The bright lights have been turned off, the penetrating rich aroma is gone, and the world’s leading coffee experts have gone home. When the sniffing, slurping, spitting and head-nodding were over, the 10 international coffee cuppers gathered at Sintercafe XV had chosen Costa Rica’s three best gourmet coffees, eliminated from seven finalists decided earlier this year.
Coffee Plantation
The world’s best coffee palates gave first prize to Dried Doka Estate coffee in the Poas Volcano region, produced by La Fuente del Cafe. Costa Rica’s second best coffee for the 2001 harvest was Medio Sol Media Luna, from Beneficiadora Santa Eduviges. Both first and second place this year went to coffees exported by long-time Costa Rican producer Rodrigo Vargas, whose family has been in the coffee business for 72 years. This year’s third best coffee was CDCR Arabica Coffee, produced by Compañia Continental.
"I’m extremely happy to be able to tell our 150 workers that we produce the best coffee in Costa Rica," an elated Vargas told the 150 coffee insiders gathered at the awards ceremony. But a forward-thinking Vargas is not resting on his laurels he is already thinking about next year’s harvest. "I started preparing for next year yesterday," said Vargas. Coffee samples used in the competition were taken last February from containers already sold for export. They were then freeze-dried and stored.
Later, local judges selected seven finalists from 40 initial samples. Vargas said he began by focusing on producing the highest quality coffee to show that Costa Rican coffee can compete and win in the world market based on its excellence which is what coffee experts say Costa Rican coffee producers must do to survive the current world coffee crisis. For Vargas, coffee is more than a beverage; it is a source of national pride and intricately tied to turning foreign tourists on to Costa Rica.
"Costa Rica is a beautiful country with excellent coffee," Vargas told The Tico Times. "The better the coffee, the more visitors we will have. People will come to Costa Rica, drink the best coffee, see how it is produced, and when they go home, every time they drink our coffee they will remember the experience." Coffee experts say Costa Rican producers are on the right track. According to invited judge Kevin Knox, roast master and specialty coffee buyer at U.S.-based Allegro Handcrafted Coffees, all seven of the finalists were high quality, and four stood out as exceptional (Knox’s favorites coincided with the top four prizewinning coffees).
"Costa Rica has a reputation for full-bodied coffee. There is not as much acidity as others Costa Ricans are more complete," he said. According to Knox, the 2000-2001 crop was the best year for Costa Rican specialty coffees. The challenge, Knox said, will be to match or exceed that quality this year. Cupping competition organizer and Executive Director of the Specialty Coffee Association of Costa Rica (SCAA) Lilia Gallardo said the quality of the top seven coffees speaks for itself.
The quality of this year’s winners as well as those to come owe much to the SCAA’s quality certification program, in its first year, she said. Producers of this year’s top four coffees participate in the program of strict quality control requirements (TT, Jan. 19).
Experts agree that quality is the only way for Costa Rican coffee to compete in the world market.
Low quality, high quantity conventional coffee is dominated by Brazil and Vietnam which just replaced Colombia as the world’s second biggest producer. The price drop and global oversupply sparked by Vietnam’s onslaught of production through massive government subsidy programs will only get worse, as the country continues planting new trees that will bear even more fruit in the next five years, Knox said.
Yet, while the purchasers and peddlers of the lowest quality canned coffee celebrate the never-ending price downslide, the world’s specialty coffee gurus say there must be a better way. But forging new markets is never easy, and for many, creating specialty niches, such as fair trade, organic, sustainable and even "bird-friendly" coffees can be a complex matter, as participants in last week’s two-day coffee production seminar sponsored by the Center for Research in Tropical Agriculture and Higher Education and Sustainable Harvest Importer’s David Griswold discovered.
The problems are numerous. Universal certification and enforcement standards are lacking, corners can be cut, and switching from a conventional to a niche farm can be expensive. "The bottom line is quality," said Griswold. Bird-friendly or not, specialty coffee buyers are not interested if the quality is low, Griswold said. Starbucks Senior Vice-President Mary Williams agreed. According to Williams, the nature of the coffee market has changed. Market volatility is more detrimental and small farmers worldwide are facing tough times, many going belly-up.
"The coffee industry faces big decisions on how to ensure a healthy industry for everyone’s future," Williams told The Tico Times. For Knox, the coffee crisis a result of economic globalization is a process whose effects are still unknown. The key to a sustainable future in coffee, he said, is balancing quality product with social and environmental responsibility. Yet each producing nation is different, and both Knox and Williams say solutions must be tailored to meet the intricacies of each country.
The cost of producing sustainable coffee quality coffee that is socially and environmentally friendly is different for each country. Knox insists that for the specialty coffee market to deliver sustainable coffee, final consumer prices should increase for a cup of coffee in the cafe or a pound of coffee in the grocery store. "We have to increase the perceived value of coffee in the minds of consumers," Knox said. "We have to create a special coffee connoisseur."
Knox said he hopes people will begin comparing coffees as they do wines, by using the flowery language and talk of regions and harvests. "People should be saying things like, The Tarrazá is drinking better this year," he said. But those who sell specialty coffee to mainly U.S., European and Japanese consumers will have to convince them to pay more. Many anti-globalists already have a bitter taste in their mouths about Starbucks, which buys 10 percent of Costa Rica’s total exports.
While coffee prices continue to plummet, Starbucks profits are rising. Last month alone, the specialty coffee giant opened 112 new stores worldwide, bringing the total number to 4,821. While many businesses shadowed a global economic slowdown, Starbucks net profits for October totaled $224 million, up 19 percent from the same period in fiscal 2001. But Knox believes Starbucks stats are cause for optimism. Consumers, he said, pay too little for their coffee. By providing consumers added value and better information, people can be convinced to pay more, we believes.
"Coffee is so undervalued," Knox said, drawing attention to the back-breaking, labor intensive reality for coffee harvesters. "There are 4,000 hand-picked beans in each pound of coffee." Turning activists on to higher per-pound prices is a matter of creating a transparent process from producer to consumer, he said. Yet, just as consumers know little about what goes into the coffee in their cup, producers and roasters are uncertain about what it will take to actually forge a genuine sustainable specialty coffee trade.
But they soon will.
Williams unveiled to the hundreds gathered at Sintercafe on Nov. 12 Starbucks new two-year pilot program to find out just how much it would cost to produce quality coffee that is environmentally and socially sustainable in any country that wants to participate.
"Our hope is that (the initiative) will create a much healthier environment down the entire supply chain," Williams said. As a leader in the specialty market, Williams said that if Starbucks can be successful in the sustainable coffee market, other roasters will soon follow, which will benefit everybody.
The program is based on coffee purchasing guidelines developed by Starbucks and program partner The Center for Environmental Leadership in Business, a division of Conservation International. Producers are rated by a point system that rewards efforts in sustainable categories. As producers meet the guidelines, they are given more points, and those that earn the highest points are given preference when Starbucks buys the beans. Starbucks which already pays producers an average of $1.20 per pound will boost its per-pound price by up to 10 cents for top-scoring farmers.
Verification that producers meet the standards will be left up to third parties most likely government institutions (see separate story, below). Knox applauds the initiative, which he says will add value to the final product, while giving farmers the financial incentive to commit to sustainable coffee production. Experts say that the only future for Central American coffee is specialty and sustainable coffee, which could squeeze thousands of farmers out of the business. But those gathered at Sintercafe this week already know that without specialty coffee, most regional producers might disappear anyway.
Sustainable Coffee Rules
Guidelines for Starbucks new sustainable coffee ranking system are based on the recently published "Conservation Principles for Coffee Production," compiled by the Consumers Choice Council, Conservation International, the Rainforest Alliance and the Smithsonian Migratory Bird Center. They address the following four criteria:
Quality: Coffee must meet industry high quality standards.
Social Responsibility: Producers must respect labor laws established locally and by international labor conventions.
Environmental Protection: Coffee growing and processing must contribute to soil and water conservation, as well as biodiversity and the eventual elimination of agrochemicals. Waste recycling technologies must also be implemented.
Economics: The coffee trade must benefit rural communities and the people who make it all happen the farmers. Incomes must rise along with children’s access to education. Profits should be invested in local public works and infrastructure projects.
Costa Rican Coffee 
