Catch up on the latest developments of La Armonia Hermosa

Catching the Vision

Mon, 8 Feb 2010 13:26:17 -0500

Picking is in full force this week. 1000’s of pounds of fruit have been arriving at Julio’s house for weighing and transport to one of a few different places for processing and drying. It has been a whirlwind of a season. My (Les) time here in Santa Maria has flown by way too quickly but my two gringo compatriots, Jamie and Phil, and I have been part of a great season in the life of the coffee project here. As the picture shows we have lots of new farmers participating and catching the vision for working cooperatively to better themselves and their community. Progress has been made on many fronts. With new farmer involvement we are closer to having at least 20 farmers adopt the acts of their association and officially form as a cooperative. We also have ironed out the plans for building their own beneficio, processing mill, in Santa Maria. This has been our biggest hurdle in the past with only 25% of the exported coffee being able to be processed in Santa Maria. Having the beneficio will allow more money to stay in the community, give more control to the quality of the coffee and increase the quantity of coffee being sold directly by the farmers through La Armonia Hermosa.

Once the dust has settled for us, watch for more updates about the beneficio construction, ways to participate and some special media presentations that are in post-production right now!

Harvesting 2010’s Santa Marian Coffee

Sat, 23 Jan 2010 11:25:08 -0500

Harvest is in full swing here in Guatemala. The sweet smell of fermenting coffee hangs in the night air around the Antigua Valley and all available patio space is covered with drying coffee. With low production in Brazil and across parts of Central America as well, prices for coffee are once again higher this year through out Guatemala. This higher price is great for our farmers in Santa Maria as their production suffered from bad weather during the summer. We are excited to welcome a couple new farmers to La Armonia Hermosa this year and we’ll be posting their profiles on here to introduce them. They are a welcome addition as we are gathering 7500 lbs (up from 5000 lbs last year) to export into the States. We are fully expectant that the quality increase of last year’s coffee will be matched and even exceeded this year. Stay tuned as there will be plenty of pictures and updates coming throughout the coming weeks.

Presentation & Tasting at Rohs Street Cafe

Fri, 13 Nov 2009 14:34:00 -0500

Wednesday November 18th, 7pm
www.rohsstreetcafe.com

Since our first trip down to Santa Maria in 2004, Rohs Street Cafe has been an important part of building long standing relationships with coffee farmers in the community. Its the kind of place where individuals can engage in things greater then themselves. Musicians, activists, engineers, dreamers, and coffee lovers all can find ways to give back and help build better communities. La Armonia Hermosa is around today because of the community there.

So come by and hear the story of the farmers and learn the fascinating process undertaken to produce some of the world's best coffees. Les Stoneham, who leads the development project, will share first hand experiences and explain the future development needs for the community while Rohs Street's skilled baristas will guide you in learning to taste for the finer notes of coffee's complex character.

Learn more about the cafe and get directions at www.rohsstreetcafe.com.

Farmers Markets Galore

Fri, 2 Oct 2009 10:33:47 -0400

What better way to celebrate the newly arrived Fall than to get out to your local farmers’ market. Especially when you can pick up some freshly roasted coffee that tastes amazing and for a great cause. La Armonia Hermosa will be featured at 3 farmer’s markets around Cincinnati this week at the La Terza Coffee Roasters booth. Find date, times and directions to all 3 markets below.

Saturday October 3rd, 10a - 1p
The Green Corner Market - Kennedy Heights

Sunday October 4th, 10a - 1p
Hyde Park Farmers Market

Tuesday October 6th, 4p - 7p
Wyoming Farmers Market
 

Tastings and Presentations

Fri, 25 Sep 2009 11:02:34 -0400

On Wednesday September 30th at 7pm we’ll be kicking off a tour of presentations and tastings of La Armonia Hermosa in the Cincinnati region. Wholesale customers of La Terza Coffee Roasters will be gathering to get the first tastes of the coffee and learning the stories and struggles of the farmers of Santa Maria de Jesus. This will be an important step in linking the farmers to the end consumers of their coffee. Crucial to the sustained success of the farmers’ business is bridging that divide which separates anonymous farmers from uninformed consumers. Once informed they are no longer consumers, but partners in the economic livelihood of the farmers that now have a face.

We’ll be setting up tastings and presentations at as many cafes as possible to help baristas promote the coffee and engage their customers in the story. If you would like to schedule a tasting and presentation please email us. Otherwise stayed tuned for more events coming to a cafe near you.

La Armonia 2009 Featured at "Taste of Blount"

Thu, 17 Sep 2009 15:28:13 -0400

The beans arrived just in time for John Clark of Vienna Coffee Company to get the roast profile dialed in and ready to serve up for tonight’s Taste of Blount in Maryville Tennessee. “This is spectacular,” John commented on his first taste of this year’s crop. Vienna Coffee Company bought half of this year’s production but it will be going fast so get to www.viennacoffeecompany.com and order some today. In the meantime we’ll have some pictures posted of La Armonia being featured at the event soon and keep you posted on other upcoming events featuring La Armonia Hermosa coffee.

Thank you Alberto

Tue, 11 Aug 2009 15:16:00 -0400

Its with great sadness that we say goodbye to Alberto Mixton. Alberto passed away this past week from unknown causes. He was new to our crew of farmers and jumped in with great enthusiasm. Giving of his time and use of his truck, Alberto caught the vision of a better way forward for the coffee farmers in Santa Maria. He had the kind of vision and business mind that kept his sons involved in his farming and has left them with the resources and model to have a successful future farming.

Thank you Alberto!

You’ll be tasting Alberto’s work in this year’s crop of La Armonia Hermosa coming soon...

Deeper Roots Development Company

Thu, 18 Jun 2009 19:52:22 -0400

As La Armonia Hermosa continues to grow more has been needed in terms of financial organizing in the US. There is also an increasing interest in replicating the successes of La Armonia Hermosa in other coffee-growing communities around the world. Thus Deeper Roots Development Company has been formed to handle the official organizing of financing, communications and development of La Armonia Hermosa coffee. The paperwork for our 501(c)3 IRS status is being finished and will soon be able to process tax-deductible donations.

We are excited to welcome our Board of Directors to Deeper Roots and the work that is happening in Santa Maria de Jesus;

Diana Cuy Castellanos
Diana has 5 years of experience working in Santa Maria de Jesus as a nutritionist and has been integral to the success of La Armonia. She is married to Boler Cuy Castellanos, a lawyer from Santa Maria. Diana is currently finishing her PhD at Mississippi State University in Nutrition and International Development.

Tony Moore
Tony is a food chemist responsible for the tastiness of so many organic and Fair Trade products out there that its impossible to name. He is committed to finding sustainable solutions to the ingredient and consumable goods industry; sustainability that includes the care of the growers, consumers’ health and quality enjoyment. Tony is also a proud husband and father of two Guatemalan daughters.

Connie Bruins
Connie has been working in the background promoting and supporting La Armonia Hermosa from its beginnings. With a doctorate in Human Geography and her background serving on various boards including Ten Thousand Villages, Connie brings a great passion and commitment to bettering third world communities. La Armonia also gives her a chance to get back to her barista roots from her days of serving espresso in Seattle’s burgeoning coffee scene.

Les Stoneham
Les has been directing the development of La Armonia Hermosa since our beginning. His experience in the coffee retailing industry brings needed market knowledge and experience to build on product quality and marketability of La Armonia. Les has been a community educator and leader in the Fair Trade movement in Cincinnati. He started La Armonia Hermosa and Deeper Roots Development in order to deepen and in new ways, implement the original intentions of the fair trade movement for greater sustainability and practical development for small coffee farmers.

Stay tuned for further updates on Deeper Roots Development.

Micro Mill Project in Santa Maria

Thu, 18 Jun 2009 19:13:01 -0400

In the previous post we learned what exactly a wet mill is. We didn’t however talk about the real economic importance this makes for the livelihoods of farmers. A quick example; say you buy an average pound of coffee at your local cafe for $10, the farmer who grew the coffee will receive at most $1 of that money while doing the vast majority of the work in making it. However, If the same farmer or family could process the coffee from the ripe cherry to “green” exportable coffee, he can roughly double the amount earned per pound. This is not including added benefits of controlling the entire process in order to continually increase quality and receive even better money for the coffee.

Santa Maria de Jesus needs a community coffee mill.

With the continued growth of farmers interested in participating in La Armonia Hermosa, they need a larger facility to grow beyond the informal system that currently exists in processing the coffee locally. Fundraising for this can only come from the generous donations and micro-loans of interested coffee drinkers in the states. This project, from buying land to construction and equipment, will cost approximately $15,000. This will provide the needed capacity for at least 5 years of continued growth of farmer participation and exported coffee. We expect to fund the entire project by securing donations and micro-financed loans. The hope is to have a fully operational mill ready for the 2010 harvest. Construction is scheduled to begin this summer as long as the proper land is found to purchase and build on. The entire project will be repaid by the farmers through their increased profits and sales, providing the capital for future micro-loans for the farmers and the community in the future.

For more information about this project, donating or participating in the micro-loan program, please contact Les Stoneham at les@laarmoniahermosa.com. Keep watching for updates as this project takes shape over the coming months.

Processing our coffee

Thu, 26 Mar 2009 16:02:11 -0400

In simple terms, processing coffee is the means by which to change a live, unstable agricultural product into a stable dry bean that can be stored and transported without changing quality. This process can be divided into two main segments; the wet mill and the dry mill. At the wet mill, or beneficio in spanish, freshly picked coffee fruit is delivered and immediately started in the process of getting it into a dry state. The most common process for this is the washed method. First the ripe fruit is passed through a de-pulper removing the seeds within. Those slimy seeds then are left in concrete tanks in order for enzymes to quickly break down the mucilage that covers them, this is called fermentation. After this they are washed and any bad beans that float are removed. Finally the beans are laid out on patios and periodically turned in order to dry. As you can imagine lots of things can go wrong in this process ruining a great crop of coffee.

Once all the beans are dried to the correct moisture they are stored until ready for export. At this point it is the dry mill that prepares the beans to be exported. First there is a thin parchment layer that surrounds the bean that must be removed. After this the beans all go through a screen sorting process for size and finally a hand sorting process for defects. Finally the beans are bagged and ready to go on the boat.

Now that you know the basics of processing coffee, we can talk more about how we are doing things for La Armonia Hermosa. The first thing to mention is that while most small farmers have processed coffee for their own consumption in rudimentary ways. Commercially, no farmer in Santa Maria de Jesus has ever had what would be considered a coffee mill. The large benificios of the Antigua Valley have been receiving the best of Santa Maria’s coffee and mixing it in with everything else good and bad ever since its been grown there. So the first challenge of helping the farmers excel beyond just commodity farming is to help them train in the process and benefits of the wet mill. Each year we have been incorporating more coffee into La Armonia Hermosa’s exports that has been processed right in Santa Maria. We have however outgrown the small space that has been available to do this in and now need to find land and build an actual beneficio in Santa Maria. As for the dry mill process, that occurs at our partner community San Miguel Escobar with an organization that also exports our coffee, As Green As It Gets.

Our next post will describe in more detail the project to build the Santa Maria beneficio.