Back to where we are!!

I am so proud of where we are today. We just sent out a blast to 5000 people, and the attached ad will be on the program of the Manhattan Short Film Festival.  We will be moving our distribution center to Gordonsville, VA by the end of August.  We just received the first shipment of the "Floresta da Amazonia" products.  As I said to a friend today, even though we still did not make any money, the business is growing and I am very proud of us.   We will use the cottage at Sergio's farm to store everything we are selling.  Right now, I can't barely walk into my one bed room apartment.  My friend Vania said that my home looks like a Turkish Bazar!! It  is exactly what I feel when I walk into my home.  We just got some more of the Carmo de Minas ( everyone loves it) and also some more of the Breakfast Blend and the House Blend. We are doing well, just hope for more sales to come in. 

From Coffee to Fire to another visit with the roaster

Sorry I haven't blogged the whole last week.  Sunday morning after my cup of coffee, we went out to a pic-nic in Central Park. As we walked out of my building, there were 15 fire engines and a crowd of people outside the building. The building right across from me got fire, real fire, like TV news fire. My friend's car was parked across the street, 14.5 feet from the fire hydrant. She got a ticket. We did not know what to do, there were people in stretchers, a lot of curious trying to find out what happened me and the dog!!!!We ended up going to out pic-nic before knowing the car was all right, but seeing all those people without a home, who cares about the car right??? Even the coffee was out of my mind for a while.

Then on Tuesday we travelled to Virginia to visit with the roaster.  We had a great visit with him, and found out he can make flavored coffee for us at Joy Brazil. So soon we will be offering flavored coffee as well. 

Americans love flavored coffee, the issue being is that in order to add flavor to the coffee, one doesn't need such a good coffee bean. The coffee itself will disappear in the flavor, so we need a not so good coffee to flavor.  We have been trying to get some not so good coffee from Brazil and it has been very hard. 

What we found out is that people are holding their coffee inventory in the hopes that coffee  prices go up....so now we have gasoline prices going up as well as coffee....Economics working its way !!!!

The Trip with the Java's To Sao Joao Coffee Farm

The Sao Joao Coffee farm has been producing coffee since 1853 on the highlands of the State of Rio de Janeiro, Brazil.  The farm was founded by Tristao Cunha Camara and follows the expansion of the coffee field into the State of Rio de Janeiro.  The farm has been restored and is one of the representatives of the coffee region in Imperial Brazil. ( The period lasted from 1808 when the seat of the Portuguese crown moved to Rio de Janeiro because of the Napoleonic Wars, untill the beguinning of the republic period in 1889).

We planned to meet the Java's in Rio and then drive to Petropolis, where the farm is. As I was leaving for the airport I got a call from Miami, telling me that the Chief Java did not have a visa for Brazil. 

Because the USA requires a visa from Brazilians, Americans visiting

Brazil are required a visa as well. We called the consulate in Miami and were fortunate enought to be able to get a visa right away. He was a day later than his fellows Java's.

We had prepared a whole typical Brazilian stay at the farm. We even bought a sample roaster so that we could roast and cup coffee.

 The First day was spent in driving   and horse back riding around the farm.   We had collected a lot of different coffees so that we could spend the time doing blends and cupping . The farm produces Catuai, Icatu and yellow Bourbon, which is considered the top of the coffees. Very delicate and hard to grow. 

Notes on a Coffee Estate Visit and Coffee Tastings

This is the little Eliane cow!!! She was my welcome soul mate at my first visit to Sao Joao Estate Coffee.

In order to register a "breed" cow, all of them that are born in the same year, must have the same initial on the name.  My mother's side of the family is from the north of Brazil, a regions famous for its "coroneis" farm owners, but not very well known by its creativity; all of my aunts and uncles had the same initials in their names: Emiliano, Edith, Edine, Eider, Eddie, Edna, and of course me Eliane.  In an effort to honor the other side of the family, Sergio name this cow Eliane. Such a pleasure. Our first encounter was during his 5oth birthday.  During this time I had the opportunity to see and learn a lot about coffee.  

Coffee is harvest once a year.  Gourmet and Special Coffee are most likely hand picked. Because not all the cherries mature at the same time, the workers pick from the same tree 3 or 4 times during the same season.  They even check for humidity to make sure the cherry ripe enough.   Every 2 hours, a truck comes and take the cherries to be washed The bad ones float, so that it does not go thru the process.  The coffee beans are then separated from the skin along with a muselage, that gives the beans its sweetness. After that, they are either laid on a bed or a floor in order to dry so that the beans can separate form the muselage.  I am not telling all the story now, but how is it that we spent $100.00 for a bottle of wine during dinner, but dont mind where our coffee is coming from?????

Coffee is what we take home after dinner, lunch, breakfast. This is the taste in our mouth when we leave the restaurant so why are we not more carefull about the origin of our favorite drink????

Planning the trip to Brazil

Well, as I said before the show went very well. There was a coffee retailer from Florida that had never been to a coffee farm, and asked if we could take him on  a tour of Brazilian Coffee Etates. We were happy to do it so we started to plan the trip for late June.  They would fly from Miami to Rio De Janeiro, we would pick them up and drive to Petropolis where Sao Joao Estate is.  We would then visit some farms in the region and then go to Sao Paulo; visit some farms in Sao Paulo and then go to Minas Gerais,( Pocos de Caldas )for some more visits.  I was continuing my education about coffee with books and DVD all over my home.  Started to visit local stores and taste different coffees. Visiting so many stores  I found out that there was no Brazilian Gourmet Coffee in New York City.  One could find a Cerrado, may be, but that was all.  I could not believe after all I learned about Brazilian Gourmet Coffee that the better stores in New York did not offer it to its customers. There was Colombian,   Guatemalan,  Ethiopian, Bolivian but no Brazilian.  I then learned that Brazil was known as a base of blends robusta coffee and when the old Brazilian Coffee Institute was extinguished no investment from the government were made in advertising our coffee. As opposed to us, Colombia spent more than 10 million dollars with the Juan Valdez campaign.  Even Illy coffee is mostly Brazilian Coffee, but everyone thinks it is Italian! Italy does not produce any coffee.  Robusta is a cheap coffee, that some people compare to Chicory. It is very strong and combined with a better coffee will produce what you know as Folgers, Maxwell House etc.

More on the SCAA Show

Our booth was very charming. People would stop by all the time. We had a big TV screen with images of Sao Joao Farm and a music from Caetano Veloso playing all day. Sergio loves to talk so everyone would stop and see the farm, with minimum details explanations.  The other Brazilians were all together with the people from BSCA, Brazilian Specialty Coffee Association; we thought that it would be best for us to be on our own, and it proved itself right. We were able to get one to one contact with a lot of roasters . The show was over and we had to pack everything back to New York. we joined the SCAA and this was the start of importing coffee into the United States.

The United States is not a coffee producer but it is the largest  consumer of coffee in the world.  Because of it, the import process is a lot easier than what I was used to in dealing with apparel.  Apparel,  have limits on the quantity to import,  have duties depending on the product so on and so forth. There are no duties for coffee.  One is required to register the facility with the FDA and the importer is basically responsible to make sure that what one says it is right Bottom line it was a great experience for me.