Origin Week: I'd like to introduce...

The SCAA (Specialty Coffee Association of America) is organizing an event in Boston that gives us an opportunity to pull in many of the people we work with.  With a continuing desire for transparency and giving credit where it's due, we have arranged for a list of speakers and small events outside the trade show and competitions that regular people who love coffee can attend for free.

You know we are passionate, but these people are involved in much of what we do at varying levels.  Meet farm owners, mill managers, quality operations that represent small farmers and organize relationships, and others. Origin week highlights the people we work with to bring you coffee. These events give you, our local customers, a chance to interact and hear their story.

Wihout further ado, here is an introduction to all of the amazing people who will be at the Origin Week events, take a look and then go reserve your free tickets for each event over here: originweek.eventbrite.com

April 9th and April 14th

Gustavo Alfaro is a fourth generation coffee farmer, but he is not your typical producer. After graduating from the University of Guatemala, Gustavo went on to pursue a career in biochemistry which led him from Chile to South Africa. Eventually when the time came for him to take on the operation of Hacienda Santa Rosa, Gustavo brought great new ideas to investing in the future of the farm. One of his first goals was to find a partnership with a roaster who would have a focus on quality and long term growth with HSA. Barismo was amazed with the Buena Esperanza when they first cupped it and became the very first specialty micro roaster to work with HSA. Buena Esperanza went on to place 4th in the 2012 Cup of Excellence with promise of an improved 2013 crop. Gustavo pushes for improvements for the farm at every level, from microlots and agricultural projects to quality of life for workers. 

April 10th

Luis Pedro runs Bella Vista Mill in Guatemala and is also a manager of many quality farms in Guatemala. We have worked with Luis for over four years on various coffees, notably the El Bosque, Bosque Red and Yellow Bourbon microlots from 2011. Luis has implemented continued quality improvements on the farm level at El Bosque. We recently began working with him on an extensive varietal project. Luis has a background in agronomy and a passion for quality.

April 11th

Francisco Mena and Exclusive Coffees are big supporters of the Micromill Revolution in Costa Rica. The so called revolution focuses on specialty quality coffees and lot separation, and has continued to grow with the rise of direct trade efforts by specialty roasters. Barismo has worked with Francisco and Exclusive Coffees on the Don Mayo lot La Loma, Jardin De Aromas mircrolots, and various other excellent coffees.

April 11th

Alejandro Cadena has a degree in Economics from the Universidad de los Andes in Bogotá. He joined Virmax in 2001 and in 2002 he set up Virmax Colombia. Alejandro is the managing director of Virmax, but still visits with coffee growers and continues to seek out new relationships with producers to bring in exciting coffees.

April 11th

Badi Bradley is a specialty coffee importer for Caravela Coffee located in North Carolina. Barismo has worked with Badi for many years to sustainably bring in coffees from Colombia. Caravela, though mainly dealing with Colombian coffees, brings in excellent lots from Honduras, Nicaragua and other Central American countries. 

April 12th

Matthew Hodges founded GeoCertify in 2007, while working with the government of Rwanda to restructure the coffee sector from commodity to specialty grade. He is currently serving as President and CEO of GeoCertify, implementing tracability efforts of microlots through the Ethiopia Commodity Echange.  He spent 5 years as a visiting scientist at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and currently lectures at Kigali Institute of Science and Technology. He holds degrees from Pennsylvania State University and Harvard University. - from geocertify website

April 12th

Anteneh Assafa is the new CEO of the Ethiopia Commodity Exchange, succeeding founder of the ECX Eleni Gabre-Medhin PhD. Mr. Assafa holds a degree in managment from Addis Ababa University and a degree in finance from the University of Sorbonne. Mr. Assafa has 15 years experience in the banking sector most recently as the Vice-President of the Bank of Abyssinia.

Reserve your free ticket for these events at:

Signup now:   originweek.eventbrite.com

Origin Week Events

barismo coffee roaster presents
 Origin Week Full Event List 
April 9-14, 2013  Free registration for all events at www.originweek.eventbrite.com
they grow it, we roast it, you love it. shake the hands that planted your coffee.
Barismo is a local coffee roaster who has dedicated years to sourcing the freshest quality coffee. We work tirelessly to foster transparent and sustainable Direct Trade relationships with the top growers, exporters, and importers in the world. This April, join us for Origin Week and seize the opportunity to shake the hands that planted your coffee.

Gustavo Alfaro of HSA at Voltage, Guatemalan Coffees
Tuesday, April 9, 2013 from 6:00 PM to 8:00 PM (PDT)
Voltage Coffee & Art, 295 3rd St, Cambridge, MA 02142

Luis Pedro from Bella Vista Mill / El Bosque in Guatemala
Wednesday, April 10, 2013 from 6:00 PM to 8:00 PM (PDT)
Simon's Too, 983 Massachusetts Avenue, Cambridge, MA 02138

Francisco Mena of Exclusive Coffees in Costa Rica
Thursday, April 11, 2013 from 3:00 PM to 5:00 PM (PDT)
Dwelltime Coffeebar and Bakeshop, 364 Broadway, Cambridge, MA 02139

Badi Bradley and Aljandro Cadena Colombian Coffees
Thursday, April 11, 2013 from 5:00 PM to 7:00 PM (PDT)
Dwelltime Coffeebar and Bakeshop, 364 Broadway, Cambridge, MA 02139

Boston TNT
Thursday, April 11, 2013 from 7:00 PM to 10:00 PM (PDT)
Voltage Coffee & Art, 295 3rd St, Cambridge, MA 02142

Matt Hodges of GeoCertify and Anteneh Assefa of ECX Ethiopia
Friday, April 12, 2013 from 6:00 PM to 8:00 PM (PDT)
Dwelltime Coffeebar and Bakeshop, 364 Broadway, Cambridge, MA 02139

Gustavo Alfaro of HSA at Clover HSQ Guatemalan Coffees
Sunday, April 14, 2013 from 3:00 PM to 5:00 PM (PDT)
Clover HSQ in Harvard Square, 7 Holyoke St, Cambridge, MA 02141


Featured guest : Gustavo Alfaro of Hacienda Santa Rosa

Direct tradiness, an update

This year, we went early to get a lot of things done with the farms we work with.  We completed our visits to Costa Rica and El Salvador, but we'll report on those coffees later.  Right now, we just got back from Guatemala and have a few updates to report.

"Elite" Bourbon at El Bosque 2013

The one everyone is interested in is El Bosque, the farm with the heirloom Bourbon outside of Antigua, Guatemala.  Bosque started out as a wild farm, a beautiful and untouched place with great potential.  After four years of care and reworking, we are starting to see some great new changes.

First off, new plantings from the cherry of those 70-90 year old trees are coming to fruit soon.  That means, the production will increase but it also means the preservation of these trees.  They were referring to these in El Salvador as 'Elite' Bourbon so we are going to adopt that nomenclature in this post to distinguish it.  It's defined by the much taller tree with more space between branches, the distinct angle of the branches, and that these are the older heirloom trees we associate with El Bosque and it's resulting flavor profile.  The really old trees (70-90 years) always had issues of low yield and high rates of defects (higher attrition when sorting).  Seeing younger plantings come to fruit soon should help out with that and hopefully retain the characters we like about the coffee.

Villa Sarchi at Guatemala El Bosque

It's not just the 'Elite' Bourbon that's there, they have the local Bourbon planted at many farms Luis Pedro Zelaya works with called Bourbon 300 (Bourbon Trescientos).  That's a more disease resistant, shorter height, and higher yield Bourbon that Luis selected for planting.  Bosque also has plantings of the more common Yellow Caturra and Pacamara.

What excites us is the new Villa Sarchi planted on the farm that's coming to fruit and maybe next year we can bring some in.  The first harvest of it probably won't cup out well enough to be anything notable.  Along with that, we have some Orange Bourbon (from El Salvador) and Yellow Bourbon (from the original Yellow Bourbon trees on Bosque)  planted and a little mix of Ethiopian varieties that need more time to evaluate before planting more.  The farm manager and also the owner of the mill that handles this and many other coffees will be in town soon to present more about the mighty progression of El Bosque.

Buena Esperanza is the other main farm we work with in Guatemala up in the mountains of Huehuetenango.  This year, that farm is blowing up after placing well in the Cup of Excellence.  Gustavo has been quite busy with all the for traffic of new coffee buyers trying to bend his ear, but the Esperanza has scored well and continues to build an international following.  We see the coffee cupping well and expect things to move forward in our relationship.  Since Gustavo will be in town shortly and many of you can meet him locally, we'll hold more of the details for him to personally pass them along.

More information to follow soon.