Barista Magazine

APR-MAY 2013

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Open-air rooms created by loosely twined branches are the footprint in which coffee is weighed and purchase slips are written. A woman pulls her bags of cherry through one of these rooms and says something quietly to the officiator. I ask our translator what transpired, and he tells me that the woman doesn't want cash—birr in Ethiopia—for her cherry. She worries her husband will spend it all on alcohol. So she has requested that the co-op leaders hold her money safe so she can save it. For so many women producers, this is a common practice, and it's one that FLO premiums help to maintain. Keeping cash in their houses isn't safe—boozing husband or not—and there aren't exactly banks in this part of the world. The fact that these producers can safely save their money without worry that a co-op leader would steal it is somewhat new to the larger co-ops, and a direct result of FLO's assistance. It is our final night at Aregash. As is the lodge's tradition, we are invited at dusk to an open fire for an Ethiopian coffee ceremony. We watch a young woman toast the coffee on a pan, then grind it by hand. She boils the grounds in water in the jebena. By the time she pours the coffee, night has fallen, and the hyenas have come out. At Aregash, as throughout the country, nothing is wasted. The bones from today's slaughter are thrown down the hillside behind the campfire, and hyenas come for them—to the delight of the guests. Our group of eight sits for hours by the fire, listening to the hyenas and watching the flames. We talk but we're quiet, too. We've seen so much in so few days. Sarah and Jonathan are quite satisfied; it was a successful visit to both the Fairtrade-certified Fero Co-op, as well as to the Sukee Xoree Farmers' Association in Oromia, which is not certified, but quite happy 64 barista magazine Sarah and Jonathan opened the Cape Town Bean There with business partners Hein and Rojeanne Koen less than a year ago. Previously regular customers to the original Johannesburg Bean There shop, Hein and Rojeanne fell in love with the Bean There model and have made the Cape Town café one of the city's most popular coffeehouses. with the financial as well as emotional relationship it shares with Bean There Coffee Company. Over the past few days, Sarah has told me a lot about the Bean There cafés and roasteries in Johannesburg and Cape Town, the latter of which opened earlier this year. Sarah works with the baristas quite intensively, leading them in weekly cuppings and educational sessions. Their baristas are loyal; it's a good job, good pay, and they're respected for what they do. Sarah and Jonathan have taken some of them to compete in the South African Barista Championship several times, and even on a few source trips. At one point, I asked Sarah if she traveled much within Africa before Bean There, and she said no, which surprised me. But it's not common, really; Sarah says most citizens with the means to travel don't want to travel in Africa. That's all changed for her though; now Sarah visits different parts of Africa as often as she can—Malawi, Zambia, and recently Congo. She and Jonathan love their Africa. They've dedicated their lives to it, yes, but more to the people of Africa, who make it what it is. This is perhaps part of the reason why Bean There's most popular t-shirt for sale is the one with the outline of the continent on the back, and just one word emblazoned across the chest. That word is African.

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