Spring has sprung!
September has arrived and brought with it some warmer weather, and down in Melbourne we are ok with that 😊

Later this month the Melbourne International Coffee Expo (MICE) will be held at the Melbourne Convention and Exhibition Centre (September 27^th – 30^th). Members of the Bennetts team will be attending the Expo across the four days, and we would love to catch up with you there. Alternatively, you can book a time to meet us in our office in Kew, where we can host a cupping or if you prefer to, just drop by for a chat. We ask that you please contact your Bennetts Account Manager this week to arrange a time/location that suits you.

AUSTRALIAN SPECIALTY COFFEE ASSOCIATION COMPETITIONS

In other MICE news, this year the Expo will host the 2022 World Coffee Championships. If you hadn’t already heard, our very own QC extraordinaire, Harry Ko, will be representing Australia in the World Brewers Cup competition.

Harry took out first place in the Southern Regional Brewers cup earlier this year, and backed this up by winning the National competition in August. In both competitions Harry used the Sidra varietal sourced from El Diviso Farm in Colombia. This select lot is a double anaerobic natural processed coffee, produced by Nestor Lasso (read more about Nestor below).

Harry has been working on a brewing method that focuses on the concept that traditionally classified ‘defects’ found in coffee can be re-classified and used in a beneficial way. Within his lot of coffee there were two distinct visual differences in the green beans; some of the coffee appeared to have a deeper yellow colour with dimple marks on the end (usually associated with a sour bean defect), and the other portion was more green-yellow and well formed. The dimple marks on the end of the bean are due to microorganisms that are activated inside of the ripest beans during fermentation of the cherry, meaning the seed will never sprout. Harry has endearingly termed these ‘activated beans’.

Harry painstakingly hand separated these two bean types and roasted them separately. Each component of the coffee roasts differently and has different flavour characteristics in their cup profile. The ‘activated beans’ have more tropical fruit and cacao nib notes, while the regularly fermented beans had more floral notes. Harry realised that the separation of the green bean components and roasting styles could release a new potential in the cup when they were combined back together in the brew.

Harry discovered the best ratio for combining his roasts of activated and non-activated beans, and using a December Dripper to brew, he can control when both roasts are introduced into the brewing device and the different contact times they have with the water. The dripper allows total control to combine both methods of immersion and percolation to enhance the body, acidity and sweetness of the final beverage.

You can see Harry competing with his award-winning presentation at MICE (dates and times TBA), and if you’re lucky, you can taste his unique brew method at the Expo Brew Bar.

EL DIVISO FARM

The amazing coffee used by Harry at the ASCA Brewers Cup Competition is sourced from El Diviso Farm. Unfortunately, this season we have sold out of the amazing Sidra varietal, however we plan to have more of this special process in stock next year. Stay tuned 😊

El Diviso Farm was founded in 1997 by Mr. Jose Uribe Lasso in the district of Normandia. It is about a 30-minute drive northwest of Huila's Brucellas, Pitalito region of Colombia. Spanning about 14 hectares, at 1770 masl, the farm harvests just once a year – from October through to December. By 2022, Jose had encouraged his three sons (Jonathan 29 years old, Adrian 25 years old and Nestor 23 years old) to become involved in farm management and production. The three sons are very enthusiastic and actively working to introduce the latest manufacturing methods. In particular the family is experimenting with long fermentation times, oxidation, anaerobic fermentation and re-application of mucilage juices to the cherry during processing.

All the coffee is handpicked at its most ripe stage, then naturally dried under controlled conditions and homogeneous temperatures and to give durability to the coffee and preserve the quality. Surrounding the coffee plantation and mill the family keep a large area of natural reserve that approaches 5 hectares, where they take care of and preserve the natural flora and fauna to ensure diversity of the landscape.

MARKET REPORT

Prices were anything but stable during August, as the “C” price rocketed up late in the month to just over 240 US cents/lb the first time since early June, after trading in a 205 – 225 US cents/lb range up until then.

Last time it was the threat of frost at the start of winter, and this time it was the threat of drought… emphasis on the word threat, as you can see.

Drought is certainly a concern, as we now enter the post-harvest period in which good rains will bring on flowering across the coffee-growing regions of Brazil (and you’ll certainly start seeing lots of pretty flowering coffee trees ad infinitum across social media before long). Even as important will be the subsequent rains during spring that will first help the fruit set, and then develop to maturity.

And here lies the crux of the matter. Brazil is expected to have a bumper crop next year, if all goes well… They have successfully negotiated the first big hurdle, by not having any frost events of note this winter. However, if the spring rains are not forthcoming and plentiful, and as a result there is not enough water storage in the soil profiles, then potential yields will start to suffer.

It’s still extremely early days, and we won’t really have an idea of the upcoming crop’s potential size until about December (and then a more accurate figure in about February). Nonetheless, with so much at stake, you can see how speculators are having a field day.

As for Alex, he's off to Brazil this week and he can’t wait to catch up with our partners at origin after such a long time! We look forward to letting you all know what’s happening at the ground level. Be sure to check out our Instagram post for lots of lovely pictures of flowering coffee trees.

GROUNDS FOR HEALTH

Cervical cancer kills one woman every two minutes, and over 85% of these deaths occur in low and middle income countries. Grounds for Health (GfH) believes that this disparity is unacceptable; that women deserve access to healthcare regardless of their race, income and or location and that we have a global responsibility to act accordingly. Bennetts supports Grounds for Health and the good work they do in the coffee producing regions by donating annually. 2021 was the most impactful year in GfH 25-year history. Almost 23,000 women were screened, of whom almost 2,000 received treatment.

Grounds for Health recently hired Nafkot Gebeyehu, an Ethiopia-based photographer, to capture their new HPV self-testing campaigns in Ethiopia. In the world of fast-paced social media it is still very evident that a photo is worth a thousand words.

Nafkot was given a brief before her trip into the field; to provide a visual snap shot of the program; women receiving test kits, community health promotors interacting with GfH staff, as well as the ‘not so glamorous” shots of the lab and clinical processes.
What was received went completely beyond a snap shot. Nafkot has been able to capture any environment—from a rural health centre in Yirgalem, to screening devices, to women waiting in line—and make it absolutely stunning. The photos express the comfort of women in front of the camera, and many were excited to hold a test kit in the photo, knowing that it could potentially save her life, her friends’ lives, and heal communities that are still losing women from cervical cancer, which is a completely preventable disease when caught early.

A GfH staff member described a woman who, on the first screening day, was so comfortable with her experience that she went back to her village and rounded up a group of women to return to the health centre and get screened themselves.