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Wednesday, August 18, 2010

Training Coffee Farmers in Oaxaca, Mexico

Posted by Katie Gilmer at 5:45 PM
The sunny southern Mexico town of Oaxaca, a tourist hotspot known for its local food movement, rich cultural traditions, and lively arts scene, just received a major influx of BUNN coffee brewing equipment.

Oaxaca is the biggest city in the state of Oaxaca, which is one of Mexico’s main coffee growing regions. Despite the zone’s close relationship with coffee, the cafe culture is relatively undeveloped. So when four big, sturdy cardboard boxes full of the latest brewing technology arrived to Espacio Café, excitement was in the air. Espacio Café is the non-profit coffee education center at Sustainable Harvest Coffee Importer’s office in Oaxaca. The center trains coffee farmers and cooperatives in topics ranging from best practices in agronomy and cupping to roasting and coffee preparation.

The equipment was donated to Espacio Café as part of an effort to teach grower cooperatives how to diversify their income by selling prepared coffee in coffee shops, so they’re not as dependent on green coffee sales. This means that if there’s a bad harvest season, coffee growers have another source of income to fall back on. BUNN sent down a hot water tower, a brewer, a double hopper grinder, and a couple of really handy airpots (extremely hard to get a hold of in Oaxaca!). Luis Martinez (on right), BUNN’s maintenance man in Mexico, installed the equipment, and showed Clemente Santiago Paz (director of Espacio Café, on left) how to use it.

Espacio Café has incorporated the machines in its classes on preparing coffee and cafe management. In the first class where coffee producers experimented with the equipment, Clemente commented, “After getting over their initial surprise at how many advanced settings the machines had, the students started getting down to business, asking about grind size, brewed coffee quantity, and the machines’ cost.” Learning about different brew methods and brewing equipment is an integral part of the coffee shop training, and Clemente is positive it will help coffee farmers think about ways to increase their incomes, ultimately creating a more sustainable supply chain for the coffee we all know and love. Thank you BUNN for the equipment and making an impact at origin.

Saludos,
Katie Gilmer
Sustainable Harvest

3 comments:

  1. Just got back from a 7 day trip to Riviera Maya. I'm fully acclimated back to the states except for one thing... the coffee! The coffee was the best damn thing I've ever drank!! I'm sure it was Mexican. I need some tips some purchasing whole bean Mexican coffee here in The States. Any suggestions?
    ReplyDelete
  2. Hey Troy, it's Nichole with BUNN. I spoke with Katie from Sustainable Harvest and she said:

    "Sounds like he is really excited about Mexican coffee! There are two roasters who buy our Mexican coffee who I'd recommend: One is Counter Culture Coffee's Mexican 21 de Septiembre (http://counterculturecoffee.com/21st?page=shop.product_details&category_id=17&flypage=flypage.tpl&product_id=98) which is at stores like Dean & Deluca; the other is Allegro Coffee's Mexican Zaragoza, which is sold at Whole Foods stores (http://www.allegrocoffee.com/main/do/get_page/pageID/169).

    Also, if he's on the east coast, I would recommend a Green Mountain coffee (I've never seen it in stores in the west coast....) that is pretty tasty as well, called their Fair Trade Organic Mexican Select.

    If he can't find any of those, I'd recommend going to his local roaster and asking if they have any Mexican coffee as it's in season right now.

    Hope this helps!
    Katie"

    And of course, if there are other roasters/retailers out there with great Mexican Coffee, please let yourself be known and post a comment!

    Have a great day Troy! Hopefully you will find a great Mexican coffee to satisfy your pallet.

    In the words of Dr. Brew - Happy Brewing,
    Nichole
    ReplyDelete
  3. Good information on this blog. Also, it is really nice to listen all your words. Thanks for sharing this.
    Coffee Equipment
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