FROM BEAN - Not all coffee is created equal

FROM BEAN - Not all coffee is created equal

One of the main reasons Sam Keck opened Commonfolk, his much-loved Mornington café and coffee roasting business, was because he felt the Mornington Peninsula had such a long history of great food and wine but didn’t approach coffee in the same way. “Coffee was almost an afterthought,” says Sam, who opened Commonfolk’s doors almost 10 years ago. With Commonfolk cafes now also in South Yarra, Beaumaris and Frankston, when it comes to coffee, Sam knows his stuff.

When talking to Sam, it doesn’t take long to learn there’s more to creating the humble cup of coffee than most coffee devotees consider. “I think people don’t realise how many hands it takes to get coffee to the customer,” he says. “A lot of people know about the brewing process and the barista having to grind the beans, extract it and brew it. A few people probably understand you need to roast coffee from green coffee, but what most people don’t realise is there are so many steps before that to even get the coffee into an appropriate form to roast.”

Coffee is grown on evergreen shrubs at high altitudes in tropical climates in countries such as Brazil, Colombia, Uganda and Ethiopia. Coffee ‘cherries’ grow along the branches of the shrub and once they are harvested – often by hand – they are washed, dried, milled, and hulled, then milled again before the beans can be shipped all over the world.

As consumers learn more about the ethics behind their daily coffee hit, Sam sees the market responding. “It’s good to see increasingly good communication from coffee roasters like us and other roasters on the Peninsula like Prodigal and Little Rebel. Narratives around farming and ethical sourcing are becoming more prevalent.

“I want people to realise not all coffee is created equal. When someone suggests paying slightly more for your coffee might have a massive impact at a farming level, I don’t think it can be understated and why it’s important to understand where your coffee comes from, who is producing it and how is it paid for as opposed to ‘does the packaging look great?’ ”

Sam and his team pride themselves on the relationships they’ve built with coffee farmers and ensuring that a fair price is paid for their harvest. “We typically try to work with the same partners every year. We buy all their coffee, from their entry-level specialty bulk lots all the way to super-rare coffees for customers who want to spend more on a one-off experience.”

Commonfolk’s initiative The Cup That Counts sees 20 cents from every cup of Commonfolk coffee made invested in the initiative that supports several coffee-related projects. One such project is Zukuka Bora, a social enterprise in Uganda that exists to empower farming communities and return a sustainable and regenerative enterprise to the Mt Elgon coffee region. The Cup That Counts has helped Zukuka Bora purchase demonstration farms, build processing centres, buy machinery, and provide training and employment to more than six coffee farming communities around Mt Elgon. To date, Commonfolk has donated $210,000 to the project. Closer to home, The Cup That Counts supports Mornington’s Home Ground Café, a vocational training cafe creating opportunities for local unemployed youth. Since starting in 2018 with four young people, Home Ground has now had more than 80 young people walk through its doors and benefit from its hospitality training program.

With the rising cost of living, how will people’s daily coffee ritual be affected? “People can expect to see a price increase; that’s just the reality,” Sam says. “Not just because the price of coffee beans has gone up – that’s already happened. It’s more the wages. There’s a shortage of skilled coffee workers because during the pandemic there was a two-year period where no one trained new staff because people weren’t hiring. They were just trying to keep the staff they had. And now the industry is trying to catch up, there’s a very small resource of staff and it’s pushing the price of baristas up.”

From the growers to the roasters to the baristas, there’s a big story behind your daily coffee. Drink responsibly.

NIKKI FISHER