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Earning Beans For Coffee Rewards
Thanksgiving Coffee Company Appreciates You We have made it simple and effective for you to get the appreciation we think you deserve. It is the “Earn Beans” reward system. Yay! These rewards will be counted as “beans” which you can redeem as discounts. The more beans you earn the greater the discount, all the way up to free products!
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Shade Grown Coffee Trees
How are migratory birds and shade grown coffee trees linked?
The coffee industry has an enormous impact on migratory birds: when they fly south in the cold months, these birds rely on the trees that shade coffee farms throughout the tropics. When coffee plantations clear cut land to grow coffee in direct sunlight, not only does the loss of forested lands contribute to climate change, but our precious migratory birds lose their winter homes.
If we want to continue enjoying these birds, we have to preserve their winter habitat – and choosing to purchase only shade grown coffee is an integral part of that habitat preservation. Our SongBird Coffee is Fairtrade, and certified Bird-Friendly by the Smithsonian Migratory Bird Center.
“In this picture of shade grown coffee we see the lower level, dark green coffee trees. On the second level there are banana trees and on the overstay third level, native trees. From the mottled bark I can see that the tree is Inga, a tree with nitrogen setting qualities in the root system. It shades the coffee trees from above while providing leaf litter to refresh the thin topsoil layer, while at the same time adding Nitrogen to the soil with its roots.
This was taken on a trip to Jinotega, Nicaragua. Altitude is 5,000 feet"
– Paul Katzeff
Shade Grown Coffee Trees
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For the Birds: Cedar Waxwing
January 5 is National Bird Day and to celebrate we are going to kick off a new monthly blog post – For the Birds – highlighting one of the 200 Neotropical migratory birds who rely on shade grown coffee during their winter migration. We will start off by getting to know the birds representing our Songbird Coffee lineup:
Cedar Waxwing
Songbird Coffee light roast from Guatemala
The Cedar Waxwing is the perfect representative for our light roast Guatemalan coffee because the ripe cherry sweetness of the coffee reflects the fruity diet of these strikingly beautiful backyard favorites. As social birds, you can usually see them in large flocks around fruit trees such as juniper, cedar, and mulberry, passing berries from one bird to another before swallowing them whole. In fact, the Cedar Waxwing is the only bird in North American whose diet is comprised primarily of fruits and berries.
All of Thanksgiving’s organically certified coffees are shade grown, and a select few carry the Bird Friendly gold seal of the Smithsonian Migratory Bird Center. This certification ensures that tropical “agroforests” are preserved and migratory birds can find a healthy haven to eat and rest as they travel the hundreds of miles from your backyard to the coffee farms producing the beans you so enjoy every morning.
We are thrilled to share our love with you and we hope you share this perfect pair with someone you love, too.
You don’t need binoculars to find a coffee that protects forests, helps wildlife and supports the efforts of the American Birding Association; just look for the Songbird Coffee with the Cedar Waxwing on the front.
For the Birds: Cedar Waxwing
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An American Family Grows Coffee
How poor quality coffee becomes great: the time it takes
Back in 2004 I received a call from Lee Thorn, the president of the San Francisco chapter of Veterans for Peace (VPAT). Lee was a Vietnam veteran who dropped bombs on Laos and destroyed the lives and villages of innocent civilians - and forty years later he was still feeling guilty for having done so.
He said that VPAT was an organization that wanted to make amends to the Laotian people, and asked if I would help him and his group do so. He explained that while on a return visit to the Highlands of Laos he had seen the farmers growing coffee. His idea was to import their coffee to the states, have Thanksgiving Coffee roast and package it in a branded package (Jhai Coffee) and then have his veterans group sell it to other VPAT chapters around the country.
That was back in 2002, almost fifteen years ago!
I was all for it if Lee could develop the sales. We began with a single container - which we imported without even tasting it for quality. The price we paid was fully 50% higher than the world market price and that extra amount went to the farmers as a bonus for selling to us instead of their long-standing Japanese buyers. Even though the farmers were happy to get the bonus, they feared losing their long-standing buyers that didn't care about quality.
Coffee Farms in Laos
Coffee was planted in Laos by the French. They had colonized the country in the early part of the twentieth century. That part of the world was eventually known as “French Indo China” and included Vietnam and Cambodia. The French knew their coffee varieties and carefully selected the Typica variety as most suitable for the Laos climate and soil conditions.
Knowing this, I was certain that if the farmers picked fully ripe cherries and processed the pulp and seeds properly, we could get some really great coffee. We could also become the first coffee roasters in the states to offer coffee from Laos. The story would be War Veterans Giving Back to Those They Harmed.
Moving Forward with VPAT
The first container arrived and the coffee was fair. The flavor was flat, acidity was low, sugars were not developed well and it was obvious the farmers needed greater supervision in their coffee farming practices. The coffee had hints of greatness and obvious potential. But it would take training in new systems for bringing the coffee to export grade.
I decided to continue with the project although I was finding the coffee hard to sell. Lee had also over-estimated the sales potential of the other VPAT chapters. I believe this “adventure” cost Thanksgiving Coffee $50,000 in advertising, marketing, labels and brochures. By the end of that first year we had roasted the coffee into many French Roasts (irony) and had sold 50,000 Jhai Foundation Coffee Packages.
Lee hired a “Development Director” to work in Laos with the farmers to improve their agricultural practices, to harvest only red ripe cherries and to reduce imperfections to 2%. The 2003 Crop was really sweet and filled with caramel and nutty flavor tones, and I was happy!
That year my son Jonah was living in Cambodia. I asked him to make a visit to the Jhai Farmers to reinforce our commitment to the program and to the Jhai Farmers Cooperative. There he met Will Thomlinson, the VPAT Development Director that Lee had hired. Together they mapped out a plan for Thanksgiving Coffee to purchase two Containers (75,000 pounds) in the following year.
Now, with really good coffee that I knew could only get better, new and better harvesting practices, and a guarantee of sale, I and The VPAT members went into full sales and marketing mode. We sold a lot of Jhai Coffee packages. We raised a lot of money for the Laos coffee farmers. The money was given to VPAT and they transferred the money to Laos. I was more interested in the coffee side and building a new market for Laos coffee in the USA. My plan was to bring in great amounts of raw coffee as it became available over the years and to resell the coffee to other artisan roasters. It all seemed to be falling into place.
The following year, in 2005, Mr Thomlinson went rogue, selling our contracted coffee from that years crop to a Japanese company.
The project died.
The VPAT members dispersed and we at Thanksgiving Coffee got stuck holding 20,000 empty Jhai Foundation packages, 50,000 brochures, and egg on our face.
We moved on, a bit wiser and a bit poorer for the effort.
A Decade Later
Fast forward to 2014. Ten years pass and I get a call from a young man who was living in Seattle but traveling to Laos. He was so in love with the Lao people and obsessed with the fact that the children had no books in their schools. He started a program with a local coffee roaster, and called it “Coffee for Books.” One book was donated for each pound of coffee sold.
This young man wanted my advice and help to use Lao coffee beans for his project. He said he had met and made friends with coffee growers on the Bolivian Plain in Laos (The same region I had been dealing with a decade before) and was going back. Then asked if I would be his adviser, and implied that I would roast and package Lao coffee for his project, if he got the coffee exported to the USA.
I thought of the song lyric: “once burned, twice shy babe” and told him I would think about it – and get back to him before he left for Laos.
His name was Tyson Adams.
Read My Laos Experience: Part II now…
My Laos Experience: Part I
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YCFCU is Transforming Lives.
re-posted from yirgacheffeunion.com
From poverty to self sustainability; Yirgacheffe Coffee Farmers’ Union has played a big role in the success of these farmers and their families as well as their surrounding communities.
The Testimonies coming from these great achievements of the Union are many, diverse and immense.
YCFCU is Transforming Lives.
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A Trip to Africa: Day 9 -The Final Entry
In January 2014, CEO & Co-Founder Paul Katzeff traveled to Africa to meet with two of our producer cooperatives. In this blog series, Paul shares his experience in Uganda and Rwanda.
Like everything else in life, things change over time. This was a wonderful story of how one man had a vision and changed his community once he was able to act on his idea, which was to unite coffee growers with different religions into a Fair Trade Certified coffee cooperative. He realized that if the farmers were working together they could reap beneficial economic gains and improve the quality of their lives. Laura Wetzler, Program Director of Kalunu was working with the Jewish community in Mbale, and came to aid this vision of the community leader, JJ Keki. That was 11 years ago. Thanksgiving Coffee responded to Ms. Wetzler’s and JJ’s call for help, and we began to purchase their coffee and to sell it via telling the amazing story of this interfaith cooperative.
We told their story, purchased their coffee, and worked with the coop and its “Leadership” to help the story survive, and the Cooperative to flourish. However, over ten years, random and not so random events make things change, and PKC was no exception to this rule of life.
Poor leadership, predatory organizations that wanted to use the story for their own purposes, unethical business practices, and a complete disregard for transparency and record keeping by the Mirembe Kawomera Cooperative Board created a toxic environment for using a Fair Trade model to improve and meet the needs of the coffee farmers of the Mirembe Kawomera Cooperative
Thanksgiving Coffee Company lost its trust in the Cooperative as the leadership declared their intention to become independent from their parent second level cooperative, Gumutindo, the organization that provided them with Organic certification oversight and leadership training, financial pre financing of the coffee harvest. Fair Trade certification, quality control and export services. This departure made the small cooperative rogue outfit out of what was in the beginning, a collaborative effort with adequate oversight of both quality control and financial integrity.
We have always intended to support the farmers through the Cooperative. It is always about the farmers. The Cooperative is a business model that democratically facilitates business policy and the activities of trade. We have ended our relationship with PKC under its current leadership; lack of trust and too much financial risk is the reason. But, we have not abandoned the farmers who were being poorly served by their leadership.
The situation has evolved, changed and morphed into Phase II, a more mature phase with the lessons learned, being applied to build a new primary level cooperative with the same interfaith coffee farmers that once were nominal members of Mirembe Kawomera. The Vice President of the PKC Cooperative and the Organic Coffee Director have broken away from the original PKC and reunited with their parent cooperative, Gumutindo, to begin this year’s purchasing of green coffee from the very same farmers. Thanksgiving Coffee will evolve our role in the supply chain to support the changes that are occurring in the coffee community that was once the Mirembe Kawomera primary cooperative. We have committed to begin purchases for the 2015 crop, and the farmers have already delivered over 600 sacks of dry parchment coffee to the Gumutindo Cooperative for export.
We are in transition to a deeper and more economically valuable situation. It has evolved from what was once a fine interfaith vision with poor leadership at the Cooperative, to what we see as a real positive evolution for the farmers and for interfaith work. We will continue to sell Delicious Peace Coffee from the same inspired farmers, and we will continue to support their coffee production by selling their coffee under a duel banner which I will briefly explain and then leave for more detailed discussion as we learn about and grow into this new evolution over the next decade of interfaith and inter-tribal collaboration.
The decade of work in Mbale Uganda has taught us that the coffee farmers of the Mt. Elgon region, which comprise the PKC members, was composed not just of Jews, Christians, and Muslims, but also of the nine indigenous tribes of Uganda. The original idea of PKC highlighted interfaith cooperation among Jews, Christians and Muslims to create peace in the region, and therefore enable economic cooperation for the common good. Now we will begin our efforts to support their tribal communities, and learn about this aspect of the farmers lives, as well.
In sum, we are changing, because things on the ground have changed. We ask for your continued support of this coffee, as it is the fuel that drives our ability to carry on. It took a decade to discover the internal toxicity that one or two charismatic leaders can create with a weak board of directors, and when hubris from self importance leads to decisions that are ill advised and beyond the scope of abilities. This interfaith story of peace and community economic development is still alive.
We see a bright future for telling the story of the value of interfaith and tribal cooperation in the quest for improved living conditions for all.
Nothing remains the same for long, however “Not Just a Cup, But a Just Cup” will stay with us for as long as coffee farmers need a friend to promote a fair deal for their efforts to grow our favorite national drink- coffee.
Here are links to the first 9 parts of this story:
A Trip to Africa (series archive)
Day 2 – Dancing, Mango Trees & the Dry Mill
Day 4 – Transparency, Trust & Relationships
Day 5 - Coffee Quality & A New Mystery
Day 6 – The Mystery Coffee’s Story
A Trip to Africa: Day 9 -The Final Entry
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A Trip to Africa: Day 8 - Making the New Transparency Work
In January 2014, CEO & Co-Founder Paul Katzeff traveled to Africa to meet with two of our producer cooperatives. In this blog series, Paul shares his experience in Uganda and Rwanda.
The duplicity of The Coexist Foundation was ever on my mind while in Uganda. I felt betrayed by two young men in Washington DC. Tarek and Lance are the leaders of The Coexist Foundation. They came to us in early 2013, seeking a collaboration with the Thanksgiving Coffee Company. They presented the idea that they market and sell Mirembe Kawomera coffee in a coexist package. We were excited to have them come on board as promoters of this Interfaith Cooperatives coffee which we saw as our primary responsibility. Roasting the coffee for others to market and sell to their congregations, members and followers.
“Coexist came to us in early 2013, seeking a collaboration with the Thanksgiving Coffee Company.”
It has been a decade since we began promoting Mirembe Kawomera Coffee, and we have invested many hundreds of thousands of dollars to bring this story to the coffee world. Tarek and Lance, in numerous emails and phone conversations both encouraged and worried us as we moved forward with their private label package. We loved the idea that they were investing in a fully printed package, but we worried about their unwillingness to present Thanksgiving Coffee as the decade long carrier of the torch and promoter of the story and developer of the supply chain that created the improved quality we now roast. But we forged on with Coexist as they gave assurances to us that their only interest was to sell the coffee to raise funds for the school in Mbale.
When we were told that the 250 mystery sacks were sold to the Coexist Foundation by the cooperative two months before we arrived in Uganda, the mystery was no longer who were the bags of coffee for, but now the questions were; how did this happen, why did it happen, and what were the consequences going to be for this double betrayal of Thanksgiving by both the Cooperative and The Coexist Foundation.
The conversations led to these discoveries:
- The Coexist Foundation had used the film makers of the Documentary “Delicious Peace “, Ellen and Kurt to set up their own Film project and then sent a five person film crew with a script, to Mbale to create The Coexist Foundation Story of their discovery and adoption of this cooperative. Their video tells the story as if Thanksgiving Coffee never existed these past ten years.
- The president of the PKC Board had negotiated with the Coexist Foundation to sell this coffee without informing many on the Coop’s Board and in fact, there were no records of this coffee being purchased from the PKC coffee farmer members.
- Coexist had purchased coffee that could not be shown to be Certified Organic and was certainly not Fair Trade Certified. They had paid a price that was far below the price Thanksgiving Coffee had paid for this years crop according to their General Manager.
- There was nothing we could do about the situation because the money had exchanged hands already.
“Our Story was being re-filmed and revised to replace our Brand with Coexists Brand.”
I concluded that our decade of work had been hijacked. Our Story was being re-filmed and revised to replace our Brand with Coexists Brand. They believed they could buy media, legal services and a coffee supply chain that Thanksgiving Coffee company had developed over a decade of investment in time, travel, expertise, and money to create. What to do was the question on my mind in Uganda on day 8. I could walk away from this Interfaith Story and punish the cooperative for their moral decay. I could confront Coexist and threaten to expose their deception and unethical business practices to their Board of Trustees, I could redouble my efforts to strengthen the PKC cooperative now that we had a ability to discuss all issues with openness and transparency. One thing for sure, I was going to stop in Washington DC on my way back to California to confront Terek and Lance and lay down my threats to expose them.
To make it real, here is a link to Coexists Current Blog. It tells the story as if cutting out the middle man (Direct Trade) was a good thing. But this is their way of justifying cutting out the Company that invested its money and time to develop this story. There is no mention of Thanksgiving Coffee whatsoever. They are spinning ” Direct Trade” as something that benefits farmers by putting more money in their pockets, but Coexist paid substantially less to the cooperative saving money so they could be more competitive on their wholesale price to their customers. In their eyes, Thanksgiving Coffee was a Middleman in the supply chain, instead of the creator and financial supporter of the chain.
The last chapter in this story is being written now and will be posted soon.
— — —
Here are links to the first 8 parts of this ongoing story:A Trip to Africa (series archive)
Day 2 – Dancing, Mango Trees & the Dry Mill
Day 4 – Transparency, Trust & Relationships
Day 5 - Coffee Quality & A New Mystery
Day 6 – The Mystery Coffee’s Story
A Trip to Africa: Day 8 - Making the New Transparency Work
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A Trip to Africa: Day 7 – All Things Revealed
In January 2014, CEO & Co-Founder Paul Katzeff traveled to Africa to meet with two of our producer cooperatives. In this blog series, Paul shares his experience in Uganda and Rwanda.
This knowledge thoroughly pissed me off…I was about as angry as a wasp being chased by a Zebra! But what good was anger? It was good for motivation to confront the duplicity while still in Uganda. And that is what we did. We asked for a second meeting with the Cooperative Board to discuss the matter of the 250 sacks…being sold directly to one of Thanksgiving’s wholesale coffee accounts. That “customer” had become aware Mirembe Kawomera through the media’s reports on my company’s decade-long collaboration with Mirembe Kawomera Cooperative. So, that was my beef. Why did the cooperative not see this end-around? Why did this important customer go around the roaster who they came to for a proposed collaboration?There are always many stories in a screenplay, such as the one Nick and I found us in. And, we were in Uganda, about to be in a semi-barren second floor meeting room, just chairs and walls not yet painted.
We sat together for three hours with the board and I expressed my surprise to learn that we had different ideas about our relationship and by open discussion, with many pointed questions (“where are the payment records for those coffees?”) and much talk about Transparency. Everybody knew something was wrong. There were those that were in on the deal and those who knew for the first time that “a deal went down” and they were not a part of it. There was a lot of discovery but nothing was revealed. No one got hurt in the scuffle. There were no indelible scars that would hinder future Trust developing.
Five concrete measures were decided on as a result of the conversations and cross conversations:
- A Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) between Thanksgiving Coffee Company and The Mirembe Kawomera Cooperative is needed so as to define the authorities and responsibilities, and the quantifiable goals and objectives of each Business.
- That the Cooperative members could produce four containers yearly and to be successful, it needed to have the financing to be able to purchase cherry or parchment from their members.
- The Washing Station needed to be expanded from being able to process one container to two containers by August 2014.
- Solar Driers needed to be installed to handle the increased volume of washed coffee.
- Thanksgiving Coffee had not expanded the roasted retail market in The USA to meet the needs of the cooperatives members. If Thanksgiving Coffee was to keep its exclusive relationship with the PK Cooperative, it was going to have to find homes for the three containers it did not purchase.
It was late afternoon and the heat of mid day was just a sweet memory. The sun was low and there was an orange tint to the air and everything solid and in the sunlight’s way. The meeting disbursed in a flurry of people going off in different directions amid the “good nights” and “see you tomorrows”. We covered a lot of ground during that meeting. It was a workout but through it I learned about the people I was going to be working with. We had discovered a “problem of ethics” and came to terms with no blame placed, and no sermons either. The room was filled with people who knew “when to leave well enough alone”. We all got it, so we moved on.
And so the long day ended at our very fancy hotel where JB and Juma joined us at the pool. JB is the Cooperatives GM and Juma is the Special Projects Director. They are payed by the cooperative to run the coop’s operations.
To be continued...
-PaulA Trip to Africa (series archive)
Day 2 – Dancing, Mango Trees & the Dry Mill
Day 4 – Transparency, Trust & Relationships
Day 5 - Coffee Quality & A New Mystery
Day 6 – The Mystery Coffee’s Story
A Trip to Africa: Day 7 – All Things Revealed
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Clean Cookstoves in Uganda
By Paul Katzeff, CEO + Co-Founder, Thanksgiving Coffee Company
In 2012 Thanksgiving Coffee Company, in collaboration with the Mirembe Kawomera Board and members, began a Climate change mitigation initiative in the foothills of Mt. Elgon, with the cooperative. The first phase was tree planting, and the project had these basic principles at its core:
- The trees would provide shade to keep the ground cool and moist
- The trees would enhance the habitat for indigenous birds and other wildlife
- Deep root systems of trees holds the moisture in the soil and brings nutrients from deep in the ground to the surface via leaf litter produced by the trees. This makes the soil more fertile.
- The trees soften the impact of rainstorms and mitigate against runoff that carries away topsoil
- Shade improves the health of coffee trees as well as the flavor profile.
- Trees produce wood for cooking and reduce the need for long distance hauling of wood
- Trees bring up the water table and enable the ground to hold more water
There remained a problem.
The coop members were relying on the climate change mitigation tree planting as a source of firewood for their open fire cooking. Open fires are a simple but extremely wasteful way to build a cook fire, so the coop members decided that if they had more efficient ways to cook, they would lower their use of firewood. This plan was the best way to allow the trees to grow to maturity before being sustainably pruned for firewood, and thus was born “The Clean Cookstove Project.”
In partnership with Carrotmob, Thanksgiving Coffee Company raised $4,600 in a crowd-funding campaign. The funds were allocated for the Clean Cookstove project. The General Manager of the cooperative designed the project, researched the methodology, hired local craftsmen and women, gathered materials, and began building the stoves in April of this year. In this first phase of the project, 46 families will receive the stoves. Families with children, older people and single parent families were chosen by the coop as are recipients of the first 46 stoves. The plan is to expand the program so all 300 coop member families eventually have one built for them in their homes. – Paul Katzeff
The benefits of clean cookstoves are many.
Obviously, better respiratory health and easier fuel collecting because these stoves use 1/10 the fuel to produce a cooked meal. That means more time to attend school, make music, do homework or whatever leisure time is used for in a small village at the base of a mountain, where there is no cafe to hang out, no community center, and where electricity is limited to a few outlets per square mile. We are proud to be associated with this project – happier, healthy coffee farmers means a better world, and better coffee.
I am currently in Uganda, on a trip that was planned back in February when I was last in Africa.
Much has happened since, including a clear Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) that outlines our and the Cooperatives responsibilities and expectations from the relationship we have created. The goal of this trip is mostly oversight. We are advancing funds to the Cooperative to double its washing station capacity. This will require a solar drying system of greatly increased capacity, and a financial system that is going to handle twice the amount of money, double the volume of coffee, and provide more transparency. We are building capacity and the requirement for a higher level of professional financial management will be required as soon as this next crop is ready in September. That is in about 60 days!
There is lots to do – and we want to be a part of the doing.
To be continued…
-Paul
Clean Cookstoves in Uganda
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A Trip to Africa: Day 6 - The Mystery Coffee's Story
In January 2014, CEO & Co-Founder Paul Katzeff traveled to Africa to meet with two of our producer cooperatives. In this blog series, Paul shares his experience in Uganda and Rwanda.
But what about the other 250 sacks along that back wall? Where did that come from and how did it pass defect inspection? And where was it going? Who had produced it, who had sold it? Who had purchased it and who had financed it? This was on my mind as we hit the road to Gumutindo’s dry mill, and it would play an important role in the days to come.
These mystery sacks of zero defect, 17 screen (large bean size) ready for export coffee were a sharp contrast to the coffee in parchment set aside for Thanksgiving Coffee's shipment. Where did they come from? We asked the Board and the General Manager. It was as if we had caught a thief . They could not account for the purchases . There was no record of this coffee being purchased by the cooperative from its members.
Then, as the pressure built for disclosure ( I threatened to dissolve our relationship of 10 years) JJ, the cooperative's founder revealed that the coffee was for Coexist, a Washington DC based charity with whom Thanksgiving Coffee had developed a relationship a year before.Parchment coffee is not green coffee. Parchment has to be milled off of the green beans so the green beans can be graded for percentage of defects. (broken beans, insect eaten beans, unripe beans, black beans, sticks, pebbles etc). Quality is related to the number of defects contained. Gumutindo, the secondary coop that is made up of 15 primary cooperatives of which PKC is but one member, accepts up to 7% defects. Anything over that needs to be sorted and picked out of the delivery to get the percentage down to 4%. If a coop delivers parchment coffee and there are more then 4% defects, they are deducted .02 cents per pound for each percent over 4%. The coffee in the open sacks had been delivered to the mill and tested, and showed 12% defects. That coffee had been rejected by the mill on our behalf – twelve pounds of defects per hundred makes for a very rough tasting coffee. Now, this organization was going around Thanksgiving Coffee, buying directly from the Cooperative. I was shocked and angry. It is one thing to not represent us in the development of the story and how we brought this incredible Interfaith story to the world (and the reason Coexist executives were able to discover them), but it is quite another thing to disrupt a business relationship based on a decade of trust and mutual inspiration.So, the sacks were brought back to the PKC warehouse to await my arrival – perhaps they thought I would have some “pull” at the Mill to get the coffee through. This was not exactly the way the problem was presented to me by the PKC management. They pointed fingers and said they were being picked on and that was why they wanted me, their buyer, to front for them at the mill. I thought this sounded legitimate, so I went to the GM at Gumutindo that afternoon to plead their case.
Willington, the GM of Gumutindo who has visited me in California, offered to send his truck to pick up the parchment coffee and re-test it in front of the PKC Board. That way, they could see for themselves just what the defect percentage was in the batch of coffee slated for Thanksgiving Coffee Company from their 2013 crop. But what about the other 250 sacks along that back wall? Where did that come from and how did it pass defect inspection? And where was it going? Who had produced it, who had sold it? Who had purchased it and who had financed it? This was on my mind as we hit the road to Gumutindo’s dry mill, and it would play an important role in the days to come.
That is enough reading for today. In my next post I will tell you how we handled this situation, how it changed our plans for the next three days of our trip and caused Nick and I to re-route out flight back thru Washington DC to meet with Coexist's Executives. I took this photo of a local artists interpretation of a street market. Total Chaos! The picture was hanging in our Hotel Lobby.
To be continued...
-PaulA Trip to Africa (series archive)
Day 2 – Dancing, Mango Trees & the Dry Mill
Day 4 – Transparency, Trust & Relationships
Day 5 - Coffee Quality & A New Mystery
Day 6 – The Mystery Coffee’s Story
A Trip to Africa: Day 6 - The Mystery Coffee's Story
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A Trip to Africa: Day 5 – Coffee Quality & A New Mystery
In January 2014, CEO & Co-Founder Paul Katzeff traveled to Africa to meet with two of our producer cooperatives. In this blog series, Paul shares his experience in Uganda and Rwanda.
In Mbale we stayed at a youth Hostel that has a Cafe that serves western style food that looks and tastes familiar. We had lunch there and met with the USAID Chief. It’s the kind of place where the average age of the people who hang out there is 20-something.
Peace Corps workers and backpackers can live there for $14.00 per night in a small private room or ‘Dormitory style’ for $5.00 per night, wake up in the morning and have a perfect Latte at the espresso bar in the lobby.
The story became different once we got into the world that the story was taking place. Theories are mental, the real world is physical.
Below is a picture I took after the Board Meeting we had with the Mirembe Kawomera Board.
What do we see in this picture?
1. Coffee in burlap sacks against the back wall with Peace Kawomera (PKC) lettering
2. A concrete floor with someone sleeping on a mat
3. A hand operated machine that is used to remove parchment from beans that have dried in the sun after the cherry pulp has been removed
4. White open sacks of coffee in parchmentThis picture uncovered a different set of issues. Where did the 250 burlap sacks come from and where were they going? They were ready for export while our coffee was ready to be taken to the mill in town to be “readied for export.”
This was the warehouse under the offices where we met the Board for discussion of the issues we came to resolve (late shipment, blending of coffees, verification of the sources of the coffee). As an aside, the PKC offices were in a building that was only half completed. In 2010, USAID funded the building of a small central coffee washing station. Thanksgiving Coffee’s rebates to the cooperative provided their in-kind contribution to the Grant. Unfortunately, there was embezzlement of funds by the coop’s GM who ran off with funds, and the Founder of the Coop was removed from the Board. USAID withdrew its remaining funds – and the building remains built but without a completed interior (no doors on offices , no paint on walls, No tables or chairs) and remains a shabby edifice that one would find hard to be proud of.
Parchment coffee is not green coffee. Parchment has to be milled off of the green beans so the green beans can be graded for percentage of defects. (broken beans, insect eaten beans, unripe beans, black beans, sticks, pebbles etc). Quality is related to the number of defects contained. Gumutindo, the secondary coop that is made up of 15 primary cooperatives of which PKC is but one member, accepts up to 7% defects. Anything over that needs to be sorted and picked out of the delivery to get the percentage down to 4%. If a coop delivers parchment coffee and there are more then 4% defects, they are deducted .02 cents per pound for each percent over 4%. The coffee in the open sacks had been delivered to the mill and tested, and showed 12% defects. That coffee had been rejected by the mill on our behalf – twelve pounds of defects per hundred makes for a very rough tasting coffee.So, the sacks were brought back to the PKC warehouse to await my arrival – perhaps they thought I would have some “pull” at the Mill to get the coffee through. This was not exactly the way the problem was presented to me by the PKC management. They pointed fingers and said they were being picked on and that was why they wanted me, their buyer, to front for them at the mill. I thought this sounded legitimate, so I went to the GM at Gumutindo that afternoon to plead their case.
Willington, the GM of Gumutindo who has visited me in California, offered to send his truck to pick up the parchment coffee and re-test it in front of the PKC Board. That way, they could see for themselves just what the defect percentage was in the batch of coffee slated for Thanksgiving Coffee Company from their 2013 crop. But what about the other 250 sacks along that back wall? Where did that come from and how did it pass defect inspection? And where was it going? Who had produced it, who had sold it? Who had purchased it and who had financed it? This was on my mind as we hit the road to Gumutindo’s dry mill, and it would play an important role in the days to come.
We arrived at the dry mill (Gumutindo) that afternoon with the Board members of the cooperative to witness the grading process. It’s a simple process – first, a long pointed metal tube is thrust into a sack of parchment coffee and withdrawn filled with a sample from that sack. This is repeated on another ten sacks, each providing a small sample (about a half pound). The multiple samples are aggregated into a single sample from which 250 grams are taken and placed in a moisture meter.
The sample must come in under 13% moisture. Then, 100 grams are put through a hand crank parchment removal device and the green beans are then winnowed to remove dust and small pieces of parchment. The beans are then clean, and ready to be inspected for defects, which are sorted out by hand and eye inspection. There was an air of anxiety as the head sorter picked at the 100 gram sample.The defects are placed in a tray for all to see and agree on. Then they are weighed. This sample came out 9%. Again, too high for their Dry Mill to accept. Now there was a problem. I don’t want nine pounds of defects in every 100 pounds of coffee. There is no way I could make that coffee taste good enough to sell. The coop had to make a decision. They could pay the woman sorters to remove enough defects to get the coffee down to 7% or they could haul the coffee back to their warehouse 20 Kilometers to the north and sort out the defects themselves. Otherwise they would have to negotiate with the woman on a price for sorting out 2% from 30,000 lbs of coffee (600 pounds of defects).
At Gumutindo, the sorters are independent contractors. They sit under a giant shade tree at the mill and spend their days picking out defects, damaged bean by damaged bean. Unlike the sorters in Central and South America who sit at a conveyor belt that carries an endless stream of coffee beans past silent, sitting women who pick passing defective beans out of the rapids, these woman socialize all day and pick at their own pace. A much more civilized way to do tedious work.
The coop board members voted to hire the sorters and sent a member of the Board to the tree to negotiate a price for the sorting. About 300 feet from the defect assessment station the woman sat and sorted, each with their own sack to clean, knowing just how many pounds were needed to be culled from each sack to get it into an acceptable range.So now we had the 2014 crop due to be shipped to the US and arrive in May, being in the last phase before being put on a truck to travel to Mombasa where it will head south past Madagascar and round the Cape of Good Hope at the tip of South Africa and head across the Atlantic to The Panama Canal and up the west side of Central America toward its destination, The Port of Oakland. With 2013 crop and its problems behind it, I turned back to solve the mystery of the 250 sacks that were unaccounted for, with 17 screen and zero defects. What was their story?
To be continued...
-PaulA Trip to Africa (series archive)
Day 2 – Dancing, Mango Trees & the Dry Mill
Day 4 – Transparency, Trust & Relationships
Day 5 - Coffee Quality & A New Mystery
Day 6 – The Mystery Coffee’s Story
Day 8 - Making the New Transparency Work
A Trip to Africa: Day 5 - Coffee Quality & A New Mystery
read more -
A Trip to Africa: Day 4 - Transparency, Trust & Relationships
In January 2014, CEO & Co-Founder Paul Katzeff traveled to Africa to meet with two of our producer cooperatives. In this blog series, Paul shares his experience in Uganda and Rwanda.
When we left Jinja, we left with a deep satisfaction, having met some really serious people who were in the beginnings of something great. Two hundred elders were one day away from receiving a “Certificate of Completion” for the nine month course in Asset Based Community Economic Development offered by The Communities of SHALOM in collaboration with Drew University. This 3 credit course will give them the tools they need to enter the 21st century global trading environment and may be the only educational accomplishment many of them obtain (The certificate will be of parchment suitable for framing). I can see it now, hanging on a wood slab on a simple brick wall, inside a 12’x12′ square room with a red dirt floor, the only adornment to be found on any of the walls in the home of that proud community leader (and Organic Robusta coffee grower)
Nick and I felt that our trip had an auspicious beginning. We had a two pound sample of what looked to be a beautifully prepared Organic Robusta which we hoped to “cup” when we got to Mbale, and we had a mutually agreed-to trading relationship started if the coffee proved to be of good quality. It was not my primary purpose to search for another cooperative to work with, especially a coop that had never sold a pound of coffee before, but I use about 75,000 pounds of Robusta each year in our very popular, high caffeine coffee “Pony Express” which I now buy from Importers.
At Thanksgiving Coffee go to great effort to make sure we know the farmers we buy from and work with them directly. It is essential to our buying plan that the price farmers receive is high enough that they WANT to continue growing coffee. We want the farmer to love their trees because those trees are providing food, clothing, shelter, health care and education for their family and community. Trees that are loved produce better coffee, they are no different than tomato plants or marijuana plants: care for them, love them, and they will respond. That is the key to sourcing great coffee and sustaining the farmers’ efforts. Quality of life and quality of coffee go hand in hand.
The road from Jinja to Mbale was red clay – dry and dusty. It’s the same material that most buildings are made from. A great and endless building material. This photo is rich in information. A dirt highway comes to a paved road with electricity poles and wires, a billboard advertising a soda of some kind, two motorcycles, people walking and a truck loaded with hand-sawed slab lumber driving to market. The trees are semi arid in their type, not at all tropical. In this dry, dusty Ugandan moment where the paved road began, I started to ready myself for the work ahead, the major reason for my 23 hour trip to the other side of the world – Uganda is 11 hours ahead of California time. Paved roads mean you are getting close to something!
At a gas station close to Mbale we came upon this sweet fruit vendor. We ate some bananas for lunch, something I don’t think of doing in the USA. Bananas in the tropics are like candy – and you look upon them as safe energy food. I thought I was taking a still shot but the video was on and I was lucky to get her little hip rotation presentation of her wares and that wonderful smile as it formed. She made me feel special in a male/female kind of way. I felt that she actually saw me more deeply then I could ever see her.Here you see the way they do building in Uganda. They are, surprisingly, not artisan bricklayers – they just are bricklayers. I could see holes in the backyard where the bricks came from: you rarely see truck loads of bricks being transported to building sites because the bricks are made on location.
I went to Uganda to visit the Interfaith Cooperative of Jews, Christians and Muslims called Mirembe Kawomera. This cooperative has an incredible story – and Thanksgiving Coffee Company became the story teller for this miraculous group. We have purchased their entire coffee crop each year since 2004, and their coffee has been Certified Fair Trade and Organic the entire time. We market this coffee to faith-based groups, Churches, Synagogues, Mosques and to people who believe in and work for Interfaith healing in a troubled world.
This cooperative presents, perhaps the greatest coffee story ever told, and we have seen our efforts to promote this cooperative bring a modicum of fame (Oprah’s O Magazine) and recognition (Tufts University Jean Mayer Award). We sell the coffee to over 200 religous groups and congregations nationwide and our supply of green beans was running out when I left for Uganda. The supply was running out because the 2012 crop, which was slated to be shipped December 2012 and to arrive in Oakland in May 2013, was eight months late. I went to Mbale to find out why.
I had some clues before I left:
- The contract required that all the coffee be from the central washing station.
- In a Skype call to the Mirembe Kawomera Coop (PKC) manager ard the full Board back in October 1013, I asked what was causing the delay and I was told that they could only produce 110 sacks that they brought through their washing station.
Because our contract was for 250 sacks (37,500 pounds purchased at $3.05/pound), they did not know what to do and were instructed by our Importer (in the USA) to blend in other Ugandan coffees with the washing station coffees to fill the container – and ship it to Thanksgiving Coffee Company for sale as PKC washing station coffee. This presented a problem of certifiable authenticity of the product Thanksgiving Coffee presents to our customers.
The system of authenticity had broken down and I was there to see if I could verify that 110 sacks were actually run through the central PKC washing station. I needed to verify that each farmer’s delivery was recorded with their name, amount paid and farm location – and that all of this was recorded in the Cooperative’s records for the Fair Trade and Organic Certifiers to verify through their own field trips to farms.
This was a serious effort on all our parts to get back on track. We all knew that the transparency issue is essential to the trust we use as a basis for working together. Similarly, our customers depend on trusting that what they wish to support is what they are buying – that their purchases are going toward the economic development of a community of courageous people who believed that by coming together in an interfaith coalition coffee cooperative, they could better their personal lives, and their community life as well.
Here’s a video clip from the first meeting to discuss our mission. I asked each member of the Board to help me remember each one of them when I got home because I was not good remembering names and putting them with faces.
To be continued...
-PaulA Trip to Africa (series archive)
Day 2 – Dancing, Mango Trees & the Dry Mill
Day 4 – Transparency, Trust & Relationships
Day 5 - Coffee Quality & A New Mystery
Day 6 – The Mystery Coffee’s Story
Day 8 - Making the New Transparency Work
A Trip to Africa: Day 4 - Transparency, Trust & Relationships
read more -
A Trip to Africa: Day 3 – On the Road
In January 2014, CEO & Co-Founder Paul Katzeff traveled to Africa to meet with two of our producer cooperatives. In this blog series, Paul shares his experience in Uganda and Rwanda.
After two days in Jinja in the poor countryside we would return to our hotel for a touch of our comfortable western style life. Hot showers, fruit sliced properly, Gin and Tonic: Uganda was a British Colony back 60 years ago. In the background you can see the Colonial Style architecture beyond the pool. The Hotel manager who came to greet us at our arrival was in a suit and tie, very British in accent. He was from South Africa and considered his "posting" here at the hotel as a purgatory and informed us he was leaving "his post" in two weeks to return to Johannesburg to resume his life. Driving to Mbale, Uganda In this photo, we are approaching the coffee growing region of Mt. Elgon, just outside of Mbale.
In the distance you can see the mountain. It rises up rather spectacularly as you approach it.
Here is my traveling partner, Mr. Nicholas Hoskyns.
Nick is a Brit who lives in Nicaragua. He is an expert in many fields and specifically cooperative management and business practices. He is the President of a British Charity called ETICO, an acronym for "Ethical Trading Company." Being British I thought it appropriate to photograph him in a tea field! In his hand he is holding "two leafs and a bud", the most delicate of the new growth and most flavorful. By this time, I was getting excited to visit the Mirembe Kawomera Fair Trade Cooperative. This is a cooperative that consists of Jews, Christians and Muslims who came together to work in a coffee cooperative system to obtain the benefits of selling into the Fair Trade and Organic specialty coffee export market. It is the only such Interfaith cooperative in the world and their story has been documented in a 60 minute documentary called "Delicious Peace Grows in a Ugandan Coffee Bean." The cooperative has been awarded many honors. Thanksgiving Coffee Company has promoted their coffee under the Mirembe Kawomera (Delicious Peace) label since 2004 and promises that only the coffee that their members grow is found in the packages and that each package sold adds $0.25 cents to a fund that we send to them each year to be their "in kind" contribution when they seek grants for projects to improve their community. To date we have sent $95,000 and they have built a central coffee washing station with grants from USAID, a climate change program with a tree planting project and in the works for this year will be an expansion of their central washing station and a cupping lab for tasting their coffees of each farmer prior to export so they all can taste the fruits of their individual labor on their farms. Last year, we had some hang-ups in the coffee supply chain. Mirembe Kawomera was unable to produce a full container of coffee for us and the shipment was eight months late. Orders were coming in and we could not substitute any other coffee for their package. What was going on? Nick came with me to examine the books and help with the supply chain logistics.
What's going on in this photo? The facade on the store is a Persian mosaic - Muslim occupants I would guess. I probably could have gotten off here and settled into a simple life of walking two miles to get the day's water from a well that ten kids were filling five gallon plastic containers for their families (40 pounds) and carrying it back many miles instead of being in school or playing little League baseball. Actually Uganda is soccer crazy. They seem to favor Arsenal in the Upper leagues of Europe. Tomorrow we will visit the Mirembe Kawomera facilities to meet with their Board of directors and talk about their issues and my issues.
To be continued...
-PaulA Trip to Africa (series archive)
Day 2 – Dancing, Mango Trees & the Dry Mill
Day 4 – Transparency, Trust & Relationships
Day 5 - Coffee Quality & A New Mystery
Day 6 – The Mystery Coffee’s Story
Day 8 - Making the New Transparency Work
A Trip to Africa: Day 3 – On the Road
read more -
A Trip to Africa: Day 2 – Dancing, Mango Trees & The Dry Mill
In January 2014, CEO & Co-Founder Paul Katzeff traveled to Africa to meet with two of our producer cooperatives. In this blog series, Paul shares his experience in Uganda and Rwanda.
Our first day in Uganda was a real experience. The farmers met under a giant Mango tree that had just produced over 1,000 pounds of ripe mangoes and was beginning to flower for next year's fruit. These trees grow wild and can be found everywhere. In the shade of the tree people danced and celebrated. The heart of Rock and roll and the Blues came from these people - I could feel the rhythms vibrate my body and I was moved to dance ... but just couldn't get in there with them. I felt the beat but didn't feel I had the moves. The kid who was drumming was good! (see below)
Back on the road north to our primary Destination, The city of Mbale, the home of Mirembe Kawamera Cooperative. This is the famous interfaith cooperative of Jews, Christians and Muslims working together in a small outlying mountain village in the shadow of Mt. Elgon in the northeastern part of Uganda. This photo shows a typical roadside crossroad. Hard to say what is going on there but in the background is another Giant Mango tree and to the left down the road a couple of hundred feet are banana trees.
This homestead along the road had solar electric panels right in front of their house.
The two hour trip from Jinja to Mbale was filled with a life force so different, visually. These pictures show how western culture mixes with people who have too little but need the same things we need. Food, clothing, shelter and commerce. This little store sells what is needed, not what is wanted. The difference narrows
The selections down to what is available to sell. Carrying Coffee Sacks in Uganda This was our first destination in Mbale, The "dry mill" where our coffee is readied for export after being received from the primary cooperative in the mountains. This is where the coffee is graded (sorted) for defects and the parchment is milled off of the coffee and the burlap sacks are filled with 152 pounds of green coffee beans. Yes, those guys are carrying 150 lbs of coffee.
To be continued...
-PaulA Trip to Africa (series archive)
Day 2 – Dancing, Mango Trees & the Dry Mill
Day 4 – Transparency, Trust & Relationships
Day 5 - Coffee Quality & A New Mystery
Day 6 – The Mystery Coffee’s Story
A Trip to Africa: Day 2 – Dancing, Mango Trees & The Dry Mill
read more -
A Trip to Africa: Day 1 - Arriving In Uganda
In January 2014, CEO & Co-Founder Paul Katzeff traveled to Africa to meet with two of our producer cooperatives. In this blog series, Paul shares his experience in Uganda and Rwanda.
We arrived in Uganda (Entebbe Airport) at midnight. In two hours we were in Jinja to visit a coffee cooperative that is producing organic Robusta coffee. This might be the only organic Robusta in the world - so I was eager to meet the farmers. Our hosts and drivers were from Communities of Shalom, a US-based interfaith social justice organization based at Drew University that has been doing Economic Development work at the cooperative for the past nine months. They work to build community strength and empower coffee farmers to run their cooperatives effectively - so that they can benefit farmers and their families. We awoke the following morning to see Lake Victoria from our hotel window. Lake Victoria is the headwaters to the Nile. I felt the water, just as I did the Mississippi River 50 years ago when I first crossed it. It felt good!
Chairperson Fredrick Kibalama and CEO of Thanksgiving Coffee , Paul Katzeff
On the Coop chairman's farm we posed for a picture. Note the large Mango tree in the background and the Banana tree under it to the left. The weather was mild, about 80 degrees, and the sun was beginning to warm the top of my head. Fredrick's farm was about as self-sufficient food wise as one would enjoy here in the USA.
Here you can see the coffee trees being shaded by the Banana trees and the large trunk in the background of a very tall Mango tree shading all the undergrowth, keeping the ground cool and the moisture in this soil. I loved the Sign that reads "Organic Power Plant," a broad-based double-meaning set of words. One cow's manure will fertilize 1,000 coffee trees per year and the urine tea provides nitrogen. No waste here. Plus, milk and cheese for the family. Organic Power Plant indeed!
Robusta coffee is processed using what is called "The Dry Method." The cherries put out in the sun to dry. Fredrick had some recent pickings drying on a plastic mat when we arrived and about another 25 pounds of ripe cherries ready for sun drying with the cherry pulp still on the cherry. You can see how they turn black when they dry. In this photo I am smelling the de-hulled and finished coffee that was taken from the paper bag next to the sack of cherries. The beans were clean and sweet smelling and foretold, I hope, a bright future in the cup.
When I congratulated the farmers on a job well done, Moses (the Community's political leader) and the farmers were happy campers. This is because last year, the sample brought back to me was dirty and moldy, so I rejected it and sent instructions for them to follow for the next harvest season. This time, I was there to buy their coffee if it was clean and smelled sweet. Robusta is not a coffee variety that is noted for its flavor but it is useful in many other ways (body in Espresso blends for one). I agreed to purchase the coffee and I became the coop's first international buyer.
In this photo, my associate and Board member of Thanksgiving Coffee who is an expert on coffee supply chain infrastructure (how to get it from there to here), was explaining something we found by pure luck. It was, as I explained to the farmers, perfect timing that we arrived to see a potential disaster averted. Nick was showing them the problem. On the mat in front of him, the black drying cherries had a white mold softly covering the skins. The cherries were allowed to dry too slowly. They were probably not covered at night and the dew promoted the mold growth.
But, as luck would have it, there was a fresher lot to the right on the same mat and it was mold free. The lessons were there to be drilled home. All it took was a smell test and everyone knew what was needed, especially when I told them that the moldy smell was just a smell, but could they imagine drinking a coffee that tasted moldy ? The batch was separated and the potential for the coop coffees improved...if word gets out to all the farmers in the Coop.
To be continued
-PaulA Trip to Africa (series archive)
Day 2 – Dancing, Mango Trees & the Dry Mill
Day 4 – Transparency, Trust & Relationships
Day 5 - Coffee Quality & A New Mystery
Day 6 – The Mystery Coffee’s Story
A Trip to Africa: Day 1 - Arriving In Uganda
read more -
Intro: I'm Going to Africa
On January 12, I depart my comfortable home on the North Coast of California to visit coffee Farmers and Cooperatives in Rwanda and Uganda. I haven’t visited them on their home turf for almost a decade. Over the last several years Ben Corey Moran, our former Director of Coffee, deepened our relationships with Cooperative leaders and farmers in Africa. It is my intention that this visit will strengthen those ties.
I’ll be traveling with Nicholas Hoskyns of Etico, an import/export company that has imported our Nicaraguan coffees for the past two years. In 2004 he accompanied me to Rwanda on a USAID consulting job to help The Cooperative Coffee Sector plan its “cupping lab” construction project for cooperatives. He has a vast knowledge of Cooperatives and their organizational structures.The trip’s focus will be on collaboration: How can our relationship improve quality of life for both coffee farmers and coffee roasters? I believe that quality of life and quality of coffee go hand in hand. There has to be opportunity for a better life in all parts of the coffee trading chain, from the farm to the cup. It is the farmers’ love of their trees that makes good coffee great. Back here in Ft. Bragg , California, it is our pride in what we create for the coffee lover that makes great coffee remain great.
There are some sticky issues that need attention, which have made this trip necessary. Primarily, about crop financing, shipment dates, and creating a system of transparency that demystifies the transfer of money from Thanksgiving Coffee to the individual farmers.
I want to have a first person experience in discovery and learning. And I want to share this 10 day adventure with you. I use the word “adventure” with a certain amount of respect for its broad application. I am not “going on an adventure,” but I know it will be an adventure. What I wish for is the most uneventful yet spiritual adventure. No ceremonial high points and no high fives or WOW’S! I’m hoping for a low key visit with a slow easy gait, and a smile on my face when I return home.
To be continued…
-PaulA Trip to Africa (series archive)
Day 2 – Dancing, Mango Trees & the Dry Mill
Day 4 – Transparency, Trust & Relationships
Day 5 - Coffee Quality & A New Mystery
Day 6 – The Mystery Coffee’s Story
Day 8 - Making the New Transparency Work
A Trip to Africa: Intro - I'm going to Africa
read more