The tour was about two hours, with the last 30 minutes dedicated to a very thorough coffee tasting. Now friends, remember how I gave up caffeine in September because my Doctor thought it would help my migraines? I gave up the giving up as soon as I found out I was coming to Africa. I simply couldn’t come to such a prominent coffee growing region and say no to caffeine. So far so good on the headache front so we’ll just see what I end up doing when I return.
Our tour started in the nursery where we saw the sandy soil where coffee plants start. The germination rate is very low, they may plant 100 seeds and only get 10 plants. It’s also very slow. They don’t sprout for at least three weeks and there are no leaves for eight or so. (I am trying to remember this all and can’t just google it as I normally would, so please forgive factual errors, I will try to fix them later.) They stay in the starting nursery for six months and then go on to the next nursery for 18 months. There the technicians try to weed out any weak plants as well as see what diseases are affecting a given crop.
The actual plants have a very long life after that slow start. Some of theirs are almost 90 years old. When a tree’s production slows down, they chop it off at the stump and new branches grow. The roots of the old plants are so deep that the fields of old trees don’t need as much irrigation. They become more efficient as they grow. The branches of some trees are weighed down by beans. I was amazed at the yield of a single branch! When they are green, they are called berries, red is a cherry, and it’s not a bean until the skin is washed away and the parchment removed.
The grounds themselves are beautiful. The coffee fields had a lot of big trees, providing shade for the coffee as well as added nutrients to the soil. Shade grown coffee makes for better quality but less quantity. They also have patches of other fruits and vegetables mixed in with the coffee. I think he said that it was partially for soil quality and partially to bring bees, as apparently plants pollinated by bees also produce better coffee.
Working at Starbucks, I have mastered my “higher prices for high quality” and “better farming conditions” spiels but to see it first hand was amazing. Burka has two daycares, a first aid station, ambulance, and both permanent living quarters as well as camping areas. (They have about 200 people on staff year round but up to 6000 during the harvest!) They have set some of their 1200 acres aside as a private nature reserve which is home to a natural spring providing all their water as well as providing water to local villages.
They also have a system by which at certain times, local people can come into the plantation to pick the afore-mentioned vegetables as well as bundles of firewood gathered from dead trees. There is a metal flag with one end red and the other green, when green is up, everyone is welcome to the vegetables. Many of their coffee buyers will give a surprise visit, parking nearby and walking into the fields to see if everyone is safe and happy. Because of these changes, working on a coffee plantation is seen as a desirable job, not the near slavery of the past. Well, at least at Burka.
While not organic, they are certainly leaps ahead of a lot of farming. Use of DDT is a real problem locally and is being used on food with which it’s not meant to come in contact. Burka starts with a natural method of pesticide – more bugs. They keep a close eye on pests as well as the pest’s enemies. When the predators outnumber the pests, they don’t spray. If the pests outnumber the predators, they do minimal spraying. Judging by the number of butterflies and bugs I saw, they aren’t spraying very often.
Sadly our visit was in the off season so we didn’t see much going on. I really wanted some photos of people working but there was hardly anyone around. They do get some ripening berries year round but the main season is June, July, August. By September they are just trying to get as much off the trees as they can before the rains hit. This time of year they are just processing the few cherries they find in small batches.
There are two main processing methods, wet and dry. Wet is more time consuming but produces a better quality. The cherries are husked and the washed and finally fermented to loosen the parchment surrounding the bean. Then the beans are aged on big racks in the African sunshine. Burka only uses the dry processing method for lesser quality beans. These include those that float during the wet processing and those that are left of the tree too long. These are taken straight to drying, husks and all. It’s a time saving process but the flavor of the coffee really suffers.
The coffee tasting was a highlight for me. First we were offered a cup of coffee, and may I say it was one of the smoothest cups of black coffee I’ve ever tasted. Sadly I didn’t have much of it as we quickly moved on to an extreme tasting. Our guide, Dennis, set up about 12 cups, all marked to indicate the contents. First we had a test of coarse vs. fine coffee, both brewed in what looked like a little tea pot. Next came a comparison of the grades. We had AA, AB, and PB (peaberry). The grades refer to size with AA being the biggest and most “pure” tasting. These beans are used mostly in blending, to complement a bolder flavor. Then we tried a couple different blends each roasted differently. And finally we tried two dry processed coffees, not my favorite.
Overall I loved the tour and feel more knowledgeable about coffee in general and the role Starbucks plays in changing the quality of life for so many people. Even if I weren’t a barista, I would feel good knowing more about this massive business. I don’t believe that all farms are as good as Burka, but with consumer pressure on coffee buyers, more will have to improve. And I’ll never complain about the price of beans again! (Oh wait, I get them free. Definitely won’t complain!) Now let’s see if I can get the four pounds of Burka Coffee in my suitcase and home!!
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