In order for us to improve the quality of coffee, the role of small-scale producer is tremendous.
Most of the times, they will hear from us to pick the cherry when ripe, pulp the coffee on the same day and such.
But they don’t really get to experience the difference between the quality coffee and no quality coffee because they don’t drink specialty coffee. They will either drink instant coffee or coffee roasted on a pan like the picture below.
Roasted coffee on a pan by farmers (unedited)
Looking at this, it’s not not understandable that the small producers don’t understand our emphasis on quality.
We thought a cupping session would be a nice wake up call to quality focused coffee.
We roasted coffee beforehand with different types – ones without defects and ones with defects.
We also brought other equipment to El Mezcal.
Cristian introduced to them about the basic cupping process. Once the session started, people tried sniffing dry and wet coffee and spraying coffee in their mouth.
They didn’t really enjoy the whole process and thought the coffees were all the same.
Maybe they weren’t used to sensitive sensory evaluation.
The idea behind the cupping session was to let them know that quality coffee stands out. But we don’t think this session turned out so well.
BUT the journey for quality coffee and small producer education still won’t stop here.