by Serge Remy
Amazing Coffee Travels
www.Book-Coffee.com
Serge Remy. Amazing Coffee Travels. – Kyiv: 2014. – 296 p.
«Amazing Coffee Travels» is the second in a wholly fascinating series of «Tales of a Coffee Expert.» It is a UNIQUE book of tales about traveling the world to explore coffee traditions. The very best coffee stories from author’s trips to different lands are chosen here. They all focus on coffee, of course, and the countries are seen in terms of their coffee culture. So, let us embark upon our coffee exploration of Planet Earth.
ISBN 978-1-77192-043-8
© Serge Remy, 2014
The Author
Serge Remy (Sergey Reminny) is a coffee expert and the proprietor of Ionia il caffè, a coffee importing and distributing company in Ukraine. For five years he has been Coordinator for Ukraine of the Speciality Coffee Association of Europe. By training a linguist and translator, he lived and worked for many years in Italy where he learned the ins and outs of coffee. His fascination with coffee has taken him to over 40 countries; he has visited coffee farms in Ethiopia and Yemen, Panama and India, Costa Rica and Hawaii, Colombia and Rwanda, Nepal, Indonesia, Brazil and many others. A maximalist in all he does, he lives the coffee life to the fullest.
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Table of contents Foreword................................................................................................................... 6 1. RWANDA: Land of a thousand coffee hills............................................ 8 2. NEPAL: Coffee from the birthplace of the Buddha..........................12 3. PERU: I pick potatoes from a coffee tree.............................................17 4. ETHIOPIA: Coffee and honey for an upset stomach........................20 5. SWEDEN: Carl Linneus and coffee.........................................................23 6. COLOMBIA: A Coffee Park and coffee marketing.............................30 7. TURKEY: I drink coffee in a Turkish teahouse.....................................34 8. TANZANIA: Coffee with the Maasai.......................................................39 9. INDONESIA: A visit to the homeland of Kopi Luwak.......................57 10. BRAZIL: How I sifted coffee......................................................................64 11. YEMEN: The legendary word «Mocha»................................................73 12. ISLAS CANARIAS: Coffee for men, coffee for women......................78 13. CYPRUS: I enjoy a coffee massage.........................................................83 14. HAWAII: What is an «Elephant Ear» coffee bean?.............................89 15. GUATEMALA: Who are the «Coffee Soldiers»?...................................93 16. INDIA: What is Madras Coffee?............................................................. 102 17. JAPAN: I bathe in coffee.......................................................................... 108 18. CUBA: Cafecito con espumita............................................................... 114 19. COLOMBIA: How to plant a coffee tree............................................. 146 20. ETHIOPIA: The $ 60,000 coffee pot....................................................... 152 21. THE NETHERLANDS: Coffee with marijuana................................... 155 22. COSTA RICA: Coffee accountancy....................................................... 158 23. TANZANIA: The Kilimanjaro Mirage................................................... 163 24. PANAMA: A Geisha makes me happy................................................ 178 25. YEMEN: What are «gahwa» and «geshir»?........................................ 183 26. NEPAL: A snowy winter coffee............................................................. 194 27. SWEDEN: Coffee vs. Alcohol.................................................................. 198 28. ENGLAND: I drink coffee at Stonehenge.......................................... 205 29. BRAZIL: Caipirinha with coffee............................................................. 208 30. ANDORRA: «Russian Coffee»................................................................. 214 31. HAWAII: Coffee spiced filet steak......................................................... 217 32. INDIA: Who says stripping is bad?...................................................... 219 33. COLOMBIA: Coffee «Made in ARMENIA»?........................................ 224 34. YEMEN: «Mukha», «Mocha» or «Moka»?........................................... 226 35. GUATEMALA: Essencia de café............................................................. 231 36. CUBA: Coffee, cigar, rum........................................................................ 242 37. PERU: I drink coffee with coca leaves................................................ 260 38. BALI: Coffee and a funeral party.......................................................... 265 39. AUSTRIA: The Ukrainian inventor of Viennese Coffee.................. 268 40. ETHIOPIA: Coffee with the Mursi tribe.............................................. 275 Afterword............................................................................................................. 292
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Foreword Readers of my books in Russian often tell me that the stories they most enjoy are those about visits to other countries. I confess I like those myself. Reminiscing about my coffee explorations lets me relive them. So, welcome to this second book in the series ÂŤTales of a Coffee Expert.Âť
I hope coffee lovers find the other tales useful and informative, but perhaps there is something special about travel notes. They all focus on coffee, of course. These explorations of other lands are seen in terms of their coffee culture.
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AND I always try also to say something about the country itself.
I think what matters most, though, is that they are about my OWN experiences (with my thoughts and photos), and are not just something read about or copied off the Internet. I am very glad to be able at last to publish these books in English (for which, special thanks to my translator). I hope this will enable me to reach even more coffee lovers, because English opens the door to much of the rest of the world. Enjoy this book, as we explore together some of the world’s many coffee cultures!
And with that, let us embark upon our coffee exploration of Planet Earth. 7
1. RWANDA: Land of a thousand coffee hills Your first coffee plantation is like first love
In recent years, the small East African country of Rwanda has frequently been in the coffee news, and each time I read about the latest developments there I feel a great warmth reawakening in me. There is a simple explanation for that: Rwanda is the country where I visited a coffee plantation for the VERY FIRST TIME in my life.
Almost ten years ago, a party of «coffee peacemakers» from across Europe was assembled as a delegation from SCAE, the Speciality Coffee Association of Europe, for a fact-finding tour of the «Land of a Thousand Hills.» That year Rwanda was celebrating the 100th anniversary of its introduction to Bourbon coffee, one of the highest quality Arabica coffees in the world. It is a peace-loving country and Rwandans are the friendliest people you could hope to meet. The realization saddens you, when you have been there for a while, that this is just because they have not yet begun to lose their genuineness, their souls, which the civilization and business ethic of more economically developed countries seem systematically to root out of us. 8
During our trip we enjoyed the status of an official government delegation and our travels featured every day on national television. Rwanda is a former Belgian colony and the foreign language people speak there is French. In our entire group, I was the only person with fluent French so I automatically became the delegation’s spokesman, appearing every day on TV. My wife commented that even in Africa I had to hog the publicity.
If speeches at the numerous ceremonies could be a little wearying, we soon recognized that giving speeches is just something Rwandans love to do. The shortest, even by the president of the republic, lasted 43 minutes, was delivered in 9
the local language, and had then to be translated in its entirety into English. I would unhesitatingly include Rwanda among the world’s greatest coffee-exporting nations. Its global market share may be modest, but coffee accounts for two-thirds of all the country’s exports. Only Burundi beats it, with coffee accounting there for 70% of exports. For comparison, coffee is only 12% of Brazil’s exports. This is far and away the most important sector of the Rwandan economy. Alas, we were able to drink the economy’s most important export almost exclusively at official tasting sessions. Our hosts had difficulty making the coffee most favored by Europeans because at the time of our visit only half a dozen Espresso machines were to be found in all Rwanda. Most of the time, we had to fall back on the local beverages of banana wine and banana «urwagwa» beer. The Rwandan government has remarkably intelligent policies on coffee production. They improve the quality of the coffee by focusing on preliminary washing of the beans.
The republic is energetically introducing «coffee washing stations,» of which in 2003 there were just 9; in 2004 – 20; in 2005 – 42; and by 2010 there must have been almost 100. Washing the beans improves the quality of coffee, and with 10
it the price paid to producers. (Suppose one supplier provides washed apples and another unwashed. The washed apples are going to fetch a better price.) While coffee producers in the rest of the world are complaining about the low prices they are paid, in recent years Rwanda has managed to double the price it obtains. Only twenty years have passed since the country was ravaged by appalling genocide. In just 3 months in 1994, the population fell from 8 to 7 million people. Following a long and difficult road to recovery, Rwanda has been fortunate to have in President Paul Kagame a leader who has succeeded in reconciling the Hutus and Tutsis and has, moreover, got the coffee industry flourishing. President Kagame thinks constantly about coffee, setting up national development programs, supplying coffee farmers with free seedlings, and even free «coffee bicycles.» His emphasis is on quality, and that is a winning formula for any business.
The common language in most of Africa is Swahili (from which the expression «Hakuna matata», «No problem», comes). In Rwanda, however, the language is Kinyarwanda, in which the word for «coffee» is the same as in my own Ukrainian: «kawa.» I loved switching on the TV and hearing, in the midst of a torrent of incomprehensible speech from the presenter, that one favorite word. Language was really not a problem for us, though, and the Land of a Thousand Hills will always be No.1 in my coffee heart. 11
2. NEPAL: Coffee from the birthplace of the Buddha
How is coffee grown in the land with the world’s highest mountains? Coffee-growing in Nepal might seem a surprising topic, both because there are few producers there, and because of the conditions under which coffee can be grown. Let me explain. The ideal altitude for growing coffee is between 800 and 2,000 meters (2,600 to 6,500 feet) above sea level, while the Kingdom of Nepal has two extremes. It boasts 6 of the world’s 12 mountains higher than 8,000 meters (26,000 feet), including Mount Everest/Chomolungma, and in places is barely 70 meters above sea level. I was prompted to write this note, however, by the Buddha’s Birthday, which for Buddhists is a festival as important as Christmas Day is for Christians. What does that have to do with coffee, though? Some years ago I celebrated my 40th birthday in Tibet, which you can reach either through China (Tibet is nowadays styled an Autonomous Region of China) or through Nepal.
I chose the second option, deciding to spend a few days in Nepal. This is the story of how my Nepalese friend, Ujjal Rana, the 12
owner of the country’s largest coffee plantations, showed me around.
Ujjal is a unique person. As I was preparing for my trip to Tibet, I read on the European Coffee Association website, literally a week before leaving, that coffee was being grown in Nepal. That was something I had never imagined. I immediately fired off an e-mail to Plantec, the company mentioned in the report, to ask where in Nepal they were located. Just 20 minutes later I had a phone call from Kathmandu, in which Mr Ujjal Rana (who within just one minute had become a friend) explained in fluent English that his plantations were 70 kilometers from the capital and that, if I did not come to visit him, he would never forgive me. I was delighted. Just one week later Ujjal and I were bouncing along a rutted track in his Jeep, which took three and a half hours to cover the 70 kilometers. His coffee farms are situated at the gateway to the Himalayas, at just the right altitude for growing coffee. 13
As you approach, you encounter the Ganesh Himal mountains which range from 7,000 to 8,000 meters (23,000 to 26,000 feet) high and water the valley in which Ujjal has his plantations. These are close to the valley in which the town of Lumbini is situated. Lumbini is well known to all the world’s Buddhists. The Buddha’s teachings were to spread all over India, and later the world, but here, on the border of Nepal and India, is the actual birthplace of Siddhartha Gautama, later called the Buddha, «the Enlightened One.»
I told Ujjal, «This is a completely unique coffee-growing location. It would be wrong to exploit the name cynically, of 14
course, but it would also be wrong to make nothing of it. Your coffee comes from the place where the Buddha was born. That is a big deal! I did not notice any startling innovations on the company’s plantations. Nepal is not the most developed coffee-growing region in the world, which is why it needs to use its unique geographical assets to position itself in the market. Coffee lovers may be interested to know, though, that Ujjal grows only 100% Arabica beans, of a variety called Caturra.
This is a mutation of Coffea Arabica Bourbon, which was discovered in the 1930s in Brazil. Caturra was and remains one of the basic varieties for hybridization experiments, the cross-pollinating of coffee trees in order to improve their yield. For an Arabica, it has quite small beans. The plant grows less tall than most coffee trees but is more resistant to disease, and its compact habit means it can be planted more densely in plantations than other varieties. Ujjal also told me that the natural guardians of his plantations are the wild tigers which roam the district. Once or twice he drew my attention to their roaring in the distance. That was a little unnerving. 15
As I did not find any coffee legends in Nepal let us, just this once, give some cheer to our tea brethren. According to legend, one of the most famous Buddhist monks, Bodhidharma, became sleepy while meditating and plucked out his eyelids to stay awake. Where he threw them down, tea bushes sprang up, and ever since their leaves have helped meditators to stay awake. Since then, certain tea varieties have been known as ÂŤthe eyelids of Bodhidharma.Âť
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3. PERU: I pick potatoes from a coffee tree No, seriously though!
This travel sketch is dedicated to a friend of mine who said he preferred French fries to coffee. There is a classical saying that, «De gustibus non est disputandum» or, as we might say, «There is no point arguing about taste.» I like fries with pickled gherkin myself but, after that, I still like a cup of coffee. To like coffee or not to like it is no doubt one of the rights of man, but our bickering over whether coffee or fries are better reminded me of an incident on one of my coffee explorations. During a visit to Peru, we had the pleasure of visiting a plantation with some clever marketing touches. Its owner grew coffee, but for the tourists and his guests (you could stay there for a week) he had added variety by cultivating other kinds of fruit besides. Banana trees are often grown on coffee plantations because they provide needed shade for the coffee plants, but here for the first time I found lemons and pineapples growing side by side with coffee.
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Picking and eating passion fruit on a coffee plantation was truly exotic.
But then, as I was walking through that little corner of paradise, what should I see growing on a coffee plant but a potato! I asked the owner what was going on, and he explained that this wild potato had been blown in on the wind and taken root in his plantation.
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Shoots from the potato were winding in an extraordinary manner round the coffee plant like a vine. The owner told me this potato variety is called Madonna and has no roots. It is a parasite, feeding off and exhausting the coffee tree, so it is not particularly welcome.
Peru, you may remember, is the homeland of the potato, which is greatly venerated there. How many varieties do you suppose there are in the country? There were estimated to be around 4,000 at one time. We saw some 30 varieties which were clearly distinct from each other (including a square and a black potato). And did you know that in the calendar of the ancient Incas there was a unit of time equivalent to how long it takes to boil a potato. Or that the potato was the first vegetable to be grown in space? So let us not grudge giving the potato its due. Especially since its path sometimes crosses that of the coffee tree. It just lives in a different taste dimension. 19
4. ETHIOPIA: Coffee and honey for an upset stomach An original remedy
Ethiopia has one of the longest histories of any country in the world, and in terms of coffee history, it is absolutely the most ancient. No ifs or buts. The cradle of the world’s coffee culture is a legendary land. I firmly intend some day to devote a whole book to that marvelous country, but meanwhile here is a short note of my coffee exploration of Ethiopia. In terms of tourism, Ethiopia divides into three regions: the more developed north, the central part (which includes the capital, Addis Ababa), and the south, famously exotic but less developed in terms of tourism infrastructure. It was during a trip to the south that I came across an interesting coffee remedy that the Ethiopians use to cure an upset stomach. The cure is known throughout Ethiopia. I made a point of questioning people in different parts of the country, and one and all assured me they had known about it since childhood. It all started when my very good Ethiopian friend, Tsion Taye, who was both my tour organizer and guardian angel, told me that if we ate something on our travels that disagreed with us, we should immediately avail ourselves of this cure. And then, while we were on our way to the city of Jinka to see the famous Mursi tribe (whose women wear large plates in their lower lips, and I will tell you more about that later in this book), we ate something which did cause a certain amount of discomfort. I enquired that evening at our hotel in Jinka, the small but very agreeable Eco-Omo Lodge, about the magic remedy, and 20
the owner kindly made it for us. This folk medicine is known simply as ÂŤCoffee with honeyÂť, and its preparation too is simplicity itself. To 2 spoonfuls of honey add 1 small spoonful of ground coffee.
Mix thoroughly to the consistency of an agreeable dark brown slurry.
Eat with a spoon, like a dessert, and one hour later note that your stomach has become an oasis of peace and tranquillity. 21
It even tastes good! The coffee counteracts the sweetness of the honey and, because it is quite coarsely ground, chewing the small granules covered in honey is a delight. (Anyone who likes to chew roast coffee beans will know what I mean.)
There are minor differences in the recipe. Some people say you should add 2 spoonfuls of coffee to 1 of honey, others that you add 2 spoonfuls of coffee to 2 of honey, but that is a detail. I have no idea why it works, but imagine that results from the combination of the antiseptic qualities of coffee with the binding properties of honey. Who cares? What matters is that it does work. That night, after taking the coffee and honey remedy, I slept soundly. I remember it well, because the next day was my 44th birthday and I was able to greet the morning in good health and good spirits. That birthday was the most amazing in my life so far, and there is more about it below. 22