We recently delved into the world of Coffee at The Grounds and just how passionate we are about it over on our City blog – so if you’re new, it’s a good place to head for a little background first! Our Head Roaster, Nick, and Training Manager, Andrew, just spent a few weeks on a coffee trip to Colombia, building relationships and sourcing exciting new coffees for you to try in the coming months. Here we sat down with them and asked them about their trip…
Why did you go to Colombia?
A: Nick and I went for a few reasons. We wanted to forge new relationships with specialty coffee producers to could work with, to discover and purchase great new coffees exclusive to The Grounds and build upon existing relationships with suppliers.
This was my second trip to Colombia but my first to most of the regions that we visited, so it felt a lot more immersive this time around.
N: One of the best things about Colombia is that there is always somewhere where coffee is being harvested, unlike many other coffee producing countries where they have one annual harvest. In Colombia, every region has two harvests, and each region will have those harvests at a different time of year – it’s incredibly unique in that sense.
What does the coffee making process look like?
N: First, the cherries are picked (most people don’t know coffee comes from a fruit!), then immediately pulped and fermented for anywhere from 18 – 100 hours. After fermentation, they’re washed or just layed out on a patio if it’s a natural process. If it’s a natural process it can take up to 50 days, if it’s a washed process, generally up to 23 weeks.
We’ll then cup lots and lots and lots of coffee, we’ll document, score, take notes and record all the information regarding those coffees. Once we gather that information, generally we start to see a trend in the coffee quality and attributes of certain producers. If we like what they’re doing, we try and secure lots from those farmers to serve to our guests at The Grounds.
How do you take sustainability into account when purchasing coffee?
A: That’s a big question! Sustainability can be applied in so many different areas in so many parts of the supply chain; whether it’s at an agricultural level, an economic level, or how much impact the industry has on our environment as a whole.
At The Grounds we believe that the future is in specialty coffee, so we need to work with producers that are being progressive – a perfect example of that is a farm called La Palma & El Tucan.
When I first visited that farm, they were only four years old and hadn’t harvested any of their coffees as they were still too immature. Three years on, a lot has changed – it was really cool to go back there. They’ve developed relationships with the surrounding farmers and have a program called Neighbours And Crops where they source neighbouring producers cherry to create their own organic fertilisers made from the pulp. They are on a trajectory to lift the quality in all of the surrounding farms that they deal with, which is amazing to see.
They have developed some great initiatives, like painting their pickers nails with a very specific colour of nail polish so they can reference the colour while picking. They treat their staff well, and they know that by doing this it will come back full circle.
Is there something you wish every coffee drinker knew?
A: There’s a quote on my desk that reads “When you hold a cup of coffee in your hands, you’re holding a farmers pride and joy, but also a whole lot of anxiety and frustration, just to be able to deliver this product year in and year out.”
It’s a lot of pressure. Particularly in specialty coffee, I don’t think there is much differentiation on the consumer end just yet, about whether they are drinking a latte which is specialty coffee or just from a roaster that buys a whole lot of commodity coffee.
N: The amount of effort and quality control that goes into specialty coffee, even just the cherry sorting and removing every bean that doesn’t meet criteria – it’s an extremely tedious job but there’s so much passion and love that goes right through the whole chain, and we’re extremely proud to be that last link in that chain.