Thanksgiving Coffee Company

The office is small, set on the left side of a building that houses four small store fronts. It’s Namonyoni town’s mini mall. Inside the office is a large wooden desk which serves as a work space, and then as a table when it’s pulled to the center of the room. Inside the office chalk figures on stucco walls advertise last year’s coffee prices, and politely request: No Smoking Please.

The Cooperative gathers slowly. A meeting begins not at a set time, but when everyone has arrived. At first the board of directors mill about in front, greeting each other, talking and joking. The meeting begins inside, with a formality that articulates a break from the everyday. This is business, and it’s serious: the assembled members have been placed with the responsibility of managing a cooperative of 570 farmers — friends, neighbors, children, and family.

They discuss the two-year old cooperative and recent requests from members in the community. Many people want to join, and the cooperative wants to include everyone. But will they be able to manage the growth in business?

Farmers are anticipating a good harvest. Will the cooperative be ready to buy and store all the coffee? Some farmers are worried that they will spend the extra time and effort to produce high quality beans, and then the cooperative won’t be able to pay them.

Many members grow vanilla alongside their coffee. Can the cooperative look into finding a better market for the members’ vanilla beans? Many farmers are worried that they have all their hopes in coffee alone — what would happen if the harvest failed or the market collapsed?

Recently a delegation of students from US-based United Students for Fair Trade came to visit the cooperative. Many farmers were happy with this visit, and were honored that the students visited their churches, mosques, and synagogues. They want to encourage such visits; perhaps through these visits the world will learn of their work to unite for peace.

The meeting ends with a lunch of boiled plantains, beans, and greens. Plans are made for upcoming trainings on coffee picking and a workshop to remind farmers of processing standards in preparation for the coming harvest. As lunch ends everyone mills about, slowly dispersing to return to their homes: delegates, organizers, businessmen and women, building something together.

It goes a little something like this:

On the worn grass bordering the dusty dirt road, two friends walk towards each other. One, a man, slows his gait, and with a voice like a deep river extends his greeting: Mirembe Mai (Peace be with you, mother). His friend, older by ten years, bows gently and responds with ease: Mirembe Baba (Peace be with you, father). They shake hands, first palm on palm, then linking thumbs, then palm on palm. They stand and speak.

— How is it with you today?
— It is good.
— Hmmm. They both murmer deep in their throats.
— How is your family?
— They are well.
— Hmmm. Their resonant responses punctuates their conversation with acknowledgement of each word and thought.

They are still holding hands.

They wish each other well, then continue on in opposite directions, only to stop twenty feet later to greet a friend at work in a nearby field, a friend on a bike, or a family of women winnowing millet. They continue on, each giving form to what seems like an elaborate square dance, partners switching, rotating, turning on down the road.

When going somewhere together, they — men, women, children — hold hands.

“Today I want to share a secret with you” I announced to the farmers gathered. We were seated on wooden benches in the cooperative’s small office, around the desk which had been placed in the center of the room to serve as a table. “For generations you have grown coffee, but have you ever tasted it? Do you know the quality of your own product?”

As JJ Keki translated from English to Luganda, I thought of the farmers I’ve worked with in the Dominican Republic, in Mexico, in Nicaragua, and Rwanda. I thought of the pride they take in their beautiful farms, and the lessons that they continue to teach me.

“You see, the market has always been controlled by buyers, who don’t know anything about producing great coffee, but they’ve kept the secret of tasting it to themselves. Today I want to share that secret with you. Because I want you to know how good your coffee is, so that you know what it’s worth, so that you never have to accept an unfair price from a buyer again.” When JJ finished translating, the room was filled with the energy only a teacher knows—the wonderful sense of closeness to learning and knowledge. A sense of discovering a piece of the future.

Mr. Sam, the Coop’s Secretary brought in a half-dozen coffee mugs in different shapes and sizes, 20 soupspoons, and a teakettle of hot water. Out of my bag I pulled 6 sealed plastic bags that our Head Roaster, Steve Angley, had prepared for me three weeks earlier in California. Inside each bag were ground samples of some of the world’s best coffees: Nicaraguan, Sumatran, Ethiopian, Guatemalan, Rwandan, and yes, Ugandan. I labeled each mug with a slip of paper, leaving a blank slip of paper in front of the Ugandan mug.

It was a bit like calling a contra dance from then on: I measured coffee into each mug, and then choreographed group sniffing, sipping, and evaluation. After each of us had slurped at least 20 spoonfuls, I led our discussion of quality. I talked about acidity, and pointed out the sensation of acidity on the palette, especially with the lively Nicaraguan coffee. I talked about character, and origin-specific flavor, pointing out the uniqueness of the Ethiopian and Sumatran coffees. I talked about processing and the importance of careful picking, best exemplified by the roundness of the Rwandan coffee’s flavor. Then, overtaken by the drama of the moment, I declared that there was one coffee that had yet to be defined, “Did anyone know which it was?” Mr. Dan, dressed dapper as always in a grey suit jacket, answered my question with a wry smile “Yes, of course, it’s ours, and it’s the best.”

I smiled as I thought of the communion he was making in that moment with every coffee farmer I’ve ever worked with, people all over the world, who are connected by their strength and pride. “Mr. Dan, I said, you are a coffeeman. You’ve just proven it: you know deep in your heart that your coffee carries the sweetness of the energy you put into it, the depth of its flavor reflecting your work and life. And you can taste it.” The others applauded Mr. Dan, and he took a small bow before returning to his seat.

“The flavor of your coffee,” I continued on “is noticeably sweet. It stands out here on the table among the other coffees of the world. But why is this so? How do you feed your coffee trees, how do you pick their cherries? How do you deplulp and wash the beans, and how do you dry them? The way you do each of those will impact the flavor, and your goal must be to learn to taste this impact, to find the best way, the way that will produce even more sweetness, and even more character.”

Tasting is the link that puts the tools of the specialty coffee trade in the farmer’s hands. The ability to experiment and evaluate, and experiment again, while defining the process and improving quality, is what makes our coffee development methodology at Thanksgiving Coffee Company so powerful. It is a model that’s human-centered, and recognizes the universal human desire for excellence. It is farmers with the power in their own hands, and cooperatives building that power for their members.

Our meeting came to a close with a presentation by JJ on the co-ops plans for a cupping (tasting) laboratory to be built at their new headquarters. “There, each of you will be able to come and taste your coffee with our technical staff, and they will help you evaluate the quality that you produce, identify any problems, and ensure that our consumers are getting the best delicious peace coffee in the world.”

These are the moments when I see incredible potential in our work, where we take a few steps closer towards a world where coffee buyer, roaster, and grower relate to each other with deep respect, appreciation, and gratitude. May you savor the sweetness of each cup of Mirembe Kawomera “Delicious Peace” Coffee for many years to come!

This is where it all begins, this is the foundation that everything else is built upon. The light is bright as you gaze into the deep green of the forest. The farm begins where the home ends, usually the two are connected by a small strip of red earth so hard packed that it nearly shines with the intensity of the noonday sun. The first step into the farm is cushioned by the soft crunch of leaves mulching underfoot: the banana’s giant fan-shaped leaf, the mango’s thick, leathery leaf, and the acacias feathery needles. The sunlight is bright in spots, and dark with the shade of a forest canopy in others. This is the mottled light of a shade grown coffee farm. The air temperature drops 10 degrees immediately, and the smell is rich and full: I can’t help but think that it smells sweet and wholesome like chicken soup.

I visited so many farms in the two weeks that I spent with Peace Kawomera. Dozens of farms, each one proudly displayed by the man or woman who stewards these ecological gems, each one showed signs of hope and strength. What do hope and strength look like?

Hope looks like two year-old coffee trees just about to blossom for the first time, in preparation for their first fruiting in a year. Each of these little trees is carefully surrounded by a miniature moat to capture all of the occasional rainfall. Dug by hand, these little moats almost look like cradles. This is undoubtedly the work of farmers who have hope, and who see coffee as the source of that hope.

Strength looks like the pile of chicken manure that’s collected by the children from the front yard every morning, and carefully allowed to age so that it becomes the perfect organic nutrient for coffee trees. Strength is the deep green color of the coffee tree’s leaves, the heavy load of ripening cherries, and the thick layer of humus underfoot. This is the strength of nature, stewarded by organic agriculture, and protected by these amazing farmers.

Then of course there’s pride, which is the glue that holds it all together. Pride is the farmers smile, the way she holds her shoulders, and the way he walks through his trees. The view from of the farm is of a future of hope and strength, and that’s something to be proud of.