At Dear Green, we commit to regularly visiting origin. As well as being an amazing, life-changing experience, we see it as a very important way to expand our knowledge and understanding of the journey coffee takes to make its way to us. The sourcing, profiling, roasting and distributing of coffee that we do on our end is only a part of the story, and a part that is only possible because of the work of coffee farmers in producing countries.
Coffee beans aren’t just magic beans that appear on our doorstep - there is an endless amount of work, care, love and logistics, across many stages, before coffee travels across the world and to our roasteries. Producers dedicate their lives to coffee in a way that even the coffee-nerdiest of us will never quite be able to grasp, but what better way to try and appreciate this than to fully immerse ourselves, meet some of these producers and experience coffee farming first hand.
This year, for the first time, our founder Lisa has passed the baton and our Head Roaster Anna had the absolute privilege of embarking on her first origin trip and visiting Brazil.
The trip was in two parts. The first half, spent with Daterra Coffee at their farms in the Cerrado region of Minas Gerais. The second, spent with exporter Costa Cafe and some associated farms in their hometowns of Albertina and Espirito Santo do Pinhal, which sit just on either side of the border between São Paulo and Minas Gerais states. The coffee production we witnessed and learned about in each portion of the trip varied vastly from one another in many ways, but at the heart of it all was the same goal - to produce quality coffee and to share that with the world!
Daterra is a very big, impressive operation, with 6400 total hectares of land and a huge 2800 hectares of that dedicated to coffee growing. Harvesting at Daterra is carried out mechanically, which is possible due to the very flat landscape of Cerrado. In fact, many of Daterras operations are mechanised, automated or digitised - with technology ranging from bespoke GPS apps which support quality spot checks to state of the art smart coffee processing units to super precise UV light sorters and more. Gabriel Agrelli Moreira, Daterra’s Manager of Quality and Market Development, affectionately describes Daterra as “the tin man” - explaining that it may be made of metal, but it has a heart and a conscience. We were truly blown away by the innovative ways in which Daterra produces such consistently high quality coffee and in such an environmentally conscious manner.
In contrast to this, we visited smaller and more traditional - but equally as impressive - farms around the city of Pinhal. These were family operations, of which the majority of work is carried out by a handful of family members who care for the farm in which they work and live. In Pinhal, the landscape is much more hilly, meaning that coffee is handpicked. Farms of this smaller scale generally don’t have their own processing areas, relying on mills of exporters to sort their coffee. We truly experienced the heart and soul of a family farm when we were invited to Patricia Coehlo’s Fazenda Santo Antonio. Here, Particia and her husband Mauricio welcomed us like family - hosting us for breakfast and showing their pride and excitement to share their farm and coffee with us.
Regardless of the scale or methods of the farm, something that was evident through the entire trip were the highs and lows of coffee farming. The sheer amount of hard work, the dedication, the pride in what the producers do, the want to share not only their coffee but their stories with us, the drive to produce quality coffee! And then on the flip side, the struggles that come along with farming, whether it be the uncertainty around climate change impact, difficulty getting coffee to market, fluctuating prices, struggles to find farm workers. These are things that, as roasters, brewers and consumers of coffee outside of coffee-producing countries, we can often be unaware of but are all important factors in coffee's journey.
Visiting origin, witnessing coffee farming first hand, having these conversations and building relationships with producers is hugely beneficial in bridging the gap between producer and roaster. It’s a huge privilege to have had the opportunity to do so - though we recognise this isn’t accessible for everyone! What we do urge though, is to try and connect with producers in any way you can - get the stories from importers or others who have visited origin, look at the pictures and videos from on the ground, see if there’s ways to contact producers directly. Any way in which we can understand the bigger picture is truly invaluable!