Burma gains coffee cred
U.S. brewer toasts their roasts,
WATERBURY, VT. Lindsey Bolger, Keurig Green Mountain’s vice president of coffee sourcing here, dips her spoon into a mug of Burmese coffee and slurps it in with a high-pitched whistle.
Bolger explains her high-intensity slurp distributes the coffee’s taste to all of her waiting taste buds. She is giving a quality grade to the coffee in a process known as “cupping.”
Bolger has cupped hundreds of thousands of coffees from all over the world in her long career at Keurig Green Mountain, but she has never cupped coffee from Burma — until now.
Burma, also known as Myanmar, has been one of the most isolated nations in the world. It looks increasingly likely, however, that Keurig Green Mountain will enter into negotiations with coffee farmers there to begin importing their beans into the United States for the first time.
“In terms of selling something distinctive and unique we’ve never experienced before, I’m not tasting that, but in terms of coffee that can hold its own against other coffees from better known origins in South America, it’s there,” said Bolger. “Now it’s a question of what is their cost of production, what price do they need to be able to profit.”
Rick Peyser, Keurig Green Mountain’s director of social advocacy, consulted a map when he was asked by Winrock International in November to visit Burma as a volunteer to help the country’s coffee farmers.
Winrock International is a non-profit organization founded by the late Winthrop Rockefeller, the former governor of Arkansas, to help “the poor and disadvantaged of the world” with technical expertise.
Peyser would work under the auspices of the Farmer-to-Farmer Program underwritten by the U.S. Agency for International Development.
The first small-scale farm Peyser visited was near a place called Ywar Ngan, which gave its name to the coffee.
“This is a small town out in the middle of nowhere,” said Peyser. “It took us three and a half hours to get there on roads that were mostly paved, but not in great shape. This was an area up over 4,000 feet, up to 4,800 feet.”
That’s perfect, he said, for growing arabica coffee, which thrives at altitudes of 3,100 to 4,800 feet. Arabica is one of two broad categories of coffee bean — the other being robusta, a coffee used in low-end, mass market brands.
Peyser spent the balance of his time in Burma visiting two large coffee estates owned by Tint Soe Lin, a businessman who also owns a commercial bakery in Rangoon employing 300 people.
“This bakery grew and at some point in time the government offered free land for people who would grow coffee,” Peyser said.
Lin took the government up on its offer, investing the profits from his bakery into establishing two coffee farms. One has 300 acres in production, and will have 1,000 acres in production by 2018. The other farm is smaller, Peyser said, and was largely deforested, so Lin has been planting fruit trees, which grow quickly. Coffee needs shade to thrive. Once the fruit trees reach a height of 6 to 12 feet, Lin will plant his coffee trees under them.
Peyser did training on the estates and for the small farmers on how coffee farmers in other parts of the world grow and roast their coffee. Peyser also went over the basics of cupping coffee, an essential skill if Burmese farmers are going to enter the world market.
Everywhere Peyser went he was given samples. This is the coffee Bolger is cupping. There’s a lot at stake for the Burmese farmers. Coffee is graded on a scale of 1 to 100. Coffee that scores 80 and above is considered specialty coffee, and generally gets a higher price.
In the end, all of the Burmese coffees score above 80. The winner, at 83.5, is from Ywar Ngan. Bolger is pleasantly surprised,
“This is a small town out in the middle of nowhere.” Rick Peyser, Keurig Green Mountain’s director of social advocacy
and although there are many factors to consider before making a final decision, she senses a potential deal in the works for the $4.4 billion Keurig Green Mountain.
“USAID is interested in Rick visiting these producers not so he can have an interesting full-expense-paid holiday in a beautiful exotic country,” Bolger said. “There’s the expectation that it’s going to result in some sort of business opportunity between the growers of this coffee and potential buyers.”