Behind the Beans

A Papua New Guinea coffee worker. Photo courtesy of New Guinea Traders, LLC

Meet a few successful people who grow great coffee

By Timothy J. Castle

While coffee farms have been around for hundreds of years, consumers have only recently heard of single-estate coffees. Just as wine lovers believe the best vintages are “estate bottled," some coffee aficionados are now focusing on single-estate coffees.

Thirty years ago there were few coffees marketed as being from individual farms. Today many more farms have adopted the estate model to better market their coffees. The estate designation implies a superior brew.

When a coffee comes from a single farm it generally means that one person or family is responsible for the quality. These people know they can get a premium price if they produce a better-quality coffee and, since they own the farms, they can take the necessary steps to do so. This is why estate coffees generally have a reputation for being of a superior quality. But just because a particular coffee comes from a single estate doesn't guarantee this.

Estate coffees are as diverse as the farms that produce them. We have selected just a few of these farms to demonstrate what coffee estates can become when managed with vision, ambition and a conscientious approach to the environment.

Hacienda La Minita Guatemala
Hacienda La Minita's Tarrazu coffee is one of the first, best and clearest examples of what a single-estate coffee can become. Many roasters and retailers have been carrying the coffee for more than 20 years. Among dedicated coffee drinkers, it may be the best-known estate coffee in the world. The model that La Minita provides is an inspiring one for coffee farmers everywhere. The McAlpin family has owned La Minita since 1967. In 1978, Bill McAlpin purchased the finest coffee-producing lands (about 40 percent of the original land) from his family, but kept in place the management team that has run the farm continuously for more than
30 years.

Aarle Hull is speaking with some villagers who raise coffee in and around their houses. Photo courtesy of New Guinea Traders, LLC

La Minita Estate's coffee is considered a Tarrazu, but the coffee produced is more balanced, flavorful and complex than other Tarrazu coffees. Many of McAlpin's customers agree that La Minita transcends the Tarrazu profile with an integrated, forceful, yet elegant taste profile that reveals the obsessive care taken in its production.

The plantation consists of 1,200 acres of which 680 acres are in production of shade-grown Caturra variety coffee. There are 200 acres of natural forest preserve permanently set aside to provide migratory corridors for many species of birds and mammals, and for other ecological reasons.

The farm's elevation approaches 6,000 feet, but the central block lies between 3,750 and 5,000 feet. In spite of this range, temperature variation is minimized by the cooling effect of the large river that borders the farm. Importantly, the farm faces the west and this allows for gradual warming in the morning and slow cooling in the evening.

The La Minita organization is not resting on its laurels. Drew Zent, who handles green coffee sales for the farm, says that another great coffee is in the offing. “La Minita recently acquired another plantation and beneficio in southern Costa Rica," he says. “Hacienda Rio Negro is a Rainforest Alliance CertifiedTM plantation located in the San Vito growing area located next to the largest rainforest reserve in Central America. It is over 190 hectares and contains a coffee mill, Beneficio Rio Negro. Bill McAlpin along with our quality-control team is in the process of transforming this plantation and the adjacent beneficio into another one of the premier coffee farms in the world. The coffee grown on the farm will be as meticulously processed and of the consistent high quality that people expect from La Minita."

Hacienda La Minita has set the industry standard for establishing an enlightened system of worker benefits including medical care, dental services, housing and recreational activities.

La Torcaza Estate Panama
La Torcaza Estate (LTE) was founded on a commitment to care for the land, trees and workers. The farm, established on land owned by the Janson family, is located in the western part of Panama, 25 miles east of the Costa Rican border, at an altitude of 4,500 feet on the southwestern slope of Volcan Barú. The farm is on extremely level terrain and this, combined with a zero defect policy (necessary for any premium estate coffee) leads to a coffee with an absolutely focused taste profile that is consistent from the first hot sip to the last cool drop.

Offeecay’s roasting facilities and Alfredo Rodriguez at the Hacienda House. Photo courtesy of Offeecay

The Janson family produces not only the intensely flavorful La Torcaza Estate coffee, but also the different, more complex Los Alpes estate coffee, which many cuppers have mistaken for a fine-washed Ethiopian coffee.

Los Alpes, in the Paso Ancho area on the northern shoulder of Volcan Barú, is a newer farm that includes one of Panama's few remaining stands of first-growth cloud forest. The coffee produced there has a longer growing season allowing for the development of complex flavors that distinguish it in the cup. Both Janson farms are fertilized with natural micro-organisms and coffee cherry pulp to sustainably protect the soil. All water used in processing is also treated before being returned to the streams on the farm.

The Jansons' two farms provide many benefits to their employees. Haydee Janson has placed particular emphasis on the education of the workers' children who are provided with free schooling. Many of the children have gone on to further their education as they've grown older.

Highlands Arabicas Limited Papua New Guinea
Highlands Arabicas Limited works in Papua New Guinea (PNG) to cultivate, export and import their Madan Estate Coffee from the farm and other farms nearby. Paul Pora, a local Papua New Guinean, and Aarlie Hull, an American based in Washington state, have been working together since the late 1990s. In 2003, they purchased the Madan Plantation outside of Mount Hagen, the capital of the Western Highlands Province.

Pora is the firm's managing director, while Hull is the chairwoman of the board. The plantation and mill employ more than 500 people during the harvest season and roughly 400 during the “fly-crop" that lasts the rest of the year.

“My husband, Dr. Larry Hull, is an orthopedist who does medical mission work at a remote hospital in PNG," says Hull. She says he met some young locals who told him how difficult it was for them to get into business because they had no money or collateral for bank financing. “In PNG, ex-pats have a business advantage because they have access to large amounts of cash, while the indigenous people usually own tribal land, passed down generation to generation with no legal deeds, only traditional understandings based on landmarks," Hull says.

Women are hand-sorting coffee–the final stage before it is bagged and shipped. Photo courtesy of New Guinea Traders, LLC

“We loaned them money," she says, “and thus began our partnership with Paul Pora. We eventually partnered on the Madan Plantation, which was developed by an Australian who made it into one of the most productive and beautiful farms in the Waghi Valley. When he retired, he sold it and it was neglected until that new owner sold it to Paul, and he's brought it back."

This year, the village gardeners and owners of small plots in the Waghi Valley around the Madan Plantation are receiving record-high prices for their cherries, says Hull. The green bean price is equivalent to $1.04 per pound in U.S. currency.

Hull's partnership is about more than coffee. “Our business partner, Paul, shares our vision for helping his people," she says. “With his leadership, we built a school for the Kinjibi children, we're in the process of establishing a medical clinic, we're promoting HIV prevention and awareness, and we have a lot more plans."

Café Mesa de los Santos Colombia
Oswaldo Acevedo, the owner of Café Mesa de los Santos in Bucaramanga, Colombia, is trying to add to the positive legacy of the estate coffee model. He also wants to produce the best possible coffee he can. With this simple goal in mind, this fourth-generation farm owner, along with a crew of dedicated workers, has transformed a 130-year-old, family-owned coffee farm into a forward-minded producer that is having an effect on the quality and sustainability of the coffee industry as a whole.

“Beginning in November," says Acevedo, “Mesa de los Santos will begin production of organic Typica on the same farm that today produces organic Caturra and Bourbon, providing roasters with a family of three straight varietals from the same farm. This program follows the wine model, providing the consumer with a new choice of varietals from the same farm and responds to increasing consumer interest in new taste experiences." Pure varietals are of growing interest to roasters as knowledge of their unique flavor profiles is helpful in blending, Acevedo says.

Acevedo has contributed much of his time and resources to the betterment of the specialty coffee industry.

Offeecay Puerto Rico
Alfredo Rodriguez, president of Offeecay, says that in 1996 he acquired the abandoned Hacienda Adelphia in Maricao, Puerto Rico. There he met the Justiniano family, local coffee growers. The coffee they served him one day was very strong and full-bodied, leading him to believe he had “found a gem hidden among the rainforest mountains of Puerto Rico." Carlos Justiniano has been working with Hacienda Adelphia since 1998.

A Kinjbi tribal school built by Highlands Arabicas and Portland Roasting Company. Photo courtesy of New Guinea Traders, LLC

Rodriguez later learned that some of the island's best coffee came from Bucarabones in the city of Maricao, specifically from land where Hacienda Adelphia is located today. “We decided to produce a limited amount of excellent coffee," Rodreguez says, “not for the casual coffee drinker, but for the serious coffee drinker who can appreciate an excellent cup. To celebrate our hard work, every February we have an End-of-Harvest Festival, a three-day party featuring music, food and coffee in the city of Maricao."

Adelphia currently grows Arabica, Catimor and Bourbon varietals, with an annual production around 20,000 pounds at an elevation of 3,000 feet. Rodriguez says, “In order to produce top-quality coffee, we have integrated the production vertically with the latest technology available and improved our processing facilities and practices. We introduced our coffee to the international market in 2005. We plan to become the preferred Puerto Rico coffee supplier in Asia and Europe by grouping farmers around our passion for quality."

Buddha's Cup and Kona Kulana Farms Hawaii
Chris Coleman owns the Kona, Hawaii estate, Buddha's Cup. The inspiration for the name came from the birth of his son, Justin, who is now almost grown. At birth, the nurse called the 11 1/2-pound baby “Buddha." After acquiring their coffee farm in Holualoa, Coleman and his wife found themselves with a pristine 50-acre refuge at a 2,200-foot elevation, very high for a Kona coffee farm. It seemed natural for the Colemans to call it “Buddha's Sanctuary."

Kona Kulana Farms, founded in 1987, is the sister-farm to Buddha's Sanctuary and it is comprised of 10 acres of mature trees grown with the seedlings from the farm's nursery. The coffee is processed and cared for using traditional methods with both farms offering roasted and green coffee.

Kulana means “quality" say the farm's owners and they believe you can taste that quality in every cup. Kona Kulana Farms is a two-time first-place winner of the annual Gevalia Cupping Contest and has been awarded Farm of the Year by the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) for sustainable agricultural practices. In 2006, Kona Kulana Farms coffee was also awarded third place in the People's Choice Award in the Open Division at the Kona Coffee Council's Cream of the Crop tasting competition.

Estate coffees aren't the only coffees we should consider in the specialty coffee repertoire, but the examples they provide and the traditions they are helping to establish make them well worth our consideration and respect.

Article contributions by Joel Starr.