Coffee Samples From Thailand Arrived.....
These samples are connected with a little story. In 2000 my wife Jody and I did a 5+ month mission with YWAM. During our outreach in Northern Tailand we met Gampon and Mirjam and their wonderful daughter Hannah. Our team was lead by Gampon to a hill tribe village in the Northwest part of Thailand.
It took our team about 8 hours of climbing and fording small rivers to reach this hill tribe that consisted of 14 families that lived in small stilt huts. It was a real National Geographic experience. Our mission was to dig two aquaculture ponds. These ponds would be stocked with fast growing Tilapia fish as a source of protein. These people burn their forest every night to make hunting easier. Our hope was, that ponds full of fish would help preserve their forests.
Last fall, Gampon and Mirjam came to Oregon for a visit and shared with me that the Thai Government was experimenting with growing Arabica coffee. Their hope was if the coffee was good, there would be an unlimited amount of land for the hill tribes to cultivate coffee and provide them with a good souce of income. The first thing I was concerned about was the altidude because the highest mountain range in the area is approximately 2500-3000 feet in elevation. Most of the coffee would be grown in the 1500 foot range. I simply said if you can get some of the Arabica coffee the government has processed, I could cup it and let them know if it was good enough to compete in the specialty coffee marketplace. Cupping an existing product from that area now is much easier ecomomically than planting a whole mountain range and finding out there's no market for it.
I was sent two green samples. I roasted them and was very disappointed. My hope was they would be good so I could help my friends! The beans were very small but uniform. During roasting there was little to no aroma. After grinding, the same, little to no aroma. The cup itself was flat. I mean flatter than a pancake, with almost no taste, just bitterness that lingered. I repeated the whole process. It turned out the same.
Why? I believe that the poor quality of this coffee was due to the lack of altitude in that piece of geography. Arabica coffee needs a minimum of 6000 feet for the beans to get hard with caramel. This hardness is where the flavor is. The harder the beans the more caramel comes through in the roast. Also the higher the elevation, the harder the coffee beans are! Hence more caramel.
This story is more about people than anything else. When you love someone you want to help. We will just have to find another way besides growing Arabica coffee.
It took our team about 8 hours of climbing and fording small rivers to reach this hill tribe that consisted of 14 families that lived in small stilt huts. It was a real National Geographic experience. Our mission was to dig two aquaculture ponds. These ponds would be stocked with fast growing Tilapia fish as a source of protein. These people burn their forest every night to make hunting easier. Our hope was, that ponds full of fish would help preserve their forests.
Last fall, Gampon and Mirjam came to Oregon for a visit and shared with me that the Thai Government was experimenting with growing Arabica coffee. Their hope was if the coffee was good, there would be an unlimited amount of land for the hill tribes to cultivate coffee and provide them with a good souce of income. The first thing I was concerned about was the altidude because the highest mountain range in the area is approximately 2500-3000 feet in elevation. Most of the coffee would be grown in the 1500 foot range. I simply said if you can get some of the Arabica coffee the government has processed, I could cup it and let them know if it was good enough to compete in the specialty coffee marketplace. Cupping an existing product from that area now is much easier ecomomically than planting a whole mountain range and finding out there's no market for it.
I was sent two green samples. I roasted them and was very disappointed. My hope was they would be good so I could help my friends! The beans were very small but uniform. During roasting there was little to no aroma. After grinding, the same, little to no aroma. The cup itself was flat. I mean flatter than a pancake, with almost no taste, just bitterness that lingered. I repeated the whole process. It turned out the same.
Why? I believe that the poor quality of this coffee was due to the lack of altitude in that piece of geography. Arabica coffee needs a minimum of 6000 feet for the beans to get hard with caramel. This hardness is where the flavor is. The harder the beans the more caramel comes through in the roast. Also the higher the elevation, the harder the coffee beans are! Hence more caramel.
This story is more about people than anything else. When you love someone you want to help. We will just have to find another way besides growing Arabica coffee.