Most coffee professionals in urban environments may never actually see the places in which coffee is grown, processed and made ready for trade. This is true even for urbanites in coffee-producing countries, where activities such as farming or milling may seem worlds away.
For one coffee roasting and retail company in Peru, traveling to coffee’s points of origin has become an annual rite. Each year since 2014, Origen Tostadores Owner Gino Kanashiro shuts down the company’s cafes for a week to take the entire staff to a coffee farm.
The Lima-based coffee crew sets up camp at Finca Timbuyacu, located in the Amazonas region of northern Peru. There, they learn about coffee production from the farmers, while gaining a better understanding of daily life and business in the rural community.
Along with the farm activities, the Origen Tostadores baristas and staff set up competitions and other team-based activities, building deeper connections to coffee, the natural environment and one another, according to Kanashiro.
“They live and sleep on the farm with the producers,” Kanashiro said. “They coexist with each other, working together, talking and eating together.”
The flow of knowledge moves both ways during these mass field trips, as Origen Tostadores staff can help farmers better understand how coffee is prepared, consumed and enjoyed at the other end of the supply stream. Throughout the Origen Tostadores visits, farmers are involved in all the activities, sitting in on presentations and joining in barista competitions.
Kanashiro said that when he first started visiting farms, most farmers only drank instant coffees because they did not have the capacity to roast or brew their own coffee. However, that has been changing over the years, with more farmers preparing their own coffees and gaining a better understanding of how those coffees might be perceived by outsiders.
These annual visits may in part explain some of the Lima company’s recent success at high-level barista competitions, including recent national Barista and Brewers Cup competitions.
The trips may also have played a factor in Origen Tostadores’ relatively little staff turnover over the years, according to Kanashiro. The owner noted that the trips are part of a broader effort to make staff feel valued, provide them with influential experiences and build a more deeply connected community of coffee professionals.
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Jordan Buchanan Jordan Buchanan is completing their PhD in Latin American history at UC San Diego. They research the rise of the specialty coffee industry in Latin America. Jordan is from Edinburgh, Scotland, but mostly drinks their coffee where they live in Mexico.
