Living at the Mercy

Each night in Origin as we traveled back to the hotel on our buses, we engaged in reflection and discussion about our day.

Sometimes our sentiments were uplifting, and shared of the passion that we felt or the excitement and the energy that infused us. Other times our sentiments were heavy, full of deeper levels of contemplation, of appreciation for the lives lived that make coffee possible.

One of the words that struck me at the end of the third day, and that has continued to resonate in my consciousness, is Mercy.

You see, in coffee farming, numbers are everything. Where the peg falls on this board determines your livelihood. It is the difference between a good year, and a bad year. It dictates if you can put food on your table to feed your family, and buy the fertilizer you need to feed your crops, in an attempt to do it all again next year.

In coffee, you live at the mercy.

You are at the mercy of the coffee leaf rust fungus, that can plague your crops when it is dry.

You are at the mercy of the american leaf spot fungus, that can plague your crops when it is wet.

You are at the mercy of the nematoads, that can plague your crop from the ground.

You are at the mercy of the broca beetle, and its eggs that destroy your beans.

You are at the mercy of the market, and volatile swings in coffee prices.

You are at the mercy of the laborers, and their ability to pick only ripe cherries.

Youare at the mercy of the rain gods, and their providing the water that you need.

You are at the mercy of the co-op, and access to the wet mill for processing.

You are at the mercy of the city, and her constant calling to sell off your land for development.

You are at the mercy of the coffee board, and the soundness of the advice given out to your region.

You are at the mercy of the exporter, and the agreement he negotiates on your lot.

You are at the mercy of your children, and their commitment to be a part of it all.

You are at the mercy.

Do you ever think about it? How closely each one of us actually lives to this life, without even knowing it or appreciating it? The idea that any of us lives in a state of less mercy than our coffee farmers is simply an idea of illusion.

We are all connected in this sate of living at the mercy, much more deeply than any of us care to realize or remember. That paycheck you rely on from your employer? You are living at that businesses’ mercy. That hurricane that devastated your family’s home? You are living at nature’s mercy. That person you rely on for childcare? You are living at a young woman’s mercy. That market crash that devastated your retirement savings? You are living at the economy’s mercy.

The only difference between you and the farmers, is the courage that they have to live life at the mercy so purely, so overtly, so completely.

No frills. No safety net. No escape plan. You have every inch of your skin in the game.

It’s no wonder the Costa Rican’s live by the saying “Pura Vida.” Their farmers live the purest, most courageous life I can imagine.

 

What is a Miracle?

As a writer, I sometimes find myself compelled to create things, to put words down, even though I’m not exactly sure why. I’m not exactly sure what it is I need to say so badly, what it is I am trying to express – there are simply words there, somewhere deep inside, asking to be written. And so I write them.

I find this often happens to me in life as a whole. In moments I don’t quite expect, when I can’t quite be sure why, I will find myself compelled to make a particular decision, go to a certain place, talk to a certain person.

And what I’ve learned is that, if I obey the calling, if I listen to my heart and follow her lead, I find myself directly in the middle of a miracle.

What is a miracle?

I will ask you to tell me.

When you look out into the world, what miracle is it that you see?

In your day? In your life? In your week?

For me, on Tuesday night, it began when I sat in my hotel room at the Marriott San Jose at a ridiculously late hour. I had been fighting a headache most of the day, brought on by the disruption to my normal coffee routine (you never mess with a Starbuckian’s coffee routine). I had taken a few pain killers, and yet still no relief. Later that evening, while mingling with the other partners who had recently arrived here in Origin with me, I half jokingly said I would write another blog post if my headache cleared up.

A few hours later, it did. Apparently my heart wasn’t kidding when she asked me to start writing…

And so despite the late hour, despite the looming arrival of an early morning and a full day, I sat down and wrote.

I wrote because of that voice, that little intuition inside had been pestering me all day. “Write some fiction, it’s been too long, you know,” she said. “Just a short story, it will hardly take you any time. Tonight you have the freedom, the liberty, to tell any story you want about the farmers. No truth, just imagination. Write.”

My mind protested my heart’s encouragement. “But I have no idea what I am even writing. What story am I supposed to tell?” I asked her.

“Don’t you worry about that, just write. I promise you, you will know what to say,” she responded.

And so I did. I sat in my hotel room, in the heart of this beautiful country, and I sunk into the moment; into the breeze floating through the terrace window, into the sounds that color the darkness of the night, into the ten years of imagination and coffee knowledge that has been brewing in my mind. I called the words forward and I wrote.

What emerged was a story about a fictional character named Romero, an expression and an illustration of the love that I imagine a coffee grower has for his trees, for his farm, for his living.

It was two days later, that I realized I had mis-named my fictional character, and that in fact he was not fiction at all.

I stood at the Chacon family farm on Thursday while Ernesto, the owner, told us the details of his life. As he explained about the terrible impacts of the coffee leaf rust fungus, his son, Alonzo, heir to the family’s 10 acre farm, pulls a branch off a nearby tree to show us the disease.

He holds it up on display, eager to share about his family’s hardships and realities with the group of 50+ onlookers. Ernesto then continues talking about the farm, and all attention turns back to him. But I am still watching Alonzo.

I am watching Alonzo, off to the side, as he begins to turn the branch over in his hands, examining the stems and the leaves, lost in a world of his own.

Time stands still as he stares down at the branch, twirling it quietly between his two calloused fingers. I look at him and I see only one thing:

Love.

On Tuesday night, I thought I had written a work of fiction.

It turns out I had written a work of truth; I just hadn’t met the main character yet.

And that, my friends, is a miracle to me.

 

Don’t Forget the Roots

I stood in a coffee field today, in the back-yard of a small-stake farmer named Ernesto. I walked through his garage, past his bright blue “camion” to get there. Past his son, his grand-daughters, his daughter-in-law, his wife. Past his house-plants, his patio; the man’s whole life.

As I was nestled deep amongst the coffee trees, I engaged in another conversation with Orlando, half my broken Spanish, half his broken English. It amazes me how much two people can communicate on halves; a miracle, really. This time, he pulled back a tree and kneeled down into the dirt, and summoned me to follow.

He carefully brushed back the top soil around the base of the plant and began to explain to me about the root system of the coffee plant. He pointed to the white roots, referencing that this indicates they are healthy and active; able to take up the nutrients that they are fed.

“It is unbelievable,” he tells me in Spanish, “I have talked with farmers who have been in this business for 10, 20, 30 years or more, and they have never looked at the roots of their coffee plants. You see, it doesn’t matter how much you fertilize, if your plants don’t have healthy, active roots that can actually take up the nutrients. They don’t know this, they don’t realize. For 30 years or more they only look at the leaves, at the top of the plants, above the ground.”

I nod and indicate my understanding as he explains, actively listening and reflecting back to him my understanding of what he is saying with incorrectly conjugated verbs and a much simpler Spanish vocabulary. He lights up and smiles, and I know I have understood correctly.

I begin to process it all. Decades and decades of farming knowledge…and they’ve never looked at the roots?

How often, I wonder, do we do this in life? Do we overlook the root systems of our lives, or families, our work, ourselves? How often do we fail to see the whole picture? To nurture ourselves below the ground? What nourishment are we missing out on in our lives, because we have failed to cultivate the health of our own root systems?

It made me remember just how easy it is to get lost in our own worlds. How easy it is to be stuck within our own mindsets, our own traditions. And without the proper support, without that third party, that person to push us and expand us and help us see, we will never notice.

It made me remember, just how much power, how much potential, each of us holds to change the life of another, to help them see something differently so that they can grow.

Did you hear me?

Each of us holds the power to change the life of another; to help them see something differently so that they can grow.

Now get out there and change someones life. And while you’re at it, don’t forget the roots…

 

Tomorrow: Truth. Tonight? Fiction.

To me, coffee is all about stories. In fact, it’s becoming more and more clear to me that really, all of life is about stories. It’s about the stories we tell and the people who color them. It’s about the relationships and interactions that fill the basis for those stories.

Origin is no different.

The next three days are going to fill my head with wonderful stories, touching stories, enlightening stories. True stories.

Tonight, however, before all that magic begins to swirl, there is an opportunity. An opportunity to tell a completely different story. A fabricated story. A work of fiction, entirely from scratch, based only on the sights, sounds and smells of a foreign country…and my imagination. I hope you enjoy…

Romero
The wind flutters the curtains as a strong gust races across his desk. Invisible to the eye, the warmth and humidity takes it’s shape in surrounding objects, dancing across scattered sheets of paper, catching the curve of a pen and rolling it into a glass with a subtle clank.

In his exhaustion and haze he doesn’t react, too buried in the piles of notes and scribbled numbers that are the lifeblood of his farm. The breeze seems offended, and offers a gust bolder than the last, as if to demand his attention. As it once again collides the pen with the glass, a much sharper note is offered and Romero takes pause.

He leans back in the old chair at his desk, the wood ceremoniously creaking in response to the shifts in his weight. He stretches both arms over back of his head and he turns to look out over the terrace, the sounds of crickets and various native bugs filling the darkened void with enough noise to color the scenery. With a deep breath in, he closes his eyes, and quiets the chatter of his mind.

He quiets the buzz of numbers; all the estimates he’s been running, and predictions on yield. He quiets the drone of bills; the charges owed on the recent upgrades in milling equipment, and necessary maintenance all around. He quiets the rustle of paperwork; the notes from local co-ops, and buyers around the globe. With a single exhale and a creak of the chair, he quiets the noise of it all…and listens.

He listens for her asks. He listens for her needs. He listens for the quiet messages that she needs him to hear. And in that beautiful emptiness of silence, his beloved coffee farm speaks, with a balanced humidity in her breath, not too damp, not too dry. She speaks and sings to him the songs of her ecosystem, alive with diversity and health, with each creature awake and fully alive, a chorus of vitality. She speaks, and in her own quiet way, offers thanks to him for his patience, and dedication to her care.

“I love you,” he says with a deep sigh, and clicks off the light.

 

That which grows…

And that which does not.

Unfortunately, I have to admit some agriculture defeat here today. Those lovely little Pink Beans I blogged about so many months ago (was it really just the end of a Seattle summer when I wrote that? My how the time flies), well. They didn’t make it.

Actually, let me explain that. Those two little fertile coffee beans were actually well on their way to growing, and then life happened. After over a month of impatiently waiting for them to pop through the dirt, I was starting to become convinced they wouldn’t grow. My Coffee Master teachings gave me an appreciation for just how hard they could be to germinate – too much water they could get fungus or rot. Not enough they would dry out and not sprout. And so I carefully, gingerly dug back the top layers of dirt one afternoon to see just what the heck was going on in there. To my delight? A green stalk was emerging!!

Thrilled, and with a renewed diligence towards caring for these two little new coffee plants, I kept up the regular watering routine and continued waiting.

And then I had to travel for work. And their care was left to…well let’s just say “other” members of the house.

I came home after a week away to two parched, dry terracotta pots on the kitchen counter. I had a total moment of devastation. Literally, almost TWO months of careful care and attention, gone. I kept watering for weeks, a month, maybe more after that, hoping that that some kind of miracle would happen and they’d grow anyway. They didn’t.

But, even though the two beans themselves didn’t grow these last months as I had hoped, I can tell you as I sit here today that a lot of things did.

1) My determination to germinate and grow a coffee plant from a seedling. I’m resolving to beg the other two beans off my coworker with a solemn promise that NOBODY will be allowed to let them go dry this time. We’ll see if I should be so lucky…

2) My incredible appreciation for just how much love, care, attention, and damn hard work goes into this precious little commodity called coffee, that we, for the most part, take for granted every day. Looking at what I went through just to get a couple of beans to sprout, and my horrific disappointment when it all went awry – can you imagine being a farmer, dependent on mother nature herself to see you through to the fruition of an agricultural feat that you literally depend on for survival?? I’m absolutely humbled to think about it.

3) My engagement and fascination with coffee. My coffee curiosity. From the attempt at growing the beans, to the blogs and musings on coffee, to all the random neurons firing in my brain over the last months as I shift and change and grow in the way I think about and bring coffee to life for fellow partners at Starbucks and the world at large; my excitement and drive to think about coffee differently has grown exponentially.

At the end of this journey to Coffee Master re-certification (yes, I’m officially re-certified, woo hoo!), I realize that in life, as in coffee, there is going to be “that which doesn’t grow.” And it doesn’t matter who or how what or why, the circumstances are not important. Because if you look closely, even that which doesn’t grow often gives rise to something else that does. There is always that which grows. And that’s a beautiful thing.

 

At the heart of coffee

At the heart of coffee…

There is connection.

And what makes connection special?

The people we share it with.

Connection with family, friends, farmers, customers, community. Connection is all about il cuore – the heart.

For whatever reason, coffee seems to inspire us and connect us in so many ways. Whether it’s our inspiration to get out of bed in the morning when we imagine that inviting steam rising from a fresh mug, letting us greet that first connection of the day with delight, or our inspiration to stay up late at night doing all those things we never get to, maybe connecting with ourselves or with a good book. No matter the circumstances it inspires. It connects.

Last week it was inspiration for me to RE-connect with some wonderful partners who share a love of coffee. There used to be a small group of us who held a slight obsession with coffee, and who connected on a weekly basis to share in that. Someone would always bring a press or two or three, and typically we would go in blind. Our senses would take in the scenery, smelling for notes of this or that, slurping and tasting until we were sure we had identified at least several of the core characteristics of the coffee. And almost as special as the coffees themselves was what we would bring to pair it with. Typically a home-made treat, or at a minimum something picked out with tender care on an extra trip to the grocery store. Our tastings were always full of heart.

As with many things, life, work life in this case, eventually got in the way, and we gave up our weekly tradition. More than a year or even two went by since I saw these fabulous people, since I connected with them over coffee. And so I decided to change that.

Inspired by a recent recipe I found (that I thought would be even more incredible paired with the right coffee), and dying for a chance to try it out, I set up a little reunion. This weekend, in preparation, I made a trip to the specialty grocer for some ingredients, and whipped up a batch of chocolate baci (“baci” is Italian for “kisses” – they’re a traditional, delicious treat that’s incredibly easy to make and will make you never want to eat another Hershey’s “kiss” again). Special thanks to the incredible Bell’Alimento blogtress Paula for sharing this baci recipe on her BellaNutella site).

What a perfect basis for getting back to the heart of it all…getting back to some connection with wonderful people, delicious food, and a fresh press of coffee (we ended up pairing with Guatemala Casi Cielo and Guatemala Antigua).

And so I turn it over to you. What inspires you to connect? Is it a special coffee? A delicious pairing? Wonderful people?

I’ve set the table…now you can fill in the blanks. The baci recipe is at your fingertips…who and what will you pair it with?!

 

Snow and ice and flooding and…

Coffee.

Of course coffee.

Always always always coffee!

But this time it’s a bit about magic, too.

I have to admit I’ve gone a bit stir crazy these last three or so days as the Pacific NW has been hammered with a significant storm. Everyone keeps saying it’s the biggest one we’ve had in decades, which makes me realize just how much time has passed and how much life has changed since the last major snow storm. And above all else, how that last major storm still somehow feels like it was almost yesterday.

It makes me think about the lovely, steaming cup of VIA I have in my mug, and how that wasn’t possible even three years ago, much less 20 or more. What on earth did people do when they were trapped for days in their houses without access to their local latte hole a-la Starbucks? And then I realize…hey wait a second, 20 years ago, Starbucks had a mere few hundred locations, and most of us probably lacked our total dependance on the morning latte fix. Or at least if we had a coffee fix, it looked different than it does today.

All of it gets me thinking back to that simpler time in life. Twenty years ago when we had our last epic snowstorm, I was just a kid. I was grinning and full of glee, even though I had been trapped at my elementary school for hours late a night while the NW got hammered with a totally unexpected storm that nobody was apparently prepared for. My parents couldn’t reach me, until my best friend’s parents picked them up in their 4WD Jeep, and swung through the school to get the kids (aka me and my friend). I still have the image in my mind like it was yesterday, of dangling my legs out the back tailgate of the jeep as we drove home through the 2+ feet of snow that had fallen in just one afternoon. I was thrilled, and living in the moment. No concept of just how insane the weather phenomenon was. No regard for where we were going, how we would get there, if I would be warm, or safe. All I could do was look at the snow and smile, and try to resist the incredible urge to jump out of the back of the Jeep and roll around making endless snow angels and frolicking through the fresh, fluffy powder. It was magic.

And coffee was the farthest thing from my mind. EVERYTHING was the farthest thing from my mind, except the present moment. Except getting my little tush out there and playing in that beautiful gift from heaven. Snow.

And, come to think of it, coffee was about the farthest thing from my parents’ minds either. Really, I’m not quite sure how I ever became so enamored with coffee, because I was raised in a tea-drinking house. An English Breakfast, Irish Breakfast, Twinings tea-drinking house. And tea, unlike coffee, has been easily accessible, store-able, keep fresh-able for a huge amount of time. My parents never had to worry during a snow storm if they had enough tea around to keep themselves happy. They always had several dozen boxes in the pantry. Always fresh. Always individually ready to brew. Snow storm? Bring it on.

Coffee drinkers, on the other hand, suffered a different plight. Most of them, 20 years ago, were probably drinking the absolute crud from the bottom of a Folgers can. So, if they were lucky, they had their fix in their pantry, just like my parents did their tea, although it was likely not able to be described as fresh, or very palatable for that matter (but it’s all relative…that was all a matter of perspective back then. And back then, that’s all that coffee was. A can of Folgers in the pantry).

So here we are, 20 years later, an entire corner of the country virtually trapped indoors with a prison of snow, ice, and now potential flooding outdoors. And we’re at the point now where, at least in the Pacific NW, thanks in large part to being Starbucks home-front, a can of Folgers in the pantry simply won’t do. In fact, its considered blasphemy by most of us Seattle residents. Undrinkable. Unfathomable. But on weeks like this, it’s also pretty unfathomable to get to a Starbucks to get our customized-beverage-of-choice on. And even if we could get there, the odds that the Starbucks partners could get there to even open the store make us realize it’s probably going to be a fruitless venture. And so inside we stay. And the caffeine monster in our head begins to shout (usually in the form of a lovely, deeply-throbbing headache starting somewhere in the lower back of the neck and radiating outward through our skulls) and starts screaming COFFEE! COFFEE! COFFEE!

And I realize that amidst all of this snow and ice and flooding….there’s a little bit of magic. That thanks to the innovation and spirit of a little Seattle company, there’s a delicious, fresh, individually packaged answer to my prayers tucked away on my pantry shelf, just for such an occasion. Oh, VIA, how I love thee!

And I realize that there’s a little bit of magic around us all the time…even in my cup of snow-day morning coffee.

 

Pink Beans

Is it true?  How can it be?  Coffee beans…turned pink? I must be dreaming!

No, I’m not dreaming, but they’re also not your typical coffee beans either.  I’m not talking about some new spin on coffee, dyed pink in the cup or anything like that. What I’m referring to speaks straight to coffee’s roots…literally.

It all started with some pink beans.  “What are THOSE?!” I anxiously exclaimed when I saw a little clear bag with unmistakably pink coffee beans within.  I was like a moth to a bright flame in the night.

“They’re coffee beans, to grow coffee trees from!” my coworker explained.  “Do you want some?” she offers.

I’m overjoyed at the thought of growing my very own coffee tree from a seedling, and at adding to the collection of other adopted plants in my cubicle, growing in the fading light of a Seattle summer gone-by.

But what does it take to grow a coffee tree?  Having only ever purchased one pre-grown at a nursery before, I’m not quite sure what I’m getting into.  Luckily, I’ve hit the “Coffee Agriculture” phase of my Coffee Master learning journey, which gave me quite the enlightening overview. As it turns out, it is quite the involved process to turn a little fertile coffee bean into a beautiful, coffee-producing tree.

In this case, it all begins with a pink, or rather green, bean.  The very same green coffee beans that are the basis of Starbucks premium roasted coffee can just as easily become the next productive coffea arabica tree for one of our many farmers. The beans that I happened to procure are intended for sprouting, and therefore were sprayed with a pink fungicide to ensure their safe storage and shipment prior to being planted.

Now that these pink beans have found there home with me, they’ll begin the next leg of their journey: germination.  Rather slow, coffee beans take approximately two weeks to germinate, and spread roots into the ground while pushing a small, green stem upward.

Successfully-germinated coffee beans will push up from the soil by about six weeks into the process.  At this point, they are called a “matchstick” or “soldier” because it looks like a little leaf cap atop a small green stem (this “cap” is actually the cotyledon, the first leaf that forms from the embryo).

It isn’t until two months that this first leaf beings separating into two leaves that will nourish the plant through photosynthesis, and help the tree to grow its first “true” leaves.  Plants at this stage are still very fragile and vulnerable, and are usually being cared for in a nursery, with careful monitoring of temperature, water, and pests.

Finally, about four months after germination, the first branches will start to form on the tree. After careful monitoring from months 4-12, and some quality checks to weed out any seeds which are failing to grow and thrive to standard, the baby coffee trees have developed nice, green foliage and are finally ready for transplant to a farm.

Believe it or not, that’s the easy part.  After receiving the yearling coffee trees, farmers plant and carefully tend to the plants, protecting them from frost, drought and weeds for another three to four years before ever reaping a coffee cherry.  Most coffee trees don’t reach full, coffee-producing maturity until at least 3-4 years of age.  Though they can live to be 100 years old or more, once they begin producing coffee trees will only provide cherries for about 20-25 years before they must be retired or replaced.

In my case, I’m not too concerned with producing cherries.  I’ll just be happy if I can keep the little things alive through their initial growing phases and into maturity.  Updates to follow!

 

What are you marked by?

History, that past-tense of time, has a way of marking each of us.  We take in experiences each day, see, hear and do things.  We live in world, experience the present, ponder the future, discover the past full of legend and lessons and lore.  And each day, each of these things we take in, leaves on us a mark.

A mark of love, a mark of sadness, a mark of pain, a mark of joy; sometimes so small we hardly take notice, sometimes so great we carry it with us forever.  It may be something physical, a scar or a broken bone from an accident one day.  On another, it may be something emotional, a touching story or a connection that moves us on a deeper level.  But each day that passes, we add to those marks upon us.

Now what does all this have to do with coffee?  Well, it has to do with a love for the bean.  The coffee bean that is.

As a Starbucks partner, I began my journey relatively un-marked by anything significant in coffee.  Sure, I drank the occasional latte, but sweet Chai Tea was really more my thing.  I took little or no consideration for coffee itself – the varieties, the origins, the farmers who painstakingly grow and harvest each ripe cherry. But as I reflect today, at the beginnings of a second Coffee Master journey, I realize just how marked by coffee, by a love for the bean, my life has become. How else would I know and appreciate the fact that that it takes one, whole, healthy coffea arabica tree to produce enough beans to make a single, roasted pound? Or that without an inquisitive goat-herder and a group of observant monks, coffee may have never been discovered in Ethiopia circa 850 AD? Or that Brazil is one of the world’s largest coffee producers only because of a love-affair between a Brazilian Lieutenant Colonel and the wife of then-French Guinea Governor, who secretly gave the Lieutenant Colonel a gift of fertile coffee seeds as a good-bye?

It is through coffee, through Starbucks, that I have become “marked by a love for the bean, ” seven simple yet somewhat magical words that adorn the front of the Coffee Master journal.  A simple statement, yes, but one that I felt warranted a moment of reflection at the beginning of this journey.  And so I ask, what are you marked by?

I am marked by a love for the bean.