Thursday, December 23, 2004


an april day?

walking thru new york, you'd swear today an "april showers bring may flowers" kinda day, with a warm light rain. i'm not even wearing socks!

i'm taking today to post a quick update about the jan. 12, 2005 planned nyc coffee meetup. yesterday evening i had a fine talk with mary petitt of juan valdez about the proposed meetup and various cool things we could do.

she was filled with great ideas. we did agree that we would strive to have door prizes -- gift certificates, coffee, etc.; i'll see what i can scare up for everyone!

and thanks to the generosity of the roasters guild, i do already have a couple of donations.

but since we are discussing colombia and coffee farmers, let me note this interesting news item:

"peasant farming families in colombia are abandoning their illegal drug crops and staking their bets on fair trade organic coffee. they have already exported some 5,000 60-kilo sacks of coffee beans this year."

long-time readers know that due to the effect of the so-called "coffee crisis" -- which we hope may soon be ending -- some coffee farmers had turned to growing illegal drugs to stay afloat.

but, according to the story, this tide appears to be turning (you may need a subscription; try bugmenot.) so that's good news!

i did also receive a bag of one of the several 100%-colombian bean blends sold at the juan valdez cafes: the "pico" blend. devoted readers know i've been following the history of this project for years now!

several of these blends seem like they could be interesting: this pico and also the "ladera," containing seldom-seen maragogipe beans.

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