Tag: Harvest Update

  • Long Miles Coffee’s Post-Harvest Update: news from the coffee farm, field and cupping lab

    Long Miles Coffee’s Post-Harvest Update: news from the coffee farm, field and cupping lab

    From the Farm

    collected and translated by Joy Mavugo in conjunction with Robyn-Leigh van Laren from the Long Miles Story Team

    Green coffee cherries on a coffee tree

    The first of September usually means the end of the dry season in Burundi, and the start of the country’s second rainy season. During this time of the year, many communities of farmers usually shift their focus from coffee to other subsistence crops (such as maize, potatoes and cassava) that need to be planted by the time rain starts to fall.

    “We have to hurry and finish everything before September because once the rain starts, there will be many things to do. You can’t work on activities meant for the dry season during the rainy season. My husband is supposed to be mulching and fertilizing the soil of our coffee plantations while I plant other crops, but he’s still busy pruning our coffee trees. I’ve had to stop what I was doing to help him look for mulch.”

    Jeannette Ngendakumana is a coffee farmer from Gaharo hill

    Meanwhile, some farmers are still focused on picking coffee cherries. Due to the irregular weather patterns that Burundi experienced this year, the country’s coffee harvest came to an end while many farmers still had unripened cherries on their coffee trees.

    “Harvest might be over at the washing stations, but it’s still going on at home. There are many cherries that need to be picked. We are still in the dry season, and the coffee trees aren’t getting much water. The small amount of water they do get is being fed straight to the cherries that are still ripening and haven’t been picked. These leftover cherries also cause the number of antestia bugs found in the coffee farmers to multiply. The only way to prevent this is by picking them. Many farmers can’t accept losing so many cherries after harvest, so they continue to process coffee at home: picking, sorting cherries, hand-pulping and then drying. Coffee traders have permission from the government to buy parchment coffee at a fixed price from coffee farmers. I still have one hundred kilograms of coffee to sell.”

     Joseph Haragasika is a coffee farmer from Gaharo hill.

    From the Field

    written by Seth Nduwayo, Quality Control Manager for Long Miles Coffee

    Sack of parchment coffee on the ground

    Previously I talked about how our Lab in Bujumbura was pushing hard to have a lot of samples processed and dispatched at that time to David (in the States where the main Lab is based, because of the threat by COVID-19). Because of the hard work of the Buja Lab Team, our process chain was always active. And today, I am grateful for the step where we are at and I can congratulate Mr. Zebron (Long Miles Coffee Lab Assistant) for having delivered most of our expectations. This week, intensive Lab work was done. All the urgent samples were processed and dispatched to the Lab in the States. This is a good thing as lot construction becomes quicker and milling plans become definite. We can expect to see the activities moving in a faster way, from the beginning of September.

    Liar or dreamer, I ignore what you will think of me. Having a container ready in August was done, as promised. But shipping should take place early September, which is good as the earliest, so far, we have been able to make is early October. The reason is that export paperwork is not a quick-do-it-yourself kit. In fact, when we had everything ready, an official in charge of issuing the grades confirmation certificate (taxation report) was out for three consecutive days. When he was supposed to come back, coincidentally it was a day off as it was an election day (for hill leaders). Even for other signatories, we observe similar delays and we never stop learning!

    From the Lab

    written by David Stallings, Roaster Relations for Long Miles Coffee

    Person pouring water from a kettle into cups of coffee
    Image taken by Julianna Elizabeth Herr

    Echoing Seth’s message, the busy days in the lab continue. It has been a pleasure to see much of the work from the last two months come to a point of fruition in the form of final, milled lot samples. The milling quality has been excellent and the coffees are so balanced and clean. If you have not received samples yet and are expecting them, do not fret. Our focus at this time is on moving lots through the process as quickly as possible, in order to allow milling and export to happen as quickly as possible. In the end, this will serve everyone in the supply chain.

    I so greatly appreciate the tone of optimism and enthusiasm in Seth’s section of this week’s newsletter. The entire team has been pushing hard to move coffee as quickly as possible. Hours after Seth emailed me the copy for his section, however, we did run into what is currently a concerning situation. The dry mill which is contracted to mill and clean our coffees this year has been on strike. The strike concerns the mill owner and specifics surrounding former-employee pensions. In ever humbling Burundi coffee sector fashion, we are monitoring the situation patiently. A report I received just minutes ago relayed that the situation will hopefully be resolved early next week. That said, there is no way to know at this time. I will continue to use this space in these emails to update all of you concerning the situation.

    As always, if you feel that you have not been heard regarding your needs for this season, please reach out to me!

    Links worth checking out

  • Long Miles Coffee Harvest update: news from the coffee farm, field and cupping lab.

    Long Miles Coffee Harvest update: news from the coffee farm, field and cupping lab.

    Long Miles Coffee Scout pruning coffee trees

    From the Farm

    collected and translated by Joy Mavugo, in conjunction with Robyn-Leigh van Laren from the Long Miles Story Team

    Every year, when our coffee harvest comes to an end, the Long Miles Coffee Scouts open up the “Pruning Campaign”. During this campaign, the Scouts move between the hills where coffee is grown, guiding the communities of coffee growers that we work with through the practice of pruning and stumping their coffee trees. The Scouts help these farmers to identify older or unhealthy coffee trees that should be pruned, stumped or uprooted from their farms. They also encourage farmers to weed and mulch the land where their coffee is grown to prepare the soil for the next year’s coffee harvest.

    “In 2017, I pruned all of the coffee trees in one of my coffee plantations. In 2020, three years later, I picked double the amount of coffee cherry than what I used to harvest before pruning. The Scouts have helped me and the other coffee farmers in my community to understand the different ways of taking care of our coffee plantations. I remember the first time the Scouts told me about pruning and stumping older coffee trees. In my heart, I was thinking: “These young people don’t know what they’re talking about. Cutting coffee trees? No way.” Now, I am encouraging other farmers to prune and stump their coffee trees.

    Firmin Niyibizi is a coffee farmer from Gaharo hill. He has two plantations and 300 coffee trees.

    Burundian burlap coffee sacks

    From the Field

    written by Seth Nduwayo, Quality Control Manager for Long Miles Coffee

    Our washing station that remained opened to farmers the latest closed the harvest on July 31st. Two of our stations have taken all coffee off of the drying tables this week. The station that still has some coffee on drying tables is Heza and with the end of August, at most, every coffee should be taken off the tables. We are proud of what the teams have been able to achieve. There were a lot of challenges but they have shown that they can transform them into opportunities. Briefly, in November 2019, the Government announced that they wanted to come back to operating in the coffee sector (what was interpreted as re-nationalizing the coffee industry). No one knew what had to happen next. The regulations have been made unfavorable. For example, we were obliged to have on our accounts an amount that can pay 75% of expected cherry, in advance. That money couldn’t serve in other operations except for farmers’ payment. Consequently, getting the production license was so difficult. But today we endured and have even the exportation license. I can sit and sigh, whispering to myself and say: “God fought at our side. The harvest was difficult but we made it through. Though we are not sure of the future, we hope to always stand”.

    As for the dry milling activities, we are progressing well. Here, also, we have challenges (which is normal). I previously talked about delays in milling program execution, lack of space for hand picking, power outage, forklift breaking down, bag marking that is slower…each of those challenges has happened to us. However, today we are happy that we have close to a full container of hand-picked coffee and 165 bags are already taxed (grade confirmation by the national coffee board: ODECA). If everything goes smoothly, we expect to ship our first container before the end of August, which will be the first year we are able to do so.

    Cupping in the Long Miles Cupping Lab
    Image taken by Julianna Elizabeth Herr

    From the Lab

    written by David Stallings, Roaster Relations for Long Miles Coffee

    These are very busy days in the lab. But, they have also been very encouraging days. The coffees are tasting absolutely wonderful. This week, for the first time this season, I received not only table samples in my weekly package, but also some finished, milled pre-shipment samples. Efficiency has been a huge focus this year. Specifically, efficiency surrounding the time it takes to get coffee ready for export. Between the incredible work of our team in Burundi, the execution of new (and ever-evolving) quality control systems, and the strong logistics partners we have lined up in North America, Europe, and Australia, I am very confident that this will be our best year yet from the perspective of shipment timeliness.

    It has been such a pleasure to be engaged in ongoing/regular communication with so many of you about your needs for this year. If you feel that you have not been heard regarding your needs for this season, by all means, please reach out to me!

  • HARVEST UPDATE

    HARVEST UPDATE

    FROM THE FARM, FIELD AND LAB

    Burundian Coffee farmer picking coffee cherries

    From the Farm

    collected and translated by Joy Mavugo in conjunction with Robyn-Leigh van Laren from the Long Miles Story team.

    On Thursday, 18 June 2020 the newly elected president Evariste NDAYISHIMIYE was sworn into office, two months before the official inauguration ceremony was planned and a week before the burial of late president H.E Pierre NKURUNZIZA. We asked some people how they were feeling about the unprecedented and significant changes happening in the country at this time. 

    “I knew that the ceremony was supposed to be in August. I don’t know why it was decided to have it earlier, but what’s important is that everything happened peacefully. It seemed strange to me, because it’s the first time to see a big ceremony happen in Burundi while the body of important leader of the country is still in the morgue.” – Samuel is a coffee farmer from Gitwe hill. 

    “It makes sense that the ceremony happened before the scheduled time, because there was no president in the country. In Kirundi, we say “Igihugu nti gipfakara” which means “The country can’t be a widower”. It’s good that the new president has stepped in. I was happy about the ceremony, and I’m happy for the new president. I’m waiting to see the changes that he will bring.” – Tharcisse is a coffee farmer from Nkonge hill. 

    “I was happy that day, because Burundi without a president is like an army without a commander. What amazes me is that during a time where there was no president in the country, there was no news to say that anyone had been killed. There was full peace. I wish that the new president will bring peace to the country, and bring back the people who have fled the country in the past.” – Gaslide from Gaharo hill

    Processing Long Miles Coffee at Bukeye washing station

    From the Field

    written by Seth Nduwayo, Quality Control Manager for Long Miles Coffee

    Now we have been processing coffee for about three months. This is a crucial period where a lot of attention has to be paid to how we process coffee. In fact, all we do at this stage will determine the quality of coffee we are going to produce. In other words, this is the most sensitive period to the quality of the coffee. This is where we as Long Miles do cherry selection, pulping, fermenting, grading, soaking, pre-drying, drying, moisture tracking, parchment storage… in a very monitored way, every day and seriously. As coffee can not wait at this stage, we will understand that, during this period, laborers have to work so hard. Life, during this period, follows the same pattern. But the reality is that it is hard, complex, demanding… overall, the busiest time of the season.

    However, we are in transition to another period that is similar to production at stations, though there are some nuanced differences. These days, stations are sending a lot of samples to process, analyze, and send to the main lab in the States. After getting feedback from the main lab, then we know the order of lots loading, and how and what needs to be transferred at the Dry Mill. For the moment, we have some results from the lab and next week our first truck of parchment will land at BUDECA Dry Mill, in Gitega, the political center of Burundi. Then we shall start milling, probably early July. Simply put, dry milling consists of hulling, grading (by machine), color sorting, hand-picking, packaging, classification or taxation, and then documentation preparation that precedes green coffee exportation. This can bring many challenges: many companies may be submitting their milling program at the same time, power going off, forklifts breaking down, handpicking space lacking, bags marking being so slow… however, despite these possible challenges, my teammates and I are excited and ready to start milling as it is the final stage in getting our coffee in exportable condition and switching the story back to hearing from roasters.

    Cupping Burundi Coffee in the Long Miles lab
    Image taken by Julianna Elizabeth Herr

    From the Lab

    written by David Stallings, Roaster Relations for Long Miles Coffee

    Being coffee producers, there is never a lack of interesting information to share. In fact, this was a huge reason for wanting to start these updates. In everyday conversation with the team in Burundi, I would hear things that made me feel, “This should be shared with people in specialty coffee consuming countries!” While the header for my section is titled “[Notes] From the Lab,” I have, and will continue to, take the liberty to muse beyond the lab, as it were. In a sense, I feel that my role at Long Miles is to be the touchpoint between the work we do in Burundi and the people who roast and consume our coffees. Further, having been a green coffee buyer and also someone running coffee roasteries for many years prior to my time at Long Miles, I feel well-positioned to pull out topics of interest in order to shine a light on them. Topics that I hope those reading this section will find as interesting as I do.

    Before working directly for a coffee producer, I thought I understood how critical the weather, rain in particular, was to a growing season. It turns out this is a topic that literally cannot be stressed enough. If you have been following along with these emails and/or our social media presence, you probably have some idea of just how much of a rollercoaster 2020 has been as it pertains to rain in Burundi. The year started out with seemingly unending, damaging rains. These rains caused landslides, ruined buildings, damaged crops that would have been eaten or have provided a household income for families, prevented the planting of the year’s second round of food staples, and more. The rains finally stopped a few weeks into the harvest season. This was a boon to the drying of our coffees. During the 2018 harvest, we were faced with the challenges of drying coffee amidst steady and continued rain. During rain you must cover the coffee on the drying beds with sheets of plastic. While this works fine for temporary afternoon showers, it is far from ideal for multi-day stretches. If covered for too long a host of issues can present themselves, from molds to the developing of a phenolic (chemical-like, think chlorine) taste in the cup.

    It only took a few weeks for the great boon of dry weather to feel burdensome. During the Burundi harvest period, one can typically expect occasional showers. These showers help ripen the coffee fruit that remains on the trees. As the climate remained stubbornly dry we watched our coffee volume projections shrink for the year, just as we watched coffee begin to shrivel up on the tree. Without the necessary ripening rains the coffee cherries would turn from green to reddish-brown, never properly ripening.

    I share all of this in order to set the stage for what I thought was quite an interesting anecdote I heard Seth Nduwayo and Epaphras Ndikumana (Long Miles’ Quality Control Manager, and Social and Environmental Impact Leader, respectively) discussing one day recently. They were commenting on the fact that there was so much coffee remaining on the trees, waiting for rain in order to ripen it, because the soil health is so poor. They told me that if certain fertilizers had been applied at the appropriate time, this would not be nearly as big of an issue. As much as my mind was with the tragedy of the coffee remaining on the trees, destined to never reach maturity, I could not help but find this fascinating.

    Some very brief notes on inputs in Burundi: in recent years the government of Burundi has banned the importation of fertilizers, looking instead to promote a new state-built and run fertilizer company. The issue has been that the government has struggled to deliver fertilizer at the appropriate time of year, if at all. Inputs must be applied at the appropriate time, otherwise, their use is non-effective and quite literally a waste of money. While writing this weeks’ email update I visited the Wikipedia page Agriculture in Burundi, which very clearly lays out the issues in one sentence under the section Land: “Much of the land has suffered a loss of fertility because of soil erosion from poor agricultural practices, irregularity of rainfall, lack of fertilizer, and shortened fallow periods.”

    There is good news, however, as there almost always is… over the past two weeks we have received periodic rains and have seen the deliveries to our washing stations hold steady in volume. Much of the cherry on the trees is properly ripening and we could not be more thrilled. While this harvest is not destined to hit the volumes we were hoping for back in February, it is certainly looking more positive than it was just a few weeks ago. We are grateful for this.

    Secondly, while it may seem scary to talk about poor soil health, I firmly believe that the lack of inputs and low yields contribute to the exceptional quality we taste in the cup. This is a theme I have noticed time and again as a coffee buyer. It became most obvious for me back in 2015 while traveling in Kenya. In Kenya you see private estates growing coffee trees laden with fruit, owing in part to the plant genetics but also to the high level of chemical inputs. These private estates get 30, 35, even 45+ kilograms of coffee cherry per tree each harvest. Farms owned by smallholders delivering to cooperatives, on the other hand, would have straggly looking coffee trees producing 1.5 to 2 kilograms of coffee cherry per tree. Agronomists in Kenya are quick to point out the health of the abundantly producing, heavily fertilized trees as opposed to the relatively unhealthy smallholder trees. That said, it is my opinion that the best coffees in Kenya come from the cooperatives, whose members have relatively low yielding trees. Since this 2015 realization, I have applied this thought to various countries, varieties, and even harvests. Time and again I see it play out… lower-yielding is almost always more enjoyable in the cup.

    Without question, this thinking presents a financial conundrum. There must be a balance between larger yields and quality in order to maximize income for producers. In all honesty, I only wish I could say that we, as an industry, are even close to working with producers to achieve said balance and find the optimum yield to quality ratio. In reality, this incredibly nascent specialty industry is still boot-strapping it – in a sense. Doing whatever it can to get by, while sticking to its purported goals. I merely share all these reflections as food for thought. Starts of conversations. Conversations which we hope to contribute to now and into the future. 

    I have certainly seen this maxim play out on my cupping lab the past couple of weeks. As I continue to taste through table samples from the harvest that is still underway, I continue to be blown away by the quality and qualities of Burundi coffee (produced from low yielding coffee trees in soil of relatively poor health). These are exceptional coffees and we cannot wait to share them with you all over the coming weeks and months!

    LINKS WORTH CHECKING OUT

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