Abe Carmeli wrote:But I think you are missing the big picture here: from where I stand, it is about raising the quality of coffee at the farm, which is at this stage the part of coffee that needs most improvement.
Well said. Having read some of the details about the kind of care that went into the harvesting of 'aurora' and 'nectar' alone, I'm fascinated by the level of attention that's going into the harvest...let alone the processing. But there's the other side of the coin to consider: the coffee farmers themselves. My hope is that they are getting a very good cut of what must be an enormous profit margin.
Think of it as what Robert Parker did to French wines...$200.00 lb coffee is ridiculously expensive. But so is a $200.00 Burgundy, and a bottle of a fine Pinot yields less cups than a pound of coffee.
Yes, but even here one needn't pay over $45 for an excellent bottle of wine (if you can find it and like Zin, try the 2004 'Prisoner'). Perhaps we're just living in two different economies of scale. I could afford that kind of money every now & again, but with so many excellent local wines to choose from, it's ridiculous for me to do so. The vagaries of the industry being what they are, a small vintner can create a stunning wine one year and do well off the sales. This is like the CoE competitions, which I think raise the bar for farmers in a much more egalitarian fashion than the exclusive clubbing that is being offered here. (And note that one of the two cuppers in the link cited above scored the $200/# coffee
below the standard Esmerelda Especial).
See it as a teaser to farmers - the market rewards quality, big time. Once that principle has been established, the market forces will move that industry into making the processing at the farm more efficient while raising quality.
I too would hope that this is the direction that coffee is going, but I have two concerns. One is that it is VERY expensive for farmers to do what Graciano Cruz has been able to do (remember, he's starting out with a coffee that already earns top dollar; look up some of the people who end up in the top ten at any CoE competition outside of Brasil and you'll find farmers who don't have that kind of cash, who are at the whim of brokers/millers/coyotes/etc. to get their beans processed, sold, and shipped). So, in order to do so, they need a big benefactor (and a benevolent one at that) and this raises concern #2: if the benefactor gets all the good coffee, what does that leave for the rest of the market? In truth, it leaves us with plenty of good coffee, but the principle is feudalistic rather than democratic. The best beans are pulled off the market for the rich to enjoy. Again, I'd prefer to see this done in an open-market system like the CoE competitions. However, if the wine industry parallel holds true, we will (as you've pointed out, Abe) eventually be in for some excellent coffee that we can all afford to enjoy...signatures or not. And I'd love to taste that strawberry hint in a cup!
Cheers,
Paul
