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A decade ago, if you mentioned fine coffees from east Africa, the countries of Kenya and Ethiopia may have been the only countries that coffee drinkers would have thought of. These two countries, for years, have had systems in place to discover the finest of their coffees produced each year and promote them to the market place.
But over the last ten years there have been some amazing developments going on in several other east African countries that are giving Kenya and Ethiopia a run for their money. These large-scale aggressive projects have united the efforts of members of the entire coffee supply chain and have redefined "specialty coffee" to include much more than a bean size and a defect count.
The most successful of these efforts have been in Rwanda where projects have dramatically improved the overall quality of the coffee coming out of the country as well as raising the average price per pound received by producers. The ongoing projects in Rwanda have also succeeded in capturing the attention of neighboring countries such as Burundi, Uganda and Tanzania.
The hope in these countries is that by following the outline of the changes in Rwanda, these countries will also see a successful emergence, or in some a re-emergence into the quickly changing landscape that is specialty coffee. But knowing where to start can be a tough decision and can uncover daunting tasks.
In Burundi, some of the people that were at the heart of the reconstruction of the Rwanda coffee sector have begun the long process of discovering a product and building a brand for the coffee of Burundi. This difficult tandem development of quality and marketing is the crucial double-edged approach that is required to make large impacts in a relatively short timeframe.
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This tandem development also means coordinating the cooperative efforts of an unusually large cross section of professionals both from inside the coffee industry and from outside. The development of a strong specialty coffee sector in a country depends on the unified advancements in the major areas of farming practices, milling, cupping and grading, traceability, transport and finally marketing.
Farming Initiatives
The area that requires the least monetary and equipment investments to get an upward push in quality is at the farm level. The harvesting of ripe cherries will create immediate dividends in quality as well as yield for the producer.
Taking steps to improve harvesting and pruning techniques at the farm level may at first seem simple, but that couldn't be further from the truth. Offering suggestions for improvements, even when coming from an agronomist, can be difficult when at times you are going against family tradition of how things are done.
The momentum for farm-based initiatives comes from promoting the successes of farmers who do follow the prescribed changes to those that are skeptical. It also requires a good trainer system.
A good example of this has been the Kanyovu Cooperative in Tanzania. This cooperative has over 5,000 members, making it impossible for outside agronomy consultants to reach every farmer. With assistance from the importers and buyers, this cooperative now utilizes a core team of full time, locally trained agronomists that make daily visits to farms as well as conducting group trainings.
This method of information dissemination has proven successful for them, and now it is being coupled with incentives for delivery of ripe cherries at the washing stations. This year the cooperative has teamed up with Sustainable Harvest, a Portland based importer, to reward the farms that deliver the highest ratio of ripe cherries with additional fertilizer inputs for next years crop.
Each farmer has their cherries weighed upon arrival to the washing station, then sorts out over and under-ripe cherries and re-weighs. At the end of the harvest the farmer with the smallest difference between the pre-sort and post-sort weights will reap the benefit of having a larger crop next year due to the additional fertilizers awarded.
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Redefining a Good Cup
Creative solutions like this can help to quickly improve the overall quality of the coffee, but defining that quality requires trained cuppers. The new age of specialty cupping is being elevated to a respected profession, especially at source.
On a recent trip to Burundi I was able to meet with cuppers, some of whom have been cupping for over 15 years. These cuppers are now being asked to change the way they approach cupping. In the past these cuppers, or liquorers as they are called there, have been asked to group coffees into below grade, commercial and specialty, based primarily on the number of defects found in the coffee.
With the latest trends in the industry, these cuppers are now being trained on scoring coffees according to SCAA scoring practices that requires analyzing the cup quality based on the sensorial qualities of the coffee.
Green coffee buyers from around the world have played a key role in many developing countries to establish an understanding of what flavor aspects the market desires. The Coffee Quality Institute has also been a major factor in transitioning cupper from what could be called C-graders (commodity graders) to certified Q graders.
Tracking the Great Coffees
The cog that holds this entire process in place is traceability. The traceability and tracking of the coffee from the farm, through the mill, in conjunction with the cup scores of the coffee is what gives the roaster the ability to market these coffees in a relevant manor.
It is also a key ingredient that the ability of the farmer and the mill make an impact on the quality of the coffee they produce in the future. If you have well-trained cuppers in country that are grading each coffee, it is important that they pass information regarding both successes and failures for individual lots of coffee back up to the supply chain.
Knowing what success looks like, or in this case tastes like, dramatically increases the chances of repeating the processes needed to produce an amazing coffee.
A non-biased coffee board or association best manages this traceability of the coffee. In the case of Burundi, OCIBU, the Coffee Board of Tanzania, is quickly implementing the necessary systems for tracing coffees through their grading facilities.
The challenges of traceability usually lie not with tracking the lot to the washing station, but beyond that to the farm or farms that grew that coffee. Traceability to the farms is key to proper compensation for outstanding coffee as well as the marketing of the coffee.
Getting the Word Out
There are two different levels of marketing for a producing country, individual and collective. Individual marketing means finding the success stories of particular farms and coupling them with a buyer in consuming countries.
This connection helps to create a pseudo relationship between the person drinking the cup of coffee and the farmer on the other side of the world in the same fashion that Jaun Valdez gave consumers a connection with the coffees of Colombia.
The successful marketing of individuals from within the country lays the foundation for a grass roots approach to the marketing of coffees from a particular country as a collective.
This has been very evident in the success of Rwanda, as the stories of individual farmers overcoming hardship combined with the clear rise across the board in the quality of the coffees coming out of that country have played a large roll in bringing Rwanda to the front of mind for coffee drinkers.
The opportunity for producing countries to work with such a large spectrum of groups in recent years has been truly unique. It is rare to find professionals in roasting, importing, agronomy, as well as non-profit organizations, government agencies and universities working together to promote the success of an agricultural product.
These successful ongoing strategies in Rwanda have laid the blueprint for success that will surely be followed by Burundi, Uganda and Tanzania in the coming years.
Phil Beattie, Roast Master for Dillanos Coffee Roasters, Sumner, Washington, is an active member of the Roasters Guild; a regular contributing writer in specialty coffee magazines; a Cup of Excellence Judge; and cupping instructor at all North American Coffee Fests. He is also a member of the Tea & Coffee Editorial Advisory Board.
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