Banexport

by Thomas Oberthur.

Prospecting, also known as fossicking (beautiful word isn’t it, supposedly from the Cornish language …) in Cornwall and Australia, is physical labor, involving traversing (traditionally on foot or on horseback), panning, sifting and outcrop investigation, looking for signs of mineralization. This is not my definition, but that of Wikipedia, the almost holy grail of fast wisdom seekers. Yet it seems a wonderful analogy to what we at BANEXPORT set out to do. Prospecting and exploring a terrain for the purpose of discovery of great coffee, and getting to know the people behind those great coffees! Sure, when we recently travelled to a beautiful region of Cauca called Inza, we admittedly did that not so much on horseback but on four-wheels, and buses. There was just the occasional horse along the road side.

Picture 1, The magical Paramo landscape around volcano Purace

Still physical labor it was! Driving for hours and hours over rough roads can be exhausting, yet the utter beauty of the regions natural bounty keeps the senses alert. We traveled from Popayan via Totorot and the village of Gabriel Lopez, crossing over the Paramo (see picture) into the amazing valley of Inza. BANEXPORT has a history of several years of successful work in a nearby area called “Tierradentro” and the region was known to us. Still, even after many times traversing this land we remain amazed by its breathtaking natural purity. And we were excited, a well known association of coffee producers had invited us several times to visit them, and finally the journey became reality. While I have been a friend of several growers for a while BANEXPORT had not worked with the group commercially.

Picture 2, Looking into the Inza Valley

The traditional method of prospecting involved combing through the countryside looking for signs of mineralization in the outcrop… In the case of gold, all streams in an area would be panned at the appropriate trap sites looking for a show of gold in the tail. Once we arrived in our host’s region after combing along ridgelines and hilltops through the beautiful countryside, we immediately started to sense signs of great coffee: the confidence of producers, the filled bags with parchment coffee in the storage area of the association, the high physical quality of samples presented to us, and the passion for quality that was palpable when growers talked about their produce, their gold. Clearly, there were plenty of traces of coffee treasures.

Picture 3, Amazing sky over amazing land

We spend some immensely educating time with the growers: listening to their ideas about how to produce good coffee, trying to comprehend the difficulties that sometimes tend to slow down the process, were useful for us and them. Outlining to the growers the philosophy behind the BANEXPORT concept of transparent and sustainable trading relationships that are based on co-development and co-investment in the product, and that generate co-ownership of the achievements raised many probing questions and finally embraced by the growers. There was a shared feeling of trust. After a long stimulating dialogue plenty of common ground for future collaboration was evident, and first ideas for concrete business transactions were put on the table. We left late in the night, tired and happy, full with bags of samples and full with a sense of something good is coming out of this emerging relationship.

Picture 4, Exhausted but happy Jairo after a long day

In prospecting, once a small occurrence or show was found, it is necessary to intensively work the area with pick and shovel, and often via the addition of some simple machinery such as a sluice box, races and winnows, to work the loose soil and rock looking for the appropriate materials … Obviously, we were looking for another treasure, flavorful, delightful Inza coffees. We felt that the bag of samples we had was like a treasure chest that certainly matched that of Captain Morgan on Colombia’s Providence Island. But unlike Captain Morgan’s treasure, which was never discovered on Ol’ Providence Island, we did find some really interesting coffees during the next day’s cupping. Coffees in the Inza Valley mainly are of the Caturra variety, with a little bit of the Colombia and of the Tipica variety here and there. Coffee farmers cultivate a great diversity of shade trees in their coffee plantations. In a study of 58 coffee farms, Escobar (2007) identified a total of 114 different shade species. The tree species most frequently used for transitory and permanent shade, and include Guamos (Inga spp.), Citricos (Citrus spp.), plantains and bananas (Musa spp.), Cachimbos (Erythtina spp.), Aguacate (Persea Americana), Nogal cafetero (Cordia alliodora), Nacedero (Trichantherea gigantean) amongst others. The species most frequently used for permanent shade belong to the family of the legumes, i.e. nitrogen-fixing tree species. Leguminous trees have a positive effect on soil fertility due to their ability to fix air-borne nitrogen.

Picture 5 Plenty of tree cover can still be seen

When we started to cup the samples, it became evident that the association knows their business very well. The physical quality of the samples was outstanding, with high percentages of larger beans and almost no defects visible. The sensory attributes of the samples were highly promising, including the well known heavily sweet and highly aromatic fragrance reminiscent of red berries, apples, citrus and cane juice. The acidity was mellow, with the occasional spicy nuance. We found in particular one micro lote from an individual farm that really knocked us of our feet. We will prepare some samples for you soon so that you can enjoy these memorable coffees for yourself.

Picture 6 A road to successful partnerships is never straight

The work with growers is a long and winding road – building true partnerships take time. But we envision interesting opportunities with the association, including the development of a new business model. Coffee differentiation based on inherent quality is based on the concepts of sustainability and absolute transparency and information sharing. Therefore a functioning partner network is a crucially important competitive advantage for a small scale growers’ organizations. But: Generally purchasing from networks of dispersed small-scale coffee growers raises transaction costs, leads to inconsistent coffee quality and, common in the coffee sourcing business, lacks traceability. Small-scale growers are often considered by coffee exporters to be less reliable in honouring trading agreements, because they do not have the cash flow, technical skills and technologies to produce the right products at the right time (quality, timeliness and consistency), and the coffee industry in Southern Colombia is no exception!

Picture 7, Old friends, new business partners

BANEXPORT plans to put “partnership” back in the trading network. The central idea is to evolve organizations, through technical and organisational innovations, into regional procurement hubs for sourcing high quality coffees from a large number of disconnected small-scale suppliers. Regional sourcing nuclei will be established around the central sourcing hub that have the management and environmental conditions to produce coffee profiles of highest quality but contrasting to that of the mother organization. This will enable the producers to offer a portfolio of high quality coffees with different profiles. The transfer of the accumulated expertise and knowledge from the mother organizations to the nuclei and the integration of producer into the supply chain are the two guiding working principles.

Picture 8, Magical Inza

BANEXPORT will provide guidance in the selection of the new geographies in response to articulated quality demands by specialty coffee roasters that are clients of BANEXPORT. The implemented processing innovations, will lead to the production of sought after coffees. In the process, producers will successively acquire the ability to design and implement processes that lead to new high quality coffee profiles. These in turn will enable BANEXPORT to extend its base of clientele by including roasters that did not have demand for previously offered coffees.

Cheers and keep on roasting,
Coffee Prospector Thomas

Manager Quality & Origin
BANEXPORT
Bogota, Colombia,
May 2009