The Japanese have it in two words what we do mostly differently: Wabi-Sabi...........
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As we start to market our coffee for next year, I have been thinking about how best to describe what makes us unique.
The Japanese have it in two words what we do mostly differently: Wabi-Sabi........... /plantation.html
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Lots of smelly dollars seem to be flying out of my purse this month. Smelly because money does smell bad and the rainy season takes even more of a toll on paper. Sitting around in damp pockets seems to bring out the nasty aroma in money like nothing else. Here it is a cash economy, most of the workers do not have bank accounts, so there is no avoiding the evil smell of money.
December is an expensive month. Just as well we are selling some coffee for cash. Tomorrow is pay day 15th December. Pay day here comes twice a month 15th and 30th. First there is the regular pay. This goes out whether or not there is work. For example the schools all get paid for a full December even though most of it is holidays. Then there is the Decimo (I think that is what it is called). It is half the months salary that gets paid on top of the regular salary twice a year - once in December. Then there is the holiday/severance money. This is an additional months salary. In my case this is also coming due in December. This is so one of my workers can get a coffee picking job during his vacation. It is not obligatory to pay this every year but it is better for me to get good work from individuals that know there is no massive cash dis-incentive to fire them. Lastly, there are the Christmas baskets. For the workers, big food parcels of treats : Chocolate, cookies, nuts, rum, hams and so on. Thank goodness Christmas comes but once a year. Today, we have 6 Latinos loudly picking coffee at the top of the farm. Usually, they do not volunteer to pick coffee, especially not on a regular work day. However, with just over a week left to Christmas, they are picking for extra cash for Christmas dinner. The team are my maids family who have come down from the village at the top of the road. They are looking for some overtime dollars to help with Christmas and we are happy to have them. Infact they are a great blessing as the Indigenous coffee pickers are in short supply and the crew are not due to arrive until tomorrow. We have had sunny weather and that means a lot of cherries to pick.The cherries are ripening fast and it is great to have extra arms and legs to supplement the Indigenous picking teams. Normally, when I go up to check on the Indigenous pickers, I hear the warning call........... a loud yodeling type sound letting everyone know 'she' is coming then there is silence. This lot have no such inhibitions. The Christmas family party has already begun out there in the coffee. They can be heard half across the farm. They are laughing and joking and arguing loudly as they fill their baskets. Such fun. Bliss on a Sunday: I have an excuse to get away from it all and pick the coffee around the bee hives in private. No one else working on the farm today. Solitude down by the river with the birds and the bees. Best job in the world other than the pay - which sucks. $3 per lata or 30lbs of cherries is more or less the going rate this year.
The pickers will not pick next to the bee hives as they do not have protective clothing. Either its me or the cherries fall. There is not much coffee directly around the hives and at the rate I pick, I am doing it for the love of the job and the learning. Every time I have done it - each time we pass through the farm every 8-10 days, there have been new experiences and new learnings. Getting up close to the coffee trees, you see things very clearly. You can see how the weather is affecting the cherries - are the red ones swelling and splitting or are they small and hard. Also, the basic health of your plants. On a simple level getting a good yield is about keeping the leaves on the bushes. Fungal diseases of various kinds cause the leaves to drop, when the energy factory of the plant goes so does the ability to produce good fruit. Milk adds the sweetness to coffee and each milk is different. As I enjoy a good milky coffee on occasion, it is worth noting that the milk makes a big difference. It is not all about the coffee for once.
We are so lucky here still to have farms and farming friends that produce different types of milks. The pictures above are of farm pasturized milk being enjoyed in the glass by my 5 yr old and a jug of yellow colostrum milk - worth its weight in gold. Over the last couple of weeks: I've tried raw milk, colostrum milk (milk from the cow with the newborn calf), lightly pasturised in the farm kitchen full cream milk (enjoyed the same morning it was taken from the cow). All these are delicious and different but all extremely good. The raw milk super creamy grassy and sweet, the colostrum milk is a fabulous creamy yellowish color a little junketish and thick, the farm kitchen pasturized super creamy and sweet with a slightly pleasant boiled taste. Then there are the various super market milks: Various fresh milks in the fridge and packet sterilized milks on the regular shelves. There are several grades of fresh supermarket milk. I am not a huge fan of any of them. They are sweet but not so clean tasting. Some have an almost bitter quality and all tend to go off very quickly. If we have to go supermarket milk, I actually prefer the local Chiriqui brand of sterilized packet milk. It is sweet, thick, has real body, is fairly clean tasting, it also lasts for ever. I do not think I am alone this seems to be by far the best selling milk in the region judging by quick scans of other customers purchases at the checkout. The mother must have laid them over night. In the morning we found 6 eggs sitting in a fairly obvious large hole. No idea what type of reptile mother laid them but the gardener thought snake and probably coral snake. I was out there dead heading the roses yesterday in flip flops and had not seen anything. My rose garden is made of five enormous raised beds made from the local rocks filled with soft soil and irrigated with drip hoses. Great for roses and snakes it would seem.
This week we put our newly processed green beans through the grading process @ Cafe Ruiz. This is a huge machine a bit like Charlie and the Chocolate Factory. It was fabulous to be able to see your coffee going through the pipes and shoots - a real treat. Thank you Cafe Ruiz. Grading is important to ensure the quality, to ensure consistency of size and density of green beans
The machine begins with a huge silo where we empty our bags of green beans; They then make their way down metal tubes where a man with a hammer kept banging to make sure they went on their merry way; Then there were several shoots where the large beans are separated; Lastly they make their way onto a machine like a shaking pool table with three shoots for the different densities of coffee where a man inspected periodically to make sure the shoots were set at the right angles; Then the coffee was bagged with a sewing machine. Very pleased 700+lbs of high quality coffee with negligible defects and about 20-30lbs of basically low quality either rather large, rather small or damaged beans with defects. We will only use the high quality which is now back on the farm resting for 90 days before roasting. Next step - cupping it in February. Has it really been 4 months since I last made it into David for a serious shop? Going to David is low on my list of best things to do in Chiriqui, last attempt was in July. This time, I hired super personal assistant Ms Martinez to navigate. She earned about 2.5 times her fee in discounts and I have never done so much in Panama before lunch, not ever.
We started getting our farm logo polo shirts ordered. In Panama, everyone wears a polo with a logo, it is big business, it is the uniform. My fabulous guide proves her value early in the day......... The store, Coto Serigrafic SA is quite a significant business with a warehouse!. It is however, well hidden. Inside a house one of several nice houses in a residential block off the highway. Absolutely impossible to find if you did not know, no signs, no name on the front. Nada. Within 30 mins we have 20 shirts with logos ordered in a nice bright peachy color. Ms Martinez not only found the place: She has negotiated them down by about a week on the number of days to delivery; Managed to get the owner to give us his personal attention to find the nice peachy color rather than the muddy papaya from the warehouse out back; + persuaded staff to open multiple packets to made sure the shirts would fit my workers and family members. I am very happy, we are off to our next chore. Next to THE fancy clothes store in David - Carrillo's. Only 5 circum navigations around the block before landing. We find the Hotel National almost first time around and find parking the 3rd/4th time around the block - traffic nasty. Once inside: Ball dresses, nice cocktail attire and of course riding gear. This is after all a cow town, least you should forget it. Social events here are more likely to require cowboy boots than a ball dress - but this store has both. I scored a cowboy hat, cowboy boots and a big buckle. Although I think they all look quite ridiculous, it is a matter of conditioning. When in Rome xxxx as they say. Personal Assistant Ms Martinez pays half her fee by negotiating a hefty discount. She talks about the huge order, she makes lots of arm movements, she dramatically rejects their first offer of a discount....... I feel very comfortable saying I would not have achieved a 'before tax' price point without her. A few more trips around the block - this time around Hotel David. Enter Daysi. Wow - more high points for the amazing Ms Martinez. An old fashioned habadashery store. Amazing choices of everything needed to make things. Really, these places used to exist 40 years ago in the UK when everything was hand and custom made - here much still is. I am very excited by this shop. What was I thinking buying jam pot cover fabric in Joanne's - This is much superior. We buy butterflies and dragonflies and ribbons for end of term pageant costumes, special tape to put on the inside of hats to make them smaller and an impressive Christmas Angel. Now for more mundane things - hose connectors for the rose garden irrigation system and large quantities of white paint for the horse fencing. Although I was ready to cave and buy in the first store, Ms Martinez ploughed on. She easily earns about twice her fee by finding the best value on large quantities of white paint - yes, DO IT was $13 cheaper per pot than Novey or Franklin Jorado! On 10 liters this is mucho dollares. Back up the mountain, almost home and find a gas tanker on fire in the middle of the road. Big problem for someone. We take our SUV over the regular highway and into the 'new highway' to make our way North and around the edge of the canyon to get back into town. Already thinking about the creations and possibilities in Daysi and may not wait so long for my next return trip. Starting to get excited about what you can find in David. Never thought I would say that. Huge thank you to Ms Martinez - the best Personal Assistant that there is. Not only does she find things, she is a fabulous negotiator and good company too. ...And the lady is 8.5 months pregnant and expecting any day...... a true professional. |