My gears started turning— and my big, Spanish-speaking mouth started moving—as Liliana told me about ACDI/VOCA Colombia’s Specialty Coffee Program (SCP), back at their booth at the Specialty Coffee Association of America (SCAA) show in Long Beach, Calif., last May. SCP is a program to improve growers’ quality of life by helping them produce and market higher quality coffee. One facet was sponsoring volunteers to transfer their technical and commercial knowledge to growers and others at the early stages of the production chain. Baristas could play an important role in SCP, I thought, as those in the chain closest to the consumer. We hear what coffees customers like and don’t like, we get a sense for their coffee politics, and we see how they choose to spend their money. Wouldn’t growers like to hear about it? And by gaining more first-hand experience of origin, wouldn’t we baristas and café owners be better positioned to evangelize high-quality specialty coffee? We could even take it one step further and host a Colombian coffee producer to show them what we do to safeguard quality on our end. Little did I know that back in Colombia, Luis Fernando Velez had been wanting to go on a barista exchange to Seattle—which is where Trabant Coffee & Chai, the café I own with my husband, is—since 1999. Back then, he was running the Amor Perfecto coffee bar in Bogota and wanted to intern up here. “Not possible,” he was told. Since then, he sold the coffee bar and focused Amor Perfecto’s efforts on roasting some of Colombia’s finest beans, including Colombia Cup of Excellence (CoE) winners, for the domestic market. He then went on to organize Colombia’s first barista competition last year to raise awareness of the craftsman nature of the profession, something really important in a country with a fledgling café culture.
 

So come late May 2007, Luis Fernando’s phone rings and it is Liliana. “I met this girl at the SCAA show. She’s a little young, and she only has one store. She has this idea about a barista exchange. Do you think it is a good idea? Do you think it is worth it? Who would be her exchange partner?” she asks. “Yes, yes, and sign me up to be the first one!” he exclaims.
 

The next thing we knew, Trabant barista Lorrie McCullaugh and I were on our way to Colombia. Our first day in Bogota, we learned more about ACDI/VOCA and their work around the country. ACDI/ VOCA is an agricultural, non-governmental, non- profit organization based in the U.S. with offices all around the world. The Colombia office is focusing on SCP, a $10 million, five- year undertaking. Projects include helping growers of illicit crops learn how to make a good and honest living growing specialty coffee, donating processing and drying equipment to growers and training them to use it, training 1,500 growers to cup in Colombia, and sending around 60 cuppers to Long Beach to refine their skills. Up until a few years ago, cupping took place mostly in a lab high up in a skyscraper in downtown Bogota. Luis Alberto Cuellar, ACDI/VOCA’s founding director, spearheaded the efforts to bring cupping to the people. After all, developing the palates of those closest to coffee growing is essential to identifying, tracing, and eliminating defects.
 

Our first real adventure began on day two with a trip to Huila, a growing region in the southern part of the country. They call this area the “New Frontier,” as the traditional coffee growing region is the central part of the country. Most of Huila’s farms are small, simple, and proud family-run operations. But boy did they show everyone! In the first CoE in 2005, 16 of the 25 finalists (including the winner) were from Huila. Now, we at Trabant have always been evangelists of CoE. Any given time you come in, you’re likely to find a CoE at the higher-end of our Clover coffee menu. We’ll talk your ear off about how anyone can enter, how scoring is blind, and the premiums farmers command for their CoE lots. But now we can tell people how Ricaurte Hernández, the First Harvest 2005 winner, built a new house and a road with his earnings. He is also going back to finish high school.
 

The most beautiful story is that of Luis Alberto Jojoa, the First Harvest 2006 winner. He started out as a patio raker. He made a deal with his employer to work off two hectares of land. He dedicated his efforts to the land. SCP helped support his washing and other process improvements. With the money he got from CoE, he was able to purchase more land. Coincidentally, we had cupped his auction lot coffee at Stumptown’s Seattle office earlier this year. He was very excited to hear that! Stories like Ricaurte’s and Luis Alberto’s are well known in their communities, inspiring neighbors to produce high-quality coffee as well.

Continued... only in the pages of Barista Magazine!