It’s unbelievable, but we already find ourselves in May of 2021 and our first shipments of the year are quickly coming together. Through part of March and all of April we’ve been sending offer samples to our roasting partners and locking in lots between them and producers. To our surprise, the first few shipments had filled up pretty rapidly and that requires us to shift our focus a bit more towards preparing for export. It’s our job to communicate to farmers that their coffees have been committed to and that it’s time to dry mill their parchment. We ask where they are planning to dry mill their coffees, tell them when they need to have the coffee ready for us, and make them aware of the details of our preparation standards.
An often overlooked turning point in coffee’s life cycle is preparing parchment for export. All the extraordinary effort that goes into growing, collecting, processing, and drying the crop all comes to the moment of peeling and sorting. In Costa Rica, it has become customary that the producer is responsible for dry milling their coffee and delivering it ready for export - there are a few important reasons why and we will get into that more in the future. So you can imagine, that it is not their favorite part of the process - as it usually leads to a loss in yield and strict standards. There is also a shortage of dry milling capacity during what’s usually a rush to get the entire country’s crop exported in a timely manner. There is an immense cost to having a dry mill and most farmers rely on the main one in Cartago, Tesoros del Cafe, or a handful of producers in their area that have managed to acquire the equipment and space to have their own. There are so few options that we are familiar with every dry mill there is in Costa Rica - which helps when we ask farmers where they will be preparing their crop.
Since we function within the specialty coffee spectrum we must uphold extremely strict standards when it comes to sorting the coffee for export - SCA’s European Preparation. This requires near perfection in first qualities and we try to convey to the producers that this is partly why they are getting paid top dollar for their coffee. However, every year there seems to be a common theme or ubiquitous challenge when it comes to yield and defects. This harvest, it appears that partial black beans or as it is referred to here as “manchado” or “chasparia”. This seed is classified as a secondary defect. So, there needs to be 3 partial black beans in a 350 gram sample to equal 1 full secondary defect. If there are no other major issues with a lot that means you can only have 15 partial blacks in a 350 gram sample. This year, many samples are coming with 20-30 partial blacks along with the typical broken or insect damaged bean. Since this has become such a problem this harvest we have decided to be a little more flexible on partial blacks this time - allowing about 18 or so to pass. In many instances producers are having to pass their coffee through sorting machines multiple times, which is quite normal, but now yields are down 30-40 percent where they used to be 10-20.
There are a few schools of thought as to what is the cause of these frustrating partial black beans. The most popular idea of the cause is a disease or fungus that we call Antracnosis (Canker). It’s a pesky fungus that causes the tree to basically rot in certain areas of the plant. While we do see this disease out in the field - we don’t feel that we have seen it quite enough to cause all these grains. Another possibility is due to the labor difficulty this year and some folks think that this partial black comes from over ripe fruit. Because there wasn't enough labor (let alone skilled at coffee picking), many cherries over-ripened on the tree, but were still picked resulting in a partial black. Finally, another thought was that there was unusual heavy rains right before the harvest in November due to hurricanes Eta and Lota. This could have potential washed away certain elements that are needed during cherry maturation, Zinc, Borron, and Phosphorus. This excess rain fall could also have just cause the fungus known as Antracnosis to form freely.
The solution to this issue is usually another pass or two through the electronic color selector. The machine is set to indicate grains with black spots on them and a burst of air kicks those beans out of the lot. Passing coffees through sorting equipment multiple times is totally normal, but obviously not all producers are happy to do it. Each lot is different for a barrage of reasons and some coffees need more passes through the equipment than others. Our missions is to teach farmers how to evaluate their pre-shipment samples while they are at the dry mill so that they can run it through again if they need to right then and there; rather than having to transport their coffees back and forth multiple times.
Now, while we don’t require that farmers dry mill their coffee at the main dry mill, Tesoros del Cafe, we do nearly always ask for our coffees to be delivered there to be loaded onto containers. Since most farmers must travel a couple of hours to transport their coffees there - we ask to see their pre-shipment samples prior to delivering the coffee. So, producers bring their ready-to-export samples to us in the lab and we analyze them. Often, we encounter some kind of issue with the sample and must work with the producer to solve it. Sometimes, we are met with resistance as re-working coffee requires more effort, expenses, and loss in yield. Once any issues are finally resolved, the sample is good, and the coffee is delivered to Tesoros - we take yet another sample to make sure that the right coffee is there. Finally, we make the official approval and start loading containers to be shipped to their destinations.