A few days ago it dawned on me that I kicked off this website just over three years ago. Without intending to do so, my previous post came exactly three years after the very first one. All this time I stuck to the original lay-out, but to celebrate its third birthday, I figured a face-lift was in order, hence the total new look. I hope you like it. And of course the initial intention of posting something once a week still stands (even though the past has proven life sometimes got in the way of blogging).
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Over the past three years a great number of fun, clever and catchy citations found their way to the weekly coffee quotes, but slowly I am running out of new ones. I'll still be keeping my eyes and ears open for them, but to make up for the loss of a weekly quote I'd like to introduce a new section on this blog: the photo of the week. Every week my wife and I will be going through the vast amount of photos we collected over our years abroad and pick one we want to share with you. It can be just a snapshot we like, a photo with a little story behind it or one that brings back memories. We sincerely hope you will like this new addition to this website.
The Yunnan coffee industry is in full development and the past few weeks I have been travelling from one event to the next. A few weeks ago there was a Pu'er Coffee Event in Shanghai where Nestlé China signed a memorandum with the Pu'er Government and announced a major investment in the coffee industry of Pu'er with the construction of a Nescafé Coffee Centre. This centre will include a training centre, a demo farm, a consumer centre and a green bean collection centre, with the aim to further assist the sustainable coffee development in the region. In the mean time we also continue to roll out our 4C implementation. We carry on with verifications at farmer level, training of those interested to join, and follow up workshops. We also celebrated the license of the first 4C unit! The achievements we realised in such a short period of time and the readiness of our suppliers to participate and change their practices never cease to amaze me. This weekend I attended the inauguration of the Specialty Coffee Society of Yunnan, where I gave a speech and presentation. The establishment of this society will take Yunnan's coffee industry another step further. The term specialty coffee was first used in 1974 by Erna Knutsen to describe beans of the best flavor which are produced in special microclimates. Today the term is commonly used to refer to "gourmet" or "premium" coffee. Specialty coffees are grown in special and ideal climates, and are distinctive because of their full cup taste and little to no defects. The unique flavors and tastes are a result of the special characteristics and composition of the soils in which they are produced. Each stage, from plant husbandry to coffee cup is important to create the specialty coffee. And last but not least, this coffee is also defined by all this being done in a responsible way that adds value to the lives and livelihoods of all involved. In between all these events I had a chance to visit our E&D Farm where not only the coffee trees were flowering, but also the jacaranda trees were covering the farm in their purple flowers.
Sichuan has once again been hit by a severe earthquake. I was in Pu'er and didn't notice a thing, but my family, who were in Kunming at the time, did feel it. Like many we have been following the news on this tragedy and we feel for those who were hit by it, directly and indirectly.
It is known in Ethiopia, South Sudan and Indonesia, and even though an earlier introduction in the 1800s in Britain proved unsuccessful, a group of British and French scientists believe there might be a future for this drink after all: tea made from coffee leaves. Often overlooked due to the popularity of the coffee cherries, they believe coffee leaf tea to be healthier than either tea or coffee. The brew supposedly has an earthy taste, is less bitter than tea and not as strong as coffee, and it contains less caffeine than either of these two. Moreover, it contains certain compounds that lower the risk of diabetes and heart disease, and a number of chemicals with antioxidant and anti-inflammatory properties. The researchers now hope that due to these and other health benefits this coffee leaf tea might rival with the highly popular coffee and black and green teas. Let's just wait and see, and maybe even try it, as back in 1851, when it was touted as the next tea, there were those who found it undrinkable...
There seem to be no limits as to what coffee can do. Not only can it be used to get you going in the morning, it might do the same for your car! It seems a team of engineers has been working for quite some years on coffee-geared cars. They use coffee chaff pellets, a waste product from coffee production, in a process called gasification: by adding oxygen to the coffee pellets, and heating this mix to over 700 degrees C, a fuel called syngas is formed. This consists of carbon monoxide, hydrogen, carbon dioxide and methane, and can be used by a normal internal combustion engine. Using this process, they set a world speed record on February 19, reaching no less than 65.5 mph. Who knows, in the future you might not just make yourself a cuppa in the morning, but also one for your car. In the mean time, you can check out the coffee car's own website to keep updated on the progress.
When I signed my contract, I never thought we would be staying this long, but today it is exactly 8 years to the day since I started my assignment in Pu’er. After all these years, I still really like my job, the committed team and the coffee farmers I get to work with and of course the coffee they produce. Throughout the years it was great to see the impact we had in the villages and coffee communities, as well as finding our program really is making a difference. During these eight years a lot of things have changed. Not only did the city change its name from Simao to Pu’er, and did it modernize quite bit, albeit keeping its green character, it also evolved to the Coffee Capital of China. The coffee villages and farmers flourished, almost tripling the area under production as well as the yield. Recently, on a visit to our offices, the Vice-mayor in charge of coffee mentioned that the farmers trust our operations and appreciate our services, which of course was great to hear. It made me realize once more that all the travelling and all the visits throughout the whole area the past years have resulted in a strong linkage with the farmers, which in turn brings the responsibility to not only keep, but also strengthen this relation. Through my work with the farmers and visits to their farms, I really feel part of the community. And it has been a joy seeing both the number of coffee growers linked to us and the volume we purchased have increased so significantly over the years. And last but not least, also privately we will always be linked to Pu’er. Eight years ago we arrived as a newly-wed couple, now we are a family of four, with my eldest even managing a few words in the local dialect. All of us love this little city (to local standards at least) close to the country side with its diverse and friendly people.
Recently, on a sunny Sunday morning, we went on a field trip to a nearby Dai village. It is a nice little village, with the only access roads being a small bridge for (motor)bikes or driving through a small river. We arrived early, and while the fog lifted from the valley with the newly planted rice fields, we saw the village slowly come to life. Some people set off for a nearby town, while others were drying the coffee from the last sanitary harvest, the air filled with the sounds of a storage being built. And while in most regions the sanitary harvest is nearly finished, the coffee has started flowering and the first coffee cherries of the crop to come can be seen on the trees. This however does not mean we have finished our buying season. Last week we had what must have been the largest queue to date: a seemingly endless row along the road leading to the buying station. I’ve recently learned coffee has some, at least to me, unexpected positive effects for office work. Apparently it was already known that the caffeine in coffee has analgesic capacities, and it is already being used as a component in some pain killers. Though, just a cuppa might do the trick as well. For those of us who work long hours on the computer, pain in neck, shoulders, arms and wrists probably sound familiar. Researchers have now discovered that drinking just one cup of coffee at breakfast might reduce these pains. For me, that makes two cups in the morning a necessity: one for waking up, one as preventive measure for all the administration awaiting me at the office.
It is now officially proven: coffee helps to have a positive outlook on life! Previous studies had already shown that people are quicker in recognizing positive words, images and sounds compared to negative ones. To learn more about how this preference works German researchers did an experiment with caffeine. As it was already known that caffeine makes people respond quicker and make less mistakes when given simple mental exercises, one would expect that under the influence of caffeine people would recognize both positive and negative words quicker. The tests however showed this was not the case: 7% more positive words were recognized than other words. The researchers think this is due to caffeine stimulating a part of the brain that is linked to positivity. So, if you, like me, are not Mr. or Mrs. Sunshine when you wake up, a daily dose of coffee early in the morning does help beat that morning temper.
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AuthorI wouldn't be surprised to find out I was born with a passion for coffee. For the life of me, I can't remember not loving coffee. And by that, I don't just mean drinking it, but everything involved from its cultivation over the processing to the final product that is my loyal companion throughout the day. Archives
February 2014
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