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through thin gaps in the cattle fencing with ease. Picking coffee on El Hizote was easily my favorite part of the trip. I was lagging behind the group and fiddling with my camera when Melba emerged from her small wood-framed house holding a few wicker baskets. She tied the basket around my waste so I could have my hands free to pick. Melba became my picking buddy and showed me how to pull down the tall plants so us short folks could remove the red cherry. Next we took our cherry to the depulper, and my barrage of questions continued as we delved further into the task of removing the sticky fruit from the smooth shiny seed. At one point, Fredman sat beside a fermentation tank, holding a six-inch piece of sugarcane in his hand. He drove the stick into the center of the pile of wet seeds and pulled it out. Pointing at the hole left by the sugarcane, he explained: If the seeds settle and fill the hole, the coffee needs more time to ferment. The simple pragmatism of this action struck me. As consumers of coffee, we spend a lot of time trying to relate numbers like elevation and fermentation time to flavor. While understanding these things is important, it's critical that we understand that for farmers, this is a livelihood. Most grow coffee where their land is, and pick and process their coffee not with a specific flavor in mind, but so that they will be paid a good price for something they can be proud of. I thought that I would travel to origin to understand what farmers do, and how that affects flavors in coffee; to receive the proverbial brick of coffee knowledge from the elders. Instead, I learned something far more valuable: where I stand in the global coffee market, and how what we do affects the lives of farmers and their families. Self portrait of the author in Nicaragua with a new friend. LEAVE THE ENERGY TO THE COFFEE. CONCEPT GREEN LINE ESPRESSO MACHINE It Knows What You Want and Then Some Self Learning Software Brewing Accuracy Software Multi-Boiler Huge Energy Savings memorizes your peak production hours and auto adjusts to stand-by mode during down time senses when your brew is not your best and will tell you how to correct it lets you operate group heads at different temperatures with 47.6% certiļ¬ed energy savings during its rest period & 30% when operational Visit us at SCAA in Boston, Booth #536! Like us on . WEGA USA GREENSBORO, NC 336.662.0766 WEGAUSA.COM www.baristamagazine.com 39