee tasting quite the same again! A wealth of new, & deeper knowledge and a closeness to the people within our Farmer Support Center, as well as Costa Rica, has changed that for all of us, for the better. Here are just a few of my favorites from the last 3 days! Enjoy!

Seedling plants at the nursery, Pam taking a soil sample during her learning's with Earthwatch, a photo with one of our farmers - Ernesto & wife Carmen at Coope Dota, a farmer bringing in his coffee cherries for weighing, & processing, beans that have been washed, but have parchment still on & will go to drying stage next, our leader Cindy, raking beans to help them dry, parchment, Orlando & Carlos Mario from our Farmer Support Center, planting a coffee tree, volcanic soil, our Cafe Practices sign hangs in the mill at Las Marias, green coffee ready for tasting, shipping.

Day 2 Photo Highlights!

Team Canada group shot

Costa Rica quick check in

It is the end of day 2 and the 12 of us have got our hands dirty picking and absorbing coffee cherries, and our minds filled with learnings on C.A.F.E. practices, Fairtrade, and Earthwatch.
The coffee farmers have a competency for growing coffee like we have for growing people. Yesterday we spent time at well known coffee farm Bella Vista F.W. , today at Coopetarrazu, and Cooperative de Dota which is also Rain Forest Certified. More tomorrow....the 12 Canadians!

Day Two...Origins Experience Costa Rica

....of course, Day Two started with a coffee tasting, a tasting that paid "Tribute" to our Partners and customers celebrating 40 years of Starbucks. Yes we had our first taste of the new Starbucks Tribute Blend! That was followed by a detailed presentation from the Earthwatch Institute learning how Earthwatch & Starbucks partner with farmers in Costa Rica to develop tools and practices that facilitate sustainable coffee cultivation. The bus ride day one was a vacation compared to today! Learning #2, it takes a long 3.5 hour bus ride into the mountains and up 6000 feet in elevation to find the best coffee in the world and it's worth it! A small price to pay to get to the Tarrazu region and and spend the morning on a 3 hectare family farm. We dialed up our coffee education completing coffee tree analysis, taking soil samples, studying the ground, shade trees etc... Lunch was hosted by CoopeTarrazu, one of the regions coffee cooperatives. After lunch we visited the Coope Dota coffee mill (Video attached) learning even more about the washed processing method. The bus ride back included a detailed discussion of C.A.F.E. practices and Fair Trade with the best coffee argronomists in the world from our Farmer Support Center and SCTC. Tomorrow.... Coffee Tree planting and even more Coffee Agronomy education at Finca Las Marias!

More from day 1...

Day 1 was a jammed packed day. We started the day with group introductions and Dub sharing information about CAFE practices, Starbucks Coffee Trading Company, Green Coffee Quality and so much more. We then traveled to a nursery where we saw seedlings that were just 6 months old and ready for planting in the next two months. We then moved on to the infamous Bella Vista Estate where we could not wait to get off the bus to pick some coffee cherries. We also learned about caring for coffee trees. Then we hiked over steep hills at high elevation to witness the farmers bringing in their pick for the day. We wrapped up the day at the mill where we saw the freshly picked coffee being processed.

Our ride home on the bus was very quiet while we reflected on the days events. Time to rest up for another adventure tomorrow. Stay tuned for more details.
Heather, Sheilagh, Jennifer, Jane

Day One - Parallels

Parallels - First 10 feet, Last 10 feet, operators in the store, operators on a farm.
Partners in Canada, Partners in United States and Costa Rica. Passion, expertise, quality and care go into everything we do because we have pride in who we are, who we work for and what we do, every day

Carlos - Coffee Agronymist Extraordinaire!!!

Day One in Costa Rica - Jan 11, 2011

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Hello Team Canada from Costa Rica! Well day One is almost over and my cup is full! What an amazing Origins Experience it has been so far! We started with 2 hours of orientation from Dub Hay, partners from the Farmer Support Center and Starbucks Coffee Buying group. A ton of coffee knowledge from the best coffee people in the world! Talked a lot about CAFÉ practices, Fair Trade, etc…. We visited the La Ceiba nursery first, appropriately, since this is where all coffee really begins life. From there we travelled to Bella Vista Tres Rios coffee estate, as you know Starbucks purchases lots of coffee from there. We had our first 3 agronomy classes in the field with the very knowledgeable partners from the Farmer Support Center, Carlos and Orlando. This included picking coffee! (yes I ate a few coffee cherries! Very sweet & tasty, also dropped way too many cherries on the ground, will deal with that at confessional!) I could not stop taking pictures of coffee trees overflowing with ripe cherries! We finished our day at Bella Vista surrounded by all of the coffee pickers and their families bringing in the coffee they picked that day, filling the trucks and getting paid. It was an amazing and humbling human coffee connection. I have 100’s of pictures and stories just from today to share with anyone who will listen when I return!

Coffee Tree Life Cycle

Here are some pictures showing the different life cycles of a coffee tree. Coffee trees are fruit trees, and a relative of the gardenia. Coffee seeds are usually germinated and planted in a greenhouse at a nursery where the delicate plants are taken care of for the first 8 months of their lives. The third picture shows rows and rows of young coffee tree seedlings at the Santa Eduivegas nursery (part of the Doka Estate). The second picture is of Orlando Alfaro, one of our aronomists in Costa Rica, taking the group through the life cycle of a coffee tree. Once the seedlings are about 8 months old, and a bit stronger, they are taken to the coffee farm where they will be planted (see picture number 1), and spend the remainder of the life cycle. After planting, it will take approximately 3 years before the coffee tree will flower for the first time, and the tree will produce its first coffee harvest after 4-5 years of hard work on the farmers part, investing care and time into the plant to guide it towards its first crop. When the coffee tree flowers, the flowers fall away and the green cherries appear, and then it takes an additional 9 months for the green cherries to turn deep red, the sign that the coffee cherries are ready to be picked. Most coffee trees will be at their peak of production during years seven through fifteen, and at this time are generally pruned back to assist the tree and help stimulate new growth. After about 20 - 25 years, most of the coffee trees are "exhausted", and no longer produce sufficient crops, and at this time, coffee farmers will replace about 5% of their farm with seedlings and repeat the whole process again.

Next week, our featured bold coffee will be Cafe Estima - our blend of Fair Trade Certified Latin American and African Beans. Taste this coffee from a french press today, and think about the long process and the hard work of hundreds of people who brought this coffee to you.

Enjoy, Cindy GH

Sorting through cherries at the end of the day

Just had a french press of (RED) with a partner, and it inspired me to create another post!
This shot was taken just outside Bella Vista and shows the coffee pickers sorting through their cherries at the end of the day. Although the utmost care is taken in only harvesting perfectly ripe red cherries, some underripe beans and leaves do find their way into the basket. Pickers can leave up to 2% green cherries in their harvest, but anything above that means their basket will be turned away. Many keep the green cherries and try to ripen them further in the sun on a patio, and then process, roast and consume it locally.

The average picker can pick from 100 - 150 lbs of cherry per day, and will be paid about $1.30 per cajuela (a cajuela is the volumetric measurement of cherries, and is about 13kgs or 28.6 lbs). The pickers work on both small farms and large estates, with 95% of farms being between 1-5 hectares (1 hectare = 2.47 acres). The other 5% of farms are large estates that account for 40% of production in Costa Rica.

Tune back in next week for the life cycle of a coffee tree!

Picking the Worlds Best Coffee

Here is a shot of some coffee pickers hand picking ripe red cherries at the peak of their flavour. One of these coffee trees will only produce 1 - 1 1/2 pounds of coffee beans THIS YEAR. Each flavourlock bag of coffee in your store represents the yearly production of ONE TREE....

As we reassert ourselves as the COFFEE AUTHORITY with our Spring Promotion, I thought that I would share some quick coffee facts:

25 million people work in the coffee industry.
Over 60 countries world wide grow coffee.
Coffee is the second most traded commodity after oil.
Brazil is the world's biggest producer of coffee, accounting for 25-30% of world production.
Latin America accounted for 78% of our 2008 global purchases.
Coffee trees take 4-5 years to produce their first harvest.

And it is our responsibility to get it right in the stores. As a partner, I ask you that for the Spring Promotion:
Taste the Coffee of the Week, record your thoughts in your new coffee passport, and sign off on the Coffee Passport Tracking Poster.
Keep your passport in your apron, as part of your dress code, so that all of the information is at your fingertips to help you connect with a customer
Make sure that the brew baskets are so clean you can see your reflection, your urns have fresh faucet cups and your grinder is perfectly calibrated. This will ensure that our customers really taste the worlds best coffee.

Share the passion that our farmers have...love what you do...I do!
Cindy GH

Douglas picking coffee Day 1

This is a video of a coffee picker named Douglas demonstrating his experience and skill!

Not a great picture, but a great story

You just know that we are having a positive impact in origin when the principal and three students open up their school in the middle of summer vacation so that they could greet us, show off the improvements to their school, and thank us directly for being such a great company and contributing to the well being of their school and town. The principal spoke with such passion for her school and her students, and was so grateful for the new lunch room that recent funding provided for the school. She mentioned that when the price of coffee is good, the school does well as they rely soley on the Terrazu Cooperative and the money they make from selling us our coffee for their programming. It was so touching to have her apologize (more than once) that the school was closed, and that she could not show off all of the wonderful things going on at her school. She made sure to invite us back during the school year so she could have us see the quality of education her students are receiving. I think I just may have to take her up on that!

Cindy GH

Ed Barker and Mark Chandler from the Earthwatch Institute sharing their work with us at Ernesto Chacon's farm in Terrazu. Our partnership started in 2007 and has had a significant impact on the sustainability of coffee farming. Earthwatch's purpose is to bring people and science together to motivate people to something to positively impact the world. Terrazu is one of the most highly productive coffee areas of the world, and it is a great testament to our partnership with Earthwatch that this has been achieved while limiting the negative impact on the earth by promoting environmentally friendly methods of coffee farming. We are fortunate to work with such a great organization, and the farmers who have opened up their farms to test how to increase coffee yields using natural and sustainable methods. "Green" coffee took on a whole new meaning with this visit!

Cindy GH

One of my gold medal moments in Costa Rica

A picture of Ernesto Chacon, a small farmer with 3 hectares as part of the coope Terrazu who works with the Earthwatch Institute on his farm. Ernesto and his family were so welcoming the day we visited his farm, and very proud to show us "the best coffee in Costa Rica (his words). What really struck me was how thankful they were to meet us, so that they could show us their gratitude for what we have done for them, the opportunities for their family, and the postive impact that we have had on their community. At one point his wife patted Ernesto and his son on their tummies and exclaimed "look at how well-fed my family is, we have a good life", and it struck me that we are making a world of difference to people in origin. Even if you do not sell a lot of whole bean coffee, know that every latte you perfectly prepare and hand off is helping people on another continent have a better standard of living, and all they ask us to do is "sell more coffee"!

Working Hard on the Farm

Here are some pictures of Ward, Marie and myself working at Doka estates during our last day of our trip!