Cwoffe Twalk.

Coffee is the main income source for Batzchocola.

When Agros http://www.agros.org/ helped them get started on rebuilding a life,

creating income for the village was one of the most important aspects.

Teaching the people of the village how to cultivate their land

is essential to breaking the cycle of poverty.

It gives them income for generations to come!

Here is a mature coffee plant with coffee beans almost ripe enough to pick!

When they turn red, they are ready to be harvested.

Our Guide and Interprter from Agros, Nancy, was a Godsend.

The coffee plants are started from seedlings in the village.

I think they are BEAUTIFUL and just shout out LIFE!

(yes, I'm a sentimental sap.)

The seedlings are too delicate to be out in the elements.

They are started under a protective roof made of ferns from the jungle.

There are hundreds of seedlings sprouting up under this one shed!

In the beginning, all crops were owned by each adult member of the village equally.
As time has progressed,
individuals have chosen to purchase and cultivate crops on their own parcel of land
that their home sits on.

As part of the poverty-breaking cycle,
each family owns a parcel of land surrounding their home.
The rest of the common areas of the village are co-owned by all members of the village.

These coffee sprouts belong to Pedro Chavez

(the Cell Phone Charging Man from the previous post),

and we were more than happy to help 'weed' them by removing

anything uninvited that was growing in each sprout's container.

Once the seedlings are resilient enough to brave a little sun and wind,

they are planted in rows on the hillside amongst young banana trees.

It takes a few years for the coffee plants to produce a crop,

the same amount of time it takes for a banana tree to grow up and shade it!

INGENIOUS!

Bananas provide food for the village,

while shading the producing coffee plants,

capturing rain water and diverting it to the base of the coffee plants,

and helping prevent erosion from the hillside.

Talk about SUSTAINABILITY!

Here you can see the small sprouts planted with the young banana trees.

While just up the trail, there are more mature trees producing fruit and coffee.


Mmmmmm...

Bananas fresh from the tree!!

If you look closely,

you can see some coffee plant leaves among the base of the banana trees...

Once the beans are fully ripe, red, and ready for harvesting,

they are shucked out of that round red shell.

This is what a green coffee bean looks like fresh from the field.


The beans are placed in sunning containers for a few days to dry out.

They are stirred around by hand multiple times each day to keep them rotating in the sun.


Miguel has large concrete sunning areas in front of his home.

That's A LOTTA BEANS!!

You can see how proud he is to show them to us.

Once they are dried out, the beans are SO HARD.

If you chomped on one, you would break a tooth!

They soften back up slightly through the roasting process.


Miguel's daughter is barely taller than the bags of beans ready for travel!

These bags will go to Nebaj, the closest town,

then be transported to the US for roasting and resale.

They will end up in a store, or coffee shop near you!

I have to say, the coffee I've had from this village is the best I've tasted in my life.

It is very robust, has a pungent earthy scent, but is as smooth as buttah!

No bite, No bitterness!

The next time you have Organic Guatemalan coffee,

I hope you think of the village of Batzchocola and how those beans

you are sipping up came to be.

How those beans helped a village of people re-establish their lives.

How those beans were cared for from tiny seedlings,

through hand-stirring in the sun to dry them out.

I can't find an importer that's selling coffee identified as from Batzchocola right now,

but you can purchase coffee from the next village over - Trapichitos

(Frappucino from my previous post)

that is made from similar beans, with a similar mission...

http://www.atlascoffee.com/products.html

Thanks for joining me for some cwofee twalk.