Excuse my slack behavior, but it's been a couple of those weeks where my job for once resembled what people think it is like. I've been in Honduras, and it's been raining a lot, so my excuse number two within the first few lines of this post is: my digital camera wouldn't have lived to tell you about the rain - it's literally been a very good hike in the rain to every farm visited, so few pictures, but many good experiences.
In 2011, we bought coffees from six different producers in the region of Santa Barbara: from the micro regions El Cielito, El Cedral, Las Flores and El Sauce. We started the year back in here to talk business and see what changes they made to production since last year. If there is one place I personally feel at home, it is here, with these producers. Since 2007 I have visited many times, and I now know the area well - with it's windy dirt roads, steep coffee farms and plethora of micro climates.
One of the things we started talking to producers about last year was their picking and processing of coffee - most people here have been in coffee for generations, but mainly producing commodity grade. The amount of work it is to pick only ripe cherry compared to strip picking, is difficult to execute, "but possible" - the conclusion to all conversations we have here. Natividad Benitez, producer of the coffee we call El Ocotillo, is one of the exemplary producers we work with here. Regardless of origin - he is doing a really good job with the picking: Ripe cherry in every basket, and a very good density sorting during the wet processing of the coffee, makes his coffee in particular clean and sweet. A lot of details needs to be in place to produce a good cup of coffee. Expect many more goodies from the region of Santa Barbara this upcoming crop - they just started picking this past week, and perhaps needless to say: we have high expectations to the arrivals of these coffees.
-Mie