Happy New Year! - Highlights from 2019

As we look back on 2019, the items in our infographic (left) are the biggest highlights. They include:

Achieved Q Processing Level 1 certification! Took the three day course with Drew Billings at Atlas Coffee in Seattle, June 2019

8 new roaster customers of green coffee grown by Rwandan women.
1 new consulting customer
1 new shipping consolidation customer

Lean at Origin training was introduced to a third country - Democratic Republic of Congo! It was an honor to be sponsored by the Polus Foundation (Boston, MA) to work on beautiful Idjwi Island. Artisan trained leaders from 2 coffee cooperatives in Lean at Origin skills.

Finished in the black. Calendar year 2019 achieved a cash-basis profit. While we seek to do good, we have to stay in business and this means earning a profit.

Relationships Deepened. Relationship coffee requires investments of time and travel dollars to be present and observe what is happening at origin. Grateful to be able to travel to Africa three times in 2019.

Coffee Literacy Expansion. Artisan supported Grace Izerewe to follow an intensive 6-week course in Kigali, Rwanda covering many coffee topics including cupping, green grading, sample roasting, production roasting, wet mill processing and LeNez du Cafe sensory skills.

Coffee Career Mentoring. Artisan was proud to be selected as  mentor by Joel Arusha, a rising young coffee entrepreneur in Rwanda. Monthly calls were arranged by Joel where he could ask questions and Ruth Ann tried to guide. It was exciting for both sides to see excellent new career pathways develop for Joel!

IWCA Global Board Director. Ruth Ann was proud to serve on the board of the International Women's Coffee Alliance for a fourth year. The non-profit, all-volunteer group has overcome many obstacles in 2019, moving forward in its transition to a staffed model. Most exciting is when there are opportunities to see up-close what the now 24 chapters around the world are doing!

Cupping Great Coffee at IWCA-SCA Cupping

April 14, 2019

Surprise! There really are enough fanatic roasters and cuppers at an SCA Expo to fill a large cupping room, even at 8:00am on a Sunday morning! At least 46 guests flocked to taste the over 70 samples from 10 countries, representing all three coffee-growing continents (Africa, Asia and Latin America) and 47 different female producers - all members of International Women's Coffee Alliance (IWCA) chapter members. Click here to see the list of all the coffees.

The IWCA hosts this annual cupping event with generous support from the Specialty Coffee Association (which donates the space), and Firedancers Consultants (which collects, carefully sample roasts all samples, and leads the cupping). This year the event boasted additional sponsors -- Joe Coffee Company of New York City and City Girl/Alakef Roasters in Duluth, MN sponsored the new cupping aprons with the IWCA logo. Thanks to all these sponsors for supporting women in coffee around the globe!

Roaster of the Week: Peet's Celebrates Women in Coffee

Mar. 7, 2018

Our roaster of the week this week is Peet's Coffee!

Some call him the "godfather" of specialty coffee - Alfred Peet certainly holds a very special place in the history of coffee. He founded Peet's Coffee in 1966 in Berkely, CA.

Today, Peet's is ahead of the rest with a massive Celebrate Women in Coffee promotion of the United Nation's International Women's Day 2018 on March 8, 2018.  Peet's is offering a Sisterhood Flight Collection of three types of roasted beans from three countries: Rwanda, Colombia and Nicaragua. Their website lists the locations across seven states and Washington D.C. where the special collection of coffee can be purchased, and they give a step-by-step recommendation of how to throw a tasting party with your sisters!

There is another part of this promotion that we at Artisan Coffee love even more than all that goodness - Peet's has named the International Womens Coffee Alliance (IWCA) and their Research Alliance as the beneficiary to receive 10% of all proceeds! Well done, Peet's. The Research Alliance is a volunteer group that brings together researchers who accelerate credible research results on gender issues in coffee that are otherwise side-tracked or ignored. So please, dear blog readers, go out and buy some! If it's not possible in your area, keep reading... there's another great option to support female coffee producers!

Women of the Rwanda Ejo Heza coop holding coffee cherry.

To their credit, Peet's is supporting women in coffee in ways that are less well advertised, too. We hope it is "cool" on this special International Women's Day to share that the buying team at Peet's chose Rwanda Ejo Heza women-grown coffee to go into their great-tasting "Uzuri Blend." Uzuri means "beauty" in Swahili. The Uzuri has a long-standing tradition in the company, as it represents many projects supporting coffee producers that Peet's has supported in East Africa for years. Starting this year, the blend includes the hard-won and delicious results of the Ejo-Heza sub-cooperative, which Artisan Coffee Imports was able to offer Peet's.

A Visit to Peet's HQ

Artisan's president, Ruth Ann Church, was able to visit the Emeryville headquarters of Peet's and witness first-hand how the "Berkley-esque", mid-60s roots of the company still permeate the offices, mixing well with modern renovations and updates. They're waving the flag of diversity in many ways, incorporating a love of Americana by naming the open-conferences areas with names of famous regions and labeling the rows of office cubes with well-known streets in San Francisco, like Vine, Fourth and Solano. I was impressed with their large, newly-opened demonstration cafe, fully equipped and ready to help customers immerse into the Peet's Coffee experience!

Map of the Bay Area in the lobby. (Not Europe!) Sean Coutts, Green Coffee Buyer, shows Peet's location.

Ruth Ann in the customer experience area.

Passageway painted to feel like a coffee farm.

Diversity always.

Sign posts in "cube city" keep the culture fun and help you find your co-worker!

Next visit, Ruth Ann hopes to tour the roasting facility. It is a completely separate building!

Coffee Savvy University of California Davis

Dec. 4, 2017

Last week I had the pleasure of taking a tour of the University of California at Davis with other board members of the International Women's Coffee Alliance. Six board members were hosted by Dr. Bill Ristenpart, Director of the UC Davis Coffee Center and an endowed professor of chemical engineering, and Sarah Hodge, assistant director of development for the college of engineering.

We started at the large, modern and impressive Robert Mondavi Institute (RMI) for Wine and Food Science. The RMI was designed primarily to support crops and foods grown in California, thus coffee was always left out -- until now. It started in 2013 with 18 undergrad students who signed up for Prof. Bill's first chemical engineering lab called "Design of Coffee." One textbook, one large donation from Chevron and four years later, there are 1,500 undergraduates who go through one of the three sessions of this course every year.  Along the way, Dr. Ristenpart and his colleague, Dr. Tonya Kuhl, have found much enthusiasm throughout California's coffee industry as well as unmet research needs.

Robert Mondavi Institute for Wine and Food Science

Cavernous high-bay filled with digitally monitored equipment for wine-making tests.

Students learning wine-making at RMI

Coffee lab signs in the chem engineering lab windows.

Undergrads learning chemistry through coffee.

For example, a filter company has hired the UC Davis "coffee team" to do a scientific study of the taste differences between coffee brewed using conical vs. flat-bottomed filters. Actually controlling all of the variables to isolate changes in taste due to the filter shape is an incredible job, we found out! A post-doc is spending his days training the recruited tasting volunteers, practicing how he will serve the volunteers the same coffee at the same temperature, brewed in equipment the same in almost every way except the filter.

Special lighting for the booths where trained coffee tasters will sit.

Pass-thru holes in the wall to put fresh-brewed coffee before the tasters.

Post-doc explains the rigors of scientifically testing coffee taste differences.

We were also taken to what will one day be a stand-alone building for the UC Davis coffee center, just as there is a wine and food science building. The coffee building is smaller, but is a beautiful location just the same. Already, there are rooms sponsored by Peet's, Curtis and the Nicaraguan Coffee group. There are large roasters still in crates donated by Probat.

Donated Probat roasters in crates.

6 IWCA board members and Dr. Bill Ristenpart. I'm 2nd from the right.

Having just completed my master's degree in coffee value chains at Michigan State University (MSU), I quizzed the chemical engineering professor pretty hard about how well UC Davis could address the socio-economic research issues related to coffee. He indicated they would attempt to fill that part of the research agenda also, but it's pretty clear that is not the strong-point of UC Davis. They are well-suited to provide tasting/sensory, brewing and roasting research. Most likely, Texas A&M will remain the go-to university for coffee bio-agronomy, and most likely, MSU will remain the premier institution for studying agricultural extension and agricultural economics of the coffee value chain. Sustainable livelihoods, equity and food security are all areas of excellence at MSU with dozen of faculty working in developing countries across the globe. Given MSU's Center for Gender in the Global Context and its ranking as the #1 packaging school, it would be an easy link to include gender studies and coffee packaging science in some future "Coffee Research Center" in East Lansing! Hmm, have to keep these ideas brewing.

Meanwhile, hats off to UC Davis for showing the way and leading the charge to better coffee science!

Sacramento Super Star Coffee

Dec. 1, 2017

Natural and peaceful holiday decor at The Mill.

One of the best parts of my job is the opportunity to visit cafes and roasting plants across the country. Today was the culmination of two days in Sacramento, CA. I have not really visited Sacramento before, but it is a cool town with a "chill" vibe. The tree-lined streets, majestic old homes with porches and gates reminds me of the old south, except Sacramento in late November has lower temperatures. It was a pleasant 55-60 degrees. In a cafe, I overheard two owners of yoga studios discussing business. Even the Uber drivers are relaxed and cheerful, telling stories in foreign accents of how they arrived in Sacramento from the UK or New York City over 10 years ago -- and never left. It's that kind of place.

They have good coffee, too! I stumbled into "The Mill" one morning which typified the sweet, peaceful atmosphere of the city. They were serving up Heart coffee roasted in Portland, OR.

The Mill in downtown Sacramento

Next morning I was able to check out the "Weatherspoon Cafe", which has the look and feel of a hobbit-hole, for those who know and love the J.R.R. Tolkein stories. The fact that they serve coffee here from Sacramento's "Old Soul" coffee roasters seems so perfectly fitting.

Weatherspoon Coffee on 21st St.

A "destination" cafe for me was Chocolate Fish on Folsom. I think I first heard this crazy name for a coffee shop five years ago and I've been wanting to visit ever since. The owners, Edie and Andrew Baker, decided on the name because of their affinity for all things from New Zealand - including the "lucky" chocolate fish candy that is popular there. The store offers a beautiful setting for their Dietrich roaster and large wrap-around espresso bar. Everything speaks of excellence and quality.

Luke and Edward brewing and serving -- when not roasting.

Namesake for the company (from New Zealand)

Beautiful wood accents throughout the cafe.

The Dietrich gets the glitter and glow of a Christmas tree!

A second destination cafe for me was Temple Coffee. I was able to visit two locations. The cafe at 21st and K and the roasting plant and cafe on S Street. The roasting plant is amply out-fitted with a training room and warehouse for some of their coffee. Eton Tsuno, Director of Coffee, tells me they store much of their green coffee in a different location outside of the high-rent downtown area. There is a 60kg roaster in a wooden crate, waiting to make it's debut. Meanwhile, the company runs it's smaller roaster, located in the back of the cafe on S street, six days a week to keep up with demand.

Since I was in town for the International Women's Coffee Alliance board meeting, I was especially impressed to see Temple sells water bottles that support IWCA and for the occasion of our visit, small packets of Panama geisha from Finca Hartman with special IWCA labels.

Temple on K St.

Temple warehouse and training center on S St.

Training center

Temple cafe on S St.

Eton Tsuno, Director of Coffee, Temple Coffee Roasters

Thank you Temple Coffee for your support of the International Women's Coffee Alliance (IWCA).

Panama Geisha - Finca Hartman, fabulous take-home gift for IWCA board members!

Water purchase at Temple supports IWCA!

5 IWCA board members got a tour (L to R: Ruth Ann Church, Mansi Choksi, Mery Santos, Eton Tsuno, Grace Mena, Blanca Castro)