All that is left to find buyers who are willing to reward you for superior quality.Īnd the only way you can do this is to invest even more in the coffee, break off from the pack who sell cherry at low prices to the coops and private mills and become a micro-miller of your own boutique lots. Where are you at? Above Starbucks price, above Illy, above the multinationals, above fair trade and organic certified coffee. Sustainable coffee production is not a mystery add up your costs, true costs to do the absolute best work that you can, to reward your team of workers fairly, to improve the health of the plant, the health of the soil, and the land, and to guarantee fair pay, education, and to re-invest each year to improve that quality. What I found is that Costa Rica has a new community of micro-millers forming into organic groups, drawn together by their pride in work, ove of the land, technical ability and perhaps more than ever, a need to be paid fairly for their efforts. The small roaster wants to find that person on the other end of the line, the coffee producer, who is as dedicated as artisanal as the micro-roaster. Olsen flavor crystals, and not fancy branding that isn’t backed up by genuine cup quality. Wanting to push the limits, wanting cup quality that gets people excited.
This little revolution has remarkable similarity to the “micro-roasters” of the United States, independent business owners tired of the medium quality of specialty coffee who know that no roaster can turn ho-hum green coffee into anything other than ho-hum roasted coffee. From an origin catering to container load buyers, where mills pool together the coffees of small producers under fancifully-named brands, and the coffee association markets with little regard for true cup quality (well, if they think pretty girls and glossy print materials are something you can grind up and drink in a cup – yuck!) comes a new movement – micro-mills. Rather it is a coffee buyers dream come true. I didn’t see rare birds or jaguars, I didn’t get held up by bandits or lost on jungle paths. What seemed like an easy, relaxing 4 day “farm and cupping tour” of Costa Rica turned in a thoroughly exhausting (yet fantastically rewarding) adventure. Going back to 2008 and a focus on the small coffee “micro-mills” in Costa Rica were producing better qualities of coffee.
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