Barista Magazine

JUN-JUL 2013

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H OND UR A S DAY 1: DEPARTURE I've been scrambling around all morning, packing and gathering all of my traveling needs. I will be embarking on my first-ever origin trip, to Honduras. Joining me on this journey will be Eric Mullins, one of my closest friends and also my coworker. We've shared this dream of traveling to origin for the past nine years. We will be representing the Ugly Mug Café, a small shop in the heart of Ypsilanti, Michigan. "The Mug" as we affectionately call it, has a handful of wholesale accounts that care deeply about coffee, and we are grateful to have a customer base that is always ready to join in on our coffee endeavors. This will be one of the biggest steps in the Mug's nine years of making coffee, and nothing will make Eric and me happier than taking this long-awaited trip. Our primary objective in Honduras is to meet with producers Pablo Paz and Antonio Castellanos. The Mug has been involved with Unión MicroFinanza (UMF) for the past few years, and the relationship has afforded us the opportunity to work with some wonderful coffees. We have heard countless stories about the farmers in the UMF, so of course we are more than eager to finally meet them. We will be spending most of this day traveling, and are scheduled to arrive in San Pedro Sula where Patrick Hughes, director of operations at UMF, will meet us. Traveling always makes me anxious and nervous. Saying goodbye to my friends and family always gives me this weird radiant feeling in my gut. I guess I get this thought that there is a slight chance I may never see them again, for whatever unfortunate reason. The only thing suppressing that feeling right now is my excitement to finally arrive in Honduras.     DAY 2: LA UNIÓN/THE BENEFICIO Leonel Castellanos demonstrates how he rotates parchment coffee as it dries a er being washed at the Castellanos' benificio. Eric Mullins sneaks in for a picture in the background.  As a surprise, we ran into Alfredo Ponce on the way there. We have been working with Alfredo's coffee for about three weeks at the Mug. His pulp natural is hands-down one of my favorite coffees of the year. Patrick introduced us to Alfredo, who was very pleased to meet us. It's funny—I felt as though I was meeting a celebrity. To think that I have been saying his name for the past couple of weeks when describing his coffee is crazy. It's great to finally put a face to his illustrious name. After the brief meeting, we continued on to the beneficio. Patrick gave us a thorough tour of UMF's processing center and all of the various day-today happenings. The beneficio was built completely by hand using manual saws, drills, and inexpensive materials. Building a low-budget beneficio was meant to be an example for the local farmers to show that beneficios can be built affordably. UMF's beneficio also processes other producers' coffees as long as they are of qualifying standards. The way the co-op determines whether these coffees qualify is by using an interesting sample paddle. This paddle has 50 notches on its surface, each deep enough to hold a single cherry. The paddle is shoved into the middle of the bag and carefully pulled back out. They take count of all the defects and over- and underripe cherries, and for every defect, a farmer accumulates points. These points are added depending on the defect. If a farmer scores more than 10 points, the coffee will be rejected; but if the score is closer to zero, the farmer receives a bonus. This system gives farmers incentive for top-quality pickings. The score also affects how the coffee is priced for buyers. To me, this paddle was symbolic of the driving efforts to raise harvest quality. The plan for today was to get a tour of UMF's beneficio (processing center). www.baristamagazine.com 31

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