18th
May
2012

How To Keep Your Coffee’s Character

Posted in Masterclasses, Science

Freshness is the key to coffee. Like bread, once roasted coffee is exposed to oxygen, it starts to slowly go stale, losing its flavour and aroma. So unless you like your coffee lifeless, cardboard-like and papery, do read on.

We do everything we can at Taylors to keep coffee fresh, including grinding beans straight into packs that are then flushed with nitrogen to drive out as much of the oxygen as possible. Each pack even has a special valve to keep the freshness in and oxygen out. But what happens once you’ve opened a pack?

Different people have different ideas on the best way to store coffee – and we’ve always advised that its best kept in an airtight container in the fridge or freezer. But, when we received a tweet from a customer who queried this advice, we decided to put it to the test.

Taking several packs of our best-selling Rich Italian from the same batch, we put the contents of one pack in a plastic airtight container, another in a caddy, and the other we simply sealed with tape. We did this three times, placing one set in a cool dark cupboard, one set in a fridge and another set in a freezer.

Two weeks later, our coffee buyers blind tasted the lot to compare their aroma and flavour with a freshly opened pack from the same batch. The difference was pretty startling.

All three that were stored in the cupboard were by far the flattest in flavour and had the weakest aroma. In fact, the poor aroma of the coffee grounds alone made it incredibly easy to pick them out before even tasting them. While the coffees stored in the fridge or freezer had kept more of their freshness and character, it was difficult to tell them apart. As expected, the unopened bag was the most characterful and freshest of all.

Two weeks later, after four weeks of storage, we tasted them again. The cupboard-stored batch were unsurprisingly all completely stale, but the coffees from the freezer were considerably fresher than the fridge-stored coffees, and the closest to the freshness of a newly opened fresh pack. The airtight plastic container also proved best for storing coffee in.

Finally, after a total of six weeks, we took the last set of packs out of the freezer and these were a little flat in aroma and taste.

In short then, our experts found that the best place to store coffee depends on how long a pack usually lasts you. If you are going to drink it within 2 weeks, the fridge or freezer are equally good. Any longer, and the freezer’s best. But whatever you do, always store coffee in an airtight container if possible – and never in a cupboard unless you have no choice.

Of course, for the fullest flavour, aroma and character of any coffee, we recommend you drink it as soon as possible after opening the bag. And with a coffee as delicious as Rich Italian, it’s unlikely to hang about for long.

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11th
May
2012

Hannah Hits The SCAA And Stumptown

Posted in Economics, Extra Curricular Activities, Geography

Every year, the big buzz in the coffee world is the Specialty Coffee Association of America (SCAA) symposium and exposition. This year it was in Portland, Oregon, which is a hugely significant centre for coffee, and our coffee buyer Hannah jetted off to attend on behalf of Taylors.

Almost 10,000 coffee producers, importers, exporters, roasters, baristas and cuppers descended upon the SCAA 2012 for a week of presentations, competitions, an exposition and networking events. It’s an intense few days but it gave Hannah the chance to catch up with some familiar faces and meet some new ones too.

Hannah was straight into things on the Wednesday at the symposium with important presentations on everything from strengthening supply chains and relationships to productivity, yieldsand the really hot topic of market volatility. Heavy stuff, but essential to keep Taylors ahead of the competition and able to secure the best coffee at a fair price. Thursday was an excellent day for networking after 400 fellow coffee aficionados enjoyed presentations focused on coffee shops and micro roasters.

Portland is an amazing city for coffee, so Hannah managed to grab an hour to visit the legendary Stumptown coffee shop. Like Taylors, Stumptown also roast their own coffee and Hannah ran their excellent coffees over her taste buds. The verdict? “I had a fantastic cup of Ethiopian Yirgacheffe – sweet, floral and very bright”.

Fully refreshed, Hannah spent Friday, Saturday and Sunday at the exposition in what we can only describe as the coffee world’s version of ‘speed dating’ meeting current and new suppliers – importers, exporters and producers. Nowhere else in the world can you meet such a high number of key coffee people in one hit.

It was all happening at SCAA 2012. Hannah tasted some sensational coffees, including the SCAA Coffees Of The Year. She also witnessed the US Coffee Tasting and Barista Championships and even managed to squeeze in a visit to a Portland coffee importer. It didn’t end there though. Hannah then took advantage of being stateside by heading down to Honduras… but that’s another story.

Photograph by cliff.chung

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4th
May
2012

Emily’s Back With News Of Our Projects

Posted in Agriculture, Economics, Emily's Overseas Training

I had an amazing time in Central America, but it is good to be back home, too. I hear I’ve managed to miss out on some serious April showers – I can’t believe there is talk of standpipes and drought warnings too!

Anyway, during my trip, I spent lots of time getting to know coffee growers, cupping some great coffee and learning tons about growing and processing coffee beans. While I was there, I also found time to visit some suppliers who received funds last year from Taylors for social, environmental or technical projects that they wanted to carry out on their farms or within their cooperatives.

At Finca Chanjul and Guadelupe in Chiapas, Mexico – who supply us with coffee for Decaffe – they had just taken delivery of four active carbon water filters. These will filter both river and rain water to provide clean drinking water for everyone on both farms, which can be up to 600 people during the harvest season. These will be installed in the next few months as part of their kitchen renovations, which will be finished in time for the next harvest later this year.

Cooperative Nuevo Sendero, who supply us with coffee for our Guatemala Cloud Forests, applied for funds needed to complete a primary school. They needed to buy windows and doors for the classrooms, put down proper concrete floors outside to make the school ready for the rainy season, and install a suspended ceiling in one of the classrooms to prevent it overheating in the summer. After they completed all of this work they even had some money left over, which they put towards building a small office for the teachers to work in. The school was looking lovely. All the classroom walls were decorated with bright and colourful displays and they had even put up decorations especially for our visit. The headmistress presented me with an award to say thank you, which is now on display in our tasting room in Harrogate. Every time I see it will bring back wonderful memories.

In Nicaragua, La Bastilla has a primary school, a secondary school and an agricultural high school for the children of families working and living on the farm as well as those of the neighbouring community of Las Colinas. They got in touch to tell us that, due to budget cuts at the Nicaraguan Ministry of Education, the salaries of their three secondary school teachers were no longer going to be funded by the government. That meant that the secondary school might have to close which would have been a huge loss to the community. So, between the two of us, Taylors and La Bastilla were able to pay the teachers’ salaries and keep the school open.

Although these are only small projects, it was really wonderful to see the difference that they make to our suppliers and their neighbouring communities, and how excited they were to show me what they had achieved and what their plans were for the future.

Out of everything I saw and did on my trip, I think these projects had to be the most rewarding, and it’s nice to know we’re bringing you coffee with a conscience. Anyway, it’s back to work for me, I’ve got a lot of catching up to do. Adiós amigos!

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27th
April
2012

Emily Meets Her Fairtrade Organic Makers

Posted in Agriculture, Emily's Overseas Training

Emily here again. Well, since I last reported in, I’d moved on from La Bastilla’s fantastic Eco-Lodge near Jinotega, Nicaragua and the scale of things changed noticeably.

Coming from the big estates to small-holder co-operatives was quite a contrast, from hundreds of hectares to just a handful. I’d been looking forward to meeting Ervin, the manager of Coomprocom in Matagalpa, as I had heard so much about this co-operative that supplies us with coffee for our Limited Edition Fairtrade Organic Nicaraguan Matagalpa Mountains.

Taylors has been buying coffee from Coomprocom – a Fairtrade and organic certified farmers’ co-operative – since the late nineties and we have developed a very close mutually beneficial relationship with them over the years.

We spent the first part of the day discussing the history of the relationship, and Ervin took the time to explain to me the big differences between conventional and organic production. An impressive 70% of Coomprocom’s members are certified as organic and Ervin revealed how most of those farmers had hardly any changes to make to their traditional farming methods to achieve their organic certificates. That’s one of the benefits of always having done things simple and naturally.

Later in the day Ervin showed me precisely what he meant when we visited the farm of one of the members who showed me their coffee trees and explained how they have never used expensive chemical sprays or fertilisers. They rely instead upon manure from their animals, composted fruit from the coffee cherries, and a special mix of milk and molasses that they ferment for 20 days – and yes, it does smell as disgusting as it sounds!

That afternoon, during a blind cupping of loads of different coffees from Matagalpa, I was genuinely delighted when I selected a lot from Coomprocom as one of my favourites. It had the perfect balance of sweetness and acidity which creates a lovely juicy character, and a delicious nutty flavour providing the complexity which makes it just right for drinking cup after cup, all day long.

In my final blog entry next week, I’ll be saying goodbye to Central America and coming home, but not before I’ve brought you news of some projects part-funded by Taylors in Guatemala and Mexico that are making a real difference to people’s lives.

Hasta la próxima semana!

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21st
April
2012

Emily In Nicaragua: New Places, Familiar Faces

Posted in Agriculture, Emily's Overseas Training, Geography

A lot has happened since my past blog entry – it’s been non-stop ¬– but I’ll start where I left off. Well, after my short time in Guatemala, I arrived in Managua, Nicaragua and took the long drive up into the mountains to Matagalpa. Here, I spent a few days with Bencafe who run a dry mill in Sebaco. I learnt all about the processing and export of some of the Rainforest Alliance coffees that go into many of our blends like Lazy Sunday and Rich Italian. Later in the week I moved on to Jinotega to spend a few days visiting the farms where some of this coffee is grown between Lake Apanas and the stunning Cerro Datanli El Diablo national reserve.

All these Rainforest Alliance certified farms were absolutely beautiful. Each had hundreds of hectares of coffee growing in the shade of native tree species including the guava tree with its distinctive white bark standing out against the rich dark green of the coffee trees. At least half of the land of these farms is protected forest, which is left completely untouched. Coupled with the mountainous landscapes, this makes for some incredibly dramatic scenery.

I was even fortunate enough to see some familiar faces on this leg of my trip. I was delighted to have paid a visit to La Bastilla which, if you’re a regular follower of this blog, you may remember is managed by Markus Fischer who came to visit Taylors earlier this year. I also got to catch up with Ricardo Rosales and Isidro Leon-York, last year’s Suppliers Of The Year, when I visited their farms, Jesus Maria and La Colonia. They were really eager and proud to show me around their coffee plantations and explain all of the work going on right now.

You see, even though the harvest is over, it doesn’t mean this is a quiet time on a coffee farm. Quite the contrary, in fact. The trees have to be pruned, the ground cleared, and any remaining cherries have to be collected to prevent the spread of ‘Broca’, an insect that bores into coffee beans. All of this has to be completed before the rains start at the end of April. As they only finished the harvest at the end of March they’ve certainly got their work cut out. On top of that, the wet mill, which has been in operation throughout the busy harvest season processing all the coffee cherries, has to be completely dismantled for maintenance and repair and re-assembled. The work never stops.

While I was visiting La Bastilla I was lucky enough to be able to stay at their Eco-Lodge on the plantation. I’d heard a lot about the place before my trip and was excited to be experiencing living there. The Eco-Lodge is run by the technical college at La Bastilla where high school students study for their diploma. They also learn about business, agriculture and tourism and by running small businesses themselves, this will mean that the school will eventually become self-sustaining. Along with managing the Eco-Lodge, they rear chickens and cows and grow vegetables, which they sell in nearby Jinotega. My room had a fantastic view out between the mountains and over Lake Apanas. As the sun went down I could hear howler monkeys in the distance – it really was quite a magical place.

That’s it for now, I’m on the move again. I’ll be spending the next few days in and around Jinotega and Matagalpa visiting even more farms as well as some Fairtrade Co-operatives. I’ll keep you posted on my progress. Hasta luego!

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13th
April
2012

Meet Simon, our new Sustainability Manager

Posted in Agriculture, Economics

We’d like to introduce you to Simon Hotchkin, our new Sustainability Manager. His role, at the heart of our Commodities Team, is to ensure that we not only continue to be fair to our coffee suppliers and kind to the environment, but also to find ways we can improve further still, right across the business.

Simon is a family man and Yorkshire through and through. Born in sunny Scarborough on the North Yorkshire coast, Simon spent most of his childhood around Beverley and now lives in Wetherby, just down the road from Harrogate. Simon met his wife at University and has three lovely kids.

After a brief stint buying heart valves and pacemakers for the NHS, Simon got a taste for purchasing of a different kind and trained to be a coffee buyer at another UK coffee importer. In his 14 years there, he spent time in operations, manufacturing and new product design before finally spending his last four years there dedicated to sustainability.

Simon has managed to amass experience right across the business of coffee importing and blending. That’s unusual, but Simon is rather unusual. For example, he’s a bit of an iron man as he swam for Yorkshire, last year started open water swimming (he’s entered the Great North Swim in Windermere this year) and is a keen road and mountain biker. He’s also the only person we know who was in a team that space-hoppered the entire Pennine Way… all 260-odd miles of it. So what is Simon looking forward to in his new job?

“I’m really proud to be working for the premier UK coffee brand. It’s all about quality here. My main challenge is to not only carry on with the ethical work Taylors already does, such as developing sustainable sourcing policies with our suppliers, but also to balance that with social and environmental responsibility right through the supply chain. Sustainability through everything we do.”

Simon also mentioned that his other challenge is to not put weight on, as there are some rather tempting and sticky accompaniments to his cup of coffee in the staff canteen at the factory. The cycling and swimming should offset that.

Whilst not exactly offsetting, Simon adds “Here in Harrogate, we already make big efforts to reduce the amount of packaging, our carbon footprint and energy consumption. I’m going to look at every aspect of what we do to see if I can reduce it still further.”

But it’s not all about reducing our impact here, tremendous care and effort goes into ensuring we trade fairly and respectfully with our coffee growers abroad. That’s why it’s essential that our buyers, and Simon, travel the world meeting growers at their farms and cooperatives. This enables us to get a better understanding of their coffee, forge meaningful, sustainable long-term partnerships and also secure the best quality coffee for our blends. By paying a premium for quality coffee, our suppliers gain stability and the means to improve living conditions in their communities and meet independent environmental standards. We’re very proud of our collaboration with independent certifying bodies like Rainforest Alliance, Fairtrade and UTZ CERTIFIED and we’ve seen first hand how it has made a real difference. In fact, all of the coffee we buy now comes from independently certified farms and cooperatives.

Simon adds: “I’m really excited about meeting our coffee growers. I’m fairly well travelled in Africa, India and Sri Lanka, so I’m looking forward to discovering Central and South America. In particular, I’m looking forward to launching a couple of exciting new projects which hopefully will be as effective as our Yorkshire Rainforest Project which is our ambitious mission to save an area of rainforest the size of Yorkshire.”

At that point we had to cut Simon off and swear him to secrecy, but we’ll be announcing details of our new projects soon. Good luck in your new job Simon – we’re really looking forward to you making a difference. If you would like to give Simon a message of good luck, do feel free to leave one below.

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5th
April
2012

Emily’s Guatemalan Eco-Wormery

Posted in Emily's Overseas Training, Geography, Science

Me again. A lot has been happening at my end. The weather has been incredible over here but I believe I missed a mini-heatwave back in Yorkshire. Typical.

Anyway, I’ve just finished my first week in Mexico visiting three Rainforest Alliance certified farms in Chiapas in the south of Mexico. I hopped on the overnight bus from the border town of Tapachula to Guatemala City where I spent three days with Fedecocagua – an association of cooperative farmers in Guatemala.

I was really interested in seeing their dry mill in action, just outside Guatemala City. This is where they receive ‘parchment’ coffee from their producers from all over Guatemala. In this single dry mill, they mill around 23,000 tonnes of coffee each year. As the harvest had just finished in Guatemala, all of the warehouses are full to the brim with parchment coffee awaiting milling. Once the protective parchment casing is removed from the coffee, the green beans are sorted first by density where any of the light and damaged beans are removed, then by colour to remove any black or sour beans or beans with blemishes. Finally the beans are sorted by hand before being packed into 69 kilo sacks ready for export.

I was lucky enough to also visit Anacafé the Guatemalan coffee export association. They control all the area’s coffee exports – around 3.65 million bags of coffee each year. As well as issuing export licences they also have a team of expert cuppers who taste a sample of every coffee leaving Guatemala to ensure that it reaches the required export quality. Among many other things, Anacafé is also responsible for marketing Guatemalan coffees around the world. Guatemala is famous for a really diverse range of flavours of its coffees. While I was there, I learned how they have identified eight different coffee producing regions and defined the unique flavour characteristics for each one – from a winely-fruity Highland Huehue to a delicate, floral Volcanic San Marcos.

On my last day in Guatemala I headed out of the city to visit the Nuevo Sendero co-operative from which we source Fairtrade coffee for our Guatemala Cloud Forests. They took me to see their wet mill where all the farmers deliver their coffee cherry. Here I was shown all the different stages of sorting and processing and drying of coffee as well as some clever modifications they had made to the process to make it more efficient. I was then taken to see their wormery. Don’t worry, they use the worms to break down the waste coffee pulp and turn it into rich compost for the farmers to use for their coffee plants. Very simple and really eco-friendly.

My time in Guatemala was over all too quickly. I made many friends there and discovered many things that I think make a real difference to the coffee they produce, the environment and the local people.

So it’s off to the airport now. Adiós Nuevo Sendero and Fedecocoagua – hola Nicaragua!

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22nd
March
2012

Emily’s Off Again!

Posted in Emily's Overseas Training, Geography, Science

Finca Guadelupe

Regular readers of this blog might remember that, as a trainee coffee buyer, I had my first bit of overseas training in Africa last year – well now I’m on the road again, this time with a trip to Central America.

I arrived in Cordoba, Mexico on Monday and spent my first couple of days with Descamex – the people who decaffeinate our coffee for Decaffé. I was shown around the decaff plant to see the process in action, the labs where all the tests are carried out on the coffee pre-and post- decaff, and the cupping labs where samples of all the coffees are cupped by expert tasters.

We send Descamex the arabica coffees we source from farms in Mexico and Brazil. As they unload each container they take samples for analysis. Detailed reports are then produced for each coffee, containing info on the exact composition of the beans, including of course how much caffeine they contain. The amount of time the coffee needs to spend in the extraction process depends on the original caffeine level in the beans so great care must be taken at this stage to ensure the coffee is properly processed.

Once the analysis is complete and the production team have received the details of the extraction time the coffee enters the first stage of production where the cell structure of the bean is softened – this helps speed up extraction of the caffeine. Then it goes into the extractor. Here it’s immersed in water that contains all of the soluble elements of the bean except caffeine. The caffeine is gently removed from the bean as the imbalance of caffeine between the bean and the solution draws it out. In order for the caffeine levels not to reach equilibrium the solution is kept in constant flow through the extractor and the caffeine filtered out before it enters the cycle again.

Once the extraction is finished the coffee is moved to the driers where it slowly returns to its original condition. After this, tests are carried out on the beans to ensure that the caffeine has been removed. Then the coffee is packed, loaded into a container and shipped to the UK via the port at Veracruz on Mexico’s Atlantic coast.

From Descamex, I went on to visit the port at Veracruz (which is a lot warmer than our UK port at Teesport!) and then down to Chiapas, on the border with Guatemala, to visit the beautiful farms – or ‘Fincas’ in Spanish – that supply us with some of the coffee for Decaffé.

Next week I’ll be travelling to Guatemala to visit the cooperative that supplies us with coffee for our gourmet Guatemala Cloud Forests.

¡Hasta luego!

1Comments
16th
March
2012

The Life of a Coffee Bean: Part 3

Posted in Economics, Geography, The Life of a Coffee Bean

Freshly roasted coffee beans

Just before Fairtrade Fortnight, we left our Kenyan arabica coffee bean after it had just been sold under the hammer at an auction house in Nairobi. Bidding was frantic and a coffee exporter bought our bean along with another 19 tonnes of others that were then packed into hessian sacks and stuffed into a 20 foot container to be loaded onto a ship at Mombasa bound for the UK.

From Mombasa, our beans are shipped to Salalah in Oman. Here they are loaded onto a larger ‘mother’ ship – the length of four football pitches – that transports our bean to Rotterdam via the Gulf of Aden and the Suez Canal. There our container is loaded onto a smaller feeder vessel and shipped across the North Sea. The whole trip from Mombasa to Britain takes around 37 days, on average.

The captain of the ship sails into Teesport – one of the UK’s three largest ports on the coast, a few miles from Middlesbrough. This incredibly busy deep water port handles over 6,000 ships and 235,000 containers carrying over 35 million tonnes of cargo a year. Teesport is where we have a storage facility for our arabica and robusta coffee beans which come from Africa, the Caribbean, India, Indonesia and Central and South America. A few years ago, all our coffee used to arrive at southern ports such as Felixstowe and Tilbury, 250 miles away from Harrogate. By switching docking north to Teesport, we save around 100,000 road miles a year and can manage the flow of coffee to our factory more efficiently.

The very day our container lands, a sample of the coffee (containing our Arabica coffee bean) is whisked off on its 55-mile journey to our coffee buying team at our factory in Harrogate, North Yorkshire. Here, a moisture reading is taken of our green beans, their appearance and colour are checked and we also roast and ‘cup’ (or taste) the coffee The coffee buyers compare it to the sample the exporter sent from Nairobi before it was shipped. If it has travelled well from Kenya, meets all our exacting quality terms on the contract and matches the pre-shipment sample, it’s finally made it.

What defines a great Kenyan bean is its bright citric acidity, liveliness and notes of honey and blackcurrant. If it’s got all these wonderful characteristics, it’s got what it takes to go into a pack of Taylors coffee.

So the next time you’re in a supermarket and putting one of our packs of coffee into your bag, be gentle. The coffee inside has been through an incredible journey just to make you a gorgeously rich cup of coffee. We’d be interested to know which Taylors coffee you’d travel to the ends of the earth for. Feel free to leave a comment below.

6 Comments
8th
March
2012

Trading With Respect

Posted in Economics

It’s Fairtrade Fortnight, but at Taylors of Harrogate, we’ve actually been treating our coffee growers and workers fairly for years. We respect our growers and pay them a premium for their coffee beans and also make grants to help them make improvements that can change workers’ lives and communities. Play the film below to see what we’ve been doing to help in Latin America.

All Taylors coffees are from independently certified farms and co-operatives. But if you’d like to join in with the Take A Step With Fairtrade campaign, you can start by buying our Fairtrade Organic and Gourmet Colombia High Andes, Guatemala Cloud Forests and Brazil Rio Valleys coffees. We’d love to know which is your favourite, so please do leave your tasting notes below.

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