Cuvee Coffee

Eno's Pizza Tavern (Dallas Texas) and Local Coffee (San Antonio) travel with Cuvee Coffee.

My recent travel schedule has been pretty intense lately. After my time in El Salvador, I hopped the bus over to Guatemala where I caught up with the Roasters Guild Origin Trip (a blog and video are currently in the works). I got home on Thursday and had 4 days to catch up with my family before hitting the road again. I had some work to do and our washing machine was broken, but Connor and Cole wanted to play baseball so I set aside time to do that. Rashelle came down with a cold which made leaving again tough, but I made a commitment.

So now it is 4:00 am in Taiwan and my sleep schedule is obviously off right now. I am here to support my friend, Silence Huang, as he prepares to launch his coffee house and barista training center. Silence and I have known each other three years now. We have shared and learned about coffee and I am honored that he invited Cuvee Coffee to participate at the Ugly Duckling grand opening on Friday.

Today, we visited 3 specialty coffee shops in Taipei. It is a magical time here right now. Even though the weather is rainy and cold, it is the New Year and people are out and about all over the city. Every shop we visit, I am immediately greeted with a cheerful, “happy new year.” I have learned some very basic Chinese, but my teacher (Silence) is so good that when I meet and greet someone, they think that I speak the language and are quickly disappointed that I only have 3 sentences in my vocabulary. The shops were all very pleasant experiences. I was prepared for some very bad coffee (based on what I have been told), but I have been pleasantly surprised so far. Don’t get me wrong, there is still much room for improvement just like in the U.S. but so far I have had some great coffee. The highlights have been a very skillfully crafted pour over tasting of 5 different specialty coffees and a stellar shot of espresso from the 2007 Taiwanese Barista Champion.

The night ended with a visit to Eason’s family owned restaurant where we feasted on noodles, fish, crab, lobster, beer and cognac. Silence’s parents and two brothers where there along with Eason’s parents. The night was magical with everyone welcoming me to Taiwan by hoisting their glasses of cognac and wishing me wealth and happiness in the New Year.

I just woke up and I am not able to get back to sleep, but as I check email and catch up on work I am reminded how important and valuable family time can be. I will have been on the road just over 3 weeks by the time I get home. February will nearly be over and I will have slept in my own bed a grand total of about 8 days the entire month. This is family time that I can never recapture. I know that my family loves and supports me, but one of the things that really drove this home was the look on Connor’s face when he opened the office door last Thursday. I was sitting with Rashelle, at here desk, catching up on the previous 2 weeks when the door opened and I saw the most beautiful, excited, happy expression that I have ever seen. Connor did not expect to see me, but when he did he light up and ran to me for a huge hug. It was a moment that I will never forget.

I am building a business and there are times that require difficult decisions. There are sacrifices and I will need to choose them wisely, but I am constantly reminded that my decisions must be made with purpose. I stumbled across this video and as I watched it, my eyes welled up with tears. I love my work and have goals for my business. I am making a positive impact in other parts of the world and in my own community, but every once in a while I am given a gentle reminder of what is most important.

This past week has been great. I am in El Salvador with 3 friends who have never visited a coffee farm. Robby Grubbs, from Local Coffee in San Antonio, Matt Spillars and Stacey from Enos Pizza Tavern in Dallas Texas. We spent the last 3 days visiting coffee farms and processing plants in several regions of El Salvador. I remember my first trip to a coffee farm, what I learned and the feeling I had discovering how coffee is grown, havested and processed. It has been great watching Robby, Matt and Stacey discover this for themselves. We have had some really great discussions and I am looking forward to bringing more customers to visit the coffee growers that Cuvee Coffee is working with.

This morning we did a marathon cupping of specialty coffees with different processing methods, different varietals, and different forms of fertelizer. The highligts of todays cupping was the Pacamara and the Orange Bourbon. These coffees were something special and I am looking forward to their arrival at our Texas roasting plant.

After the cupping, we headed down from the mountains to the coast. We ate seafood at a beautiful restaurant right on the beach. Then we stopped in to grab some coffee at Viva Espresso. We have been staying at the Las Cruces processing mill, but everyone is departing early in the morning so we are staying in San Salvador tonight. Matt, Stacey and Robby all have to catch a flight at 7:45 am to head home. I am jumping on a bus at 6:45 and heading to Guatemala for the next 10 days. I will be visiting some regions that I have never seen so I am very excited about that.

We all hear the buzz words…green, sustainable, organic, etc, over and over. These terms were created to describe a new idea. A new way of doing something, different, better. A word with a mission and a meaning. It seems to me that these words have been used so much and have now turned into a marketing tactic and lost their original intention.

In the world of coffee roasting, I am observing the same thing. Words like “direct” and “relationship” were created to describe the purchasing of some pioneering, specialty coffee roasters (Counter Culture Coffee, Intelligentsia Coffee, and Stumptown Coffee). These companies supported a new way of sourcing coffee. One with a mission and a meaning. Now it seems that these words start to ring hollow as many coffee roasters are using them as nothing more than a marketing tactic. My observation is that some roasters are using the term with no understanding what it means; while others are shamelessly trying to mislead the consumer into thinking they are something they are not. Justifying (in sketchy ways) words like “direct” or “relationship” to describe sourcing coffee is now minimizing the terms original intent. One example is the SCAA Roasters Guild Origin Trip. This trip (and I have been on a few as part of the Roasters Guild Executive Council) is by all means an incredible way to experience coffee origins in an organized and controlled environment. The trip is full of learning and interacting with farmers and other roasters. This by itself is wonderful, but here is how it gets warped. Joe Roaster goes on an RG origin trip and visits a farm. He learns about the farm, the processing, and the farmer and snaps some photos. Maybe even one with him and the farmer together. Now he goes home and asks Jane Importer if he can buy a couple bags of coffee from that farm. Voila, the marketing machine is in place and that coffee is now a “direct trade, farm direct or direct relationship.” Total (insert expletive)! That is not at all what those words were created to describe. It is sad to see a new breed of dishonest coffee roasters popping up all over the place. And it is quite disrespectful to the people that blazed a trail for the next generation of specialty coffee roasters.

In all fairness, there are a handful of specialty coffee roasters that are following the lead of the 3 pioneers, and I am not referring to them. The rest know who they are. Here at Cuvee Coffee Roasting Company, these terms and words mean something. It takes a substantial investment of time and money to build a business based on working directly with farmers. It also takes an infrastructure to allow someone to be out of the office a total of several months over the course of the year. I know from my own experience that until I had a few people working for me, I would have never been able to spend 4 out of 6 weeks in Peru and Brazil, like I did this past summer.

One of our stronger, and constantly developing relationships, is with Jose Antonio Salaverria in El Salvador. We have been buying his coffee for the past 3 years, and he was kind enough to visit us 2 weeks ago, here at our Austin, Texas coffee roasting and training facility. We are currently working on a couple of processing and lot sorting projects with him. As I write this, I am preparing to book my flight to El Salvador. I will be spending several days with Jose Antonio between Thanksgiving and Christmas in order to plan for the upcoming harvest.

Cameron, from Caffe Medici, was kind enough to put together a short video montage of Jose Antonio’s recent trip. Once again, just more proof that when we say direct and/or relationship, we mean it!