If you don't know, then have a listen….At Tecapa Blue in El Salvador, we grow our coffee from seeds, and fuss over them for a year before they go in the ground. Then we prune the coffee and the shade trees. Ever try dangling 40ft up in a tree with a machete all day for six weeks? Next comes a little organic fertilizer and pulp compost, but only when the moon is just right. Twice a year we do battle with the Behuco vine. If you sit still long enough, it will strangle you too. It's all cut by hand, again with the ever handy machete. Then we wait, pray a little, and watch the green beans slowly turn a crimson red while we take cover through six months of thunder and lightening. We have lots of candles.
Finally, if Mother nature hasn't interfered, we bring the women in from Tecapan to harvest in December and January. They brings their kids who are on vacation and every day is like a fiesta, with singing and laughter. The women carry their 100lb. sacks of coffee back to the hacienda so we can weigh them. Every afternoon, we depulp the coffee and save the cherry fruit for composting. The beans are raked on our sun patio every hour for up to a week. The men sleep in hammocks through the night to guard the beans (more machetes).
So now we have our coffee, and it's time to turn it into something we can send home to the US. The beans get de-husked and then Juana (our housekeeper and all-around general), plus any man with some free time will spend days sorting the coffee and removing any bean rendered unacceptable. We drink a lot of coffee on those days to stay awake, and I have been teaching everyone a few yoga poses, which for the most part, has everyone rolling on the ground, but at least we get a little stretching in.
Then, we spend another week sticking labels on our shiny blue bags where I get testy if they go on crooked. We drive the coffee to a very small town called Jucuapa for roasting by Senor Jacquin. He has been roasting our coffee for five years now and does a marvelous job. His skills have increased tenfold recently as US AID donated a fancy new roasting machine. The old one sits in a corner and we've named it Paco.
Once the coffee is roasted and bagged, we return to the plantation and begin the no-so-fun part….red tape. It's a test of patience generating a stack of documents each and every time with many trips to various government agencies before we can actually take it to TACA air freight. There, we are rewarded with only slightly less hassle from customs followed by their resident drug sniffing dog that scrambles all over our boxes until satisfied. When Omar Pena at TACA hands me my bill of lading, I suddenly feel very tired and think about the two hour drive back to the plantation. But as soon as I drive through our gates, I forget all about the hard work because I know exactly where this coffee comes from and how much love goes into every bag. If you enjoy good coffee, then consider our Tecapa Blue. Every bag sold makes a real difference in peoples lives. We sell direct online, so aside from actual costs, every penny is put back into the farm. We love visitors, so if you are ever in our neck of the woods, have a visit!
