Cupping coffee

August 9, 2013

A few weeks ago, I wrote about Haitian coffee and where to get it in the United States.  At that time, I rather brashly suggested a taste-test and promised that one would be forthcoming.  So for those of you who have been waiting for me to do that, you may at this point be suspecting that I have been stalling.  In that assumption, you would be correct.

Let me tell you about taste-testing coffee.  First of all, isn’t a taste test, it is a “cupping.”  And it’s fairly complicated, no less so than wine-tasting.  There are protocols to be observed, such as evaluating the aroma of freshly ground beans, and then dampening a precisely measured amount of grounds in a precisely measured amount of water heated to a degree that must be consistent from cup to cup and, yes, precise.  Furthermore, to achieve a reasonable level of accuracy you would do this three times for each type of coffee that you cup. See for yourself, bearing in mind that it is only a ROUGH procedural guide.  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z5vz7sxlkQI Lord knows what the serious cuppers do!

Then there is the lingo.  I listened to some reviews of other coffees and the reviews included phrases like, “raspberry notes, “and “jasmine overtones, with a long, hazelnut finish.” While I was doing my level best to be attentive to taste and smell as I sampled the coffees separately over a week of breakfasts, I kept coming up with “herbal,” “smoky” and “oaken,” which lead me to the following observation about myself:  I write for a living, but I don’t taste for a living. My vocabulary is fairly sophisticated, my palate is not.  This then begged the question, “Should I be doing this???”

I believe the answer is no, to tell the truth.  So this is what I’m going to do.  I will tell you that, after sampling, Rebo’s “Melange Gourmet,” La Colombe’s “Mare Blanche” and “Lyon” and Just Haiti’s “Kafe Solidarite,” on successive mornings, the latter, Just Haiti’s “Kafe Solidarite” is what I have been drinking ever since.  It is smooth, not bitter, and I like it. Plus, they are a small fair trade company and they stuck a “Freshly Roasted Coffee for Linda” label on the package.  Nice!  So if you want some “Kafe Solidarite” freshly roasted for YOU, here’s where you can get it:  http://justhaiti.org/

Bottoms up!

Contributed by Linda for Beyond Borders/It’s Cactus

Starting the day with coffee from Haiti

June 17, 2013

Taking care of the coffee crop. Haitian Farmer One-of-a-Kind Sculpture ID# HT1516

As my family will attest, coffee starts my day.  I need it – they need me to have it.  The day just goes better if I’ve paddled out to the kitchen in my jammies and headed straightaway to the stove to make and subsequently drink a cuppa Joe.  Yes, I still do this the old-fashioned way.  No high-tech Keurig for me, though I do admit it has its appeal and my eye has strayed from time to time. I make my coffee in a French press.  No muss, no fuss, I can do it in my sleep and in fact, that’s probably the way it happens most of the time.  So the last time I was in Haiti, I left with a few vacuum-sealed packages of local Rebo  Deluxe Coffee in my carry-on bag.  Good souvenir, I thought with a fair amount of satisfaction.  No chance of languishing in obscurity on some dark shelf.  I would drink and enjoy it to the last drop.

And now, I am out, which of course made me think about getting some more.  So where does one buy Haitian coffee in the US?

Once upon a time, Haitian coffee was plentiful worldwide.  During the French Colonial period, Haiti was the second largest coffee producing country on the planet and it was in the top three until as late as 1949. Dictators and trade embargoes did the coffee planters no favors and in fact, coffee production nearly died out entirely by the late 1980’s. Verdant acres of coffee trees were abandoned on the mountainsides, left to grow wild or die trying.

Fast-forward to post-quake Haiti and there has been renewed interest in reviving coffee production as a means of re-building the agricultural sector.  The Rebo company is in the process of expanding its export market, primarily to Haitians of the Diaspora, while at least a handful of importers are buying coffee from  Haitian farmers and co-ops under Fair Trade/Direct Trade agreements for roasting and selling in the US and Canada.  Haitian coffee is thus available to me, right here, right now – I can buy it online!

Ready to brew!

Thus, I shall order up.  From www.kafepanou.com I will get a bag of Rebo “Gourmet,” which is an arabica typica varietal.  From www.lacolombe.com I will get “Mare Blanche,” also arabica typica.  And from  www.williams-sonoma.com I COULD order “Lyon,” but it is cheaper to order it from La Colombe, since THEY sell it to Williams-Sonoma, OR just run up the street to W-S and pick it up myself, which I will do and at least save the shipping. “Lyon” is a blend of Peruvian, Brazilian, and Ethiopian, coffee beans along with Haitian blue forest semi-wild, heirloom beans.  And a portion of my purchase of “Lyon” goes to the Leonardo DiCaprio Foundation, which is an environmental preservation organization, so isn’t that nice? I’m gonna stop writing now and go buy some coffee.  Shall we have a tasting?  Oh, I think so!

To be continued…

Contributed by Linda for Beyond Borders/It’s Cactus