Fresh Cup Magazine, providing specialty coffee and tea professionals with unique insight into the trends, ideas, products and people that shape their world.
Issue link: http://freshcup.epubxp.com/i/131835
WHEN YIELD IS NO LONGER ENOUGH continued from page 43 FIRST CRACK: The author (right) helps lead a roasting demonstration at a farm and processing facility in Lam Dong province. have inferior cup quality compared with finer Arabicas. To many Vietnamese coffee producers, in fact, "Arabica" is a catch-all for catimor, typica, catuai and bourbon stock. More experienced growers refer to catuai, typica and bourbon as "moka," yet another catch-all within the category. To further complicate the coffee's identity, processors typically buy cherry of varying provenance and quality to blend at their facility under the Arabica banner. Quality control exists mainly on the dry mill side of the equation, through defect, size and density sorting. All of these factors create issues for buyers who want special separations and traceability to any one producer or group, making it difficult for producers to get fair compensation or recognition for any extra effort. Some growers react by holding aside their bourbon and typica production for their own consumption, while selling directly only to buyers lucky enough to find them and willing to WHAT THEY'RE DRINKING The beloved coffee drink of choice among many Vietnamese consumers is CAFÉ SUA DA (iced coffee with milk). It's usually served while still brewing—one-cup metal filter drippers (called phin) ooze thick coffee concentrate onto a layer of sweetened and condensed milk, to be stirred and poured over ice. The flavor is often compared to coffee ice cream, and the condensed milk definitely takes the bitter edge off of the robusta coffee. It's a sweet-tooth's fantasy, with a caffeine jolt. pay a fair price. Global market access for these determined few remains the major challenge. For many Arabica producers, low-priced coffee edges their finer, lower-yielding cultivars out of the market, making the high-yielding (and highly disease resistant) catimor variety more and more enticing when it's time to replant. The lack of incentive for quality is beginning to reduce the population of the quality varieties that currently exist. Though these producers know the quality difference, most have to plant catimor as a monocrop and aim for quantity just to break even in the current market. Fortunately, there are some qualityseekers here. They buy smaller lots directly from producers, ensuring continued production of "moka" coffee. The main challenge here is the lack of a cohesive network for sharing knowledge and contacts, leaving any connections up to sheer determination or happenstance. Because most continued on page 46 44 COFFEE ALMANAC • June 2013