The Magic of coffee

Sunday, December 30, 2007

The Art of Coffee

Time goes by and I keep telling myself, “Hey Pablo, you need to share about one of your deepest passions;” and that is coffee. I grew up in a family where coffee is a passion, not a beverage, it is a tradition not a business, it is a livelihood, not a responsibility. Guatemala has one of the finest coffees in the world, and I’m not saying this because I’m in the business, but because internationally, we have been acquiring awards like the “Cup of Excellence” and baristas awards, to getting various specialty and gourmet coffee awards.

But how do we get to that point? How did we master the cultivation of such a fine coffee? That’s what I want to share with you, the art of coffee. But for this, I’m going to ask you to use your imagination and start from the beginning, and that is not at the cup of coffee, or to simply go to a coffee shop and sit down as we all do in the United States or anywhere else, but to the very beginning of the process.

Imagine you are in a wonderf

ul plantation, surrounded by mountains and volcanoes. You wake up in a really nice bed—you got plenty of rest as you worked a lot the day before—you can smell the coffee being roasted, and it was that aroma that woke you up and gets you ready to start the day. It is a cold morning. You go to the window and you can see fog all over the place. The fog is a mystery. Your eyes get lost in the horizon, and the fog somehow welcomes you to the coffee plantation, calling you to simply start the day.

The birds are ready to start flying around, decorating the skies, with more than 120 species in one coffee plantation. You start the day at 7am and people are already working in the plantation fields. Everybody says, “Buenos dias!” (“good morning” in Spanish), with a big smile. Many of my friends from the U.S. have come here and they keep saying, “People here are so nice Pablo!” They genuinely welcome you.

You will have a typical Guatemalan breakfast, including pastries (more than 15 different kinds), black beans, fried plantains, eggs, homemade tomato sauce and of course, coffee. After you have enjoyed the banquet, we venture inside the deepest part of the plantation, riding horses to make sure we really live the experience. We start going higher and higher into the mountains. Surrounding those mountains you see three majestic volcanoes that are protecting the plantation, they are the kings of the region. Their names are Agua (“water”), de Fuego (“fire”), and Pacaya.

Coffee plantations are never flat, they are full of mountains, hills and volcanoes, at least in Guatemala. We grow coffee from 2,800 – 6,500 feet, above that altitude the weather will destroy the harvest and the characteristics of the coffee will decrease (aroma, flavor, body and taste). Just to give you a tip for a good coffee, you never need to taste it, the aroma should welcome you first.

I have to be honest, most of the time I laugh when I’m in the US and read that gourmet coffee is being served. Have you ever asked yourself what a truly gourmet coffee is? What are the characteristics of a gourmet coffee? I will tell you about it in my next article.

All coffee harvested between 4800 and 6000 feet is considered first class, premium specialty coffee; that is what we export, mainly to the United States and Europe, and this coffee is processed in the U.S. We are able to directly control every step of the process. To be able to do that is a dream come true for me, you don’t have an idea, to be able to share my passion for coffee with so many people. I would love for you to enjoy our coffees; visit http://www.kafesguatemala.com/ .

We only harvest Arabica coffee beans. This is the coffee that has the best characteristics for a specialty coffee brand. Each coffee bean is expertly chosen and planted in a small plastic bag. Once the plant is big enough (8 months o

r so), then it is transplanted into the soil of the coffee plantation. Usually plantations are divided into sectors or areas, so each area is cultivated or taken care of separately. We divide the plantation so each area and soil gets to rest while the other is being harvested. That’s why our coffees are so good; the soil gets all the nutrients year round to simply get the best characteristics possible.

Guatemalan coffees contribute as well to the environment. We use shade trees to protect the coffee plant. You can see the trees aligned with the coffee plants to provide shelter and shade every time we get bad weather. Because of this tradition, Guatemalan fincas (plantations) produce around 60,000 tons of fresh air every day, nothing but oxygen. So there you are in the middle of the highlands, simply enjoying the landscape and allowing your lungs to breathe fresh air all the way.

By the time we get to the top of the finca, you will be falling in love with the landscape, the site seeing and, of course, the coffee environment. The birds are welcoming you. It is the perfect place for you to enjoy life and get rid of some stress. The horses are tired and we need to stop to check some coffee plants and check the coffee beans. As we start walking in the plantation, you can tell how organized and well distributed the coffee plants are. Every plant has its own personality, and every bean as well; some of them are green while some others are red, ready to be handpicked. Whether they are ready or not depends on the altitude, and remember, every sector of the plantation is in a different stage of growth.

Once the area is ready to be harvested, we begin the handpicking process. Many workers, usually entire families, are hired to do this process. Many of these families have been doing this for many generations, and they are hand picking masters. We get pleasure from the laughs and joy of the children of those families on those days. They enjoy running around and helping mom and dad. (We do not hire children; instead, we are supporting children through an educational program called Kafes Kids. Please go to http://www.kafesguatemala.com/kafeskids.html for more information.) For me, and I need to be honest with you, every time I come to the U.S. to do coffee business I think about those families and feel a responsibility to them, and I’m not saying this as a marketing strategy.

These families precisely pick ONLY the red beans (coffee cherries) that are ready. The remaining beans they leave to be harvested and picked in another season of the harvest. After the coffee has been picked by hand, we take them to the wet and dry mill where we make sure the coffee skins are removed so we can dry only the coffee beans. Many people do not know that the red coffee bean, or cherry, has several layers of protective skin, before you get to the final bean. If you do not remove these layers, it is not 100% coffee.

Once we have done that, we are ready for lunch and we enjoy watching the coffee drying process. We dry the coffee in special patios that are in the same plantation. As a family tradition, this is a fiesta as we invite friends and family to come over and enjoy the day. Of course this process is not finished in one day, but we have specific days that we invite people. The main reason for our fiesta is to share our happiness, in that after one year the coffee is almost ready to be roasted and enjoyed. In 2008, we are putting together an entire coffee tour package so people from the U.S. and elsewhe

re can come and live the plantation coffee experience. I will keep you posted.

Once the coffee has been roasted, it is typically packed in 69 kilos sacks, and is then ready to be shipped overseas or to be consumed locally. Kafes Guatemala is no longer doing that, as we have our own coffee roasted and ready for you in the U.S.

In my company, Kafes Guatemala, we make sure that the entire process is precisely taken care of. We work only with the best Guatemalan coffee growers, and because of that we have a team of people that are experts in the ART of coffee. Did you know that in order to have a high quality control standard, we have coffee tasters with over 25 years of experience that ensure that EVERY batch of coffee that has been roasted or flavored maintains the same characteristics of aroma, taste, flavor and body?

Because of this entire experience, Kafes Gu

atemala is one of the few companies in the United States or Canada that can offer to share this experience with you. You can come to the plantations where the coffee is being harvested and processed to simply enjoy the entire magic of growing coffee. We have the freedom and pleasure to introduce you to our team in Guatemala. And while you do that, you get to stay in a 5 star hotel in the plantation, in the middle of the most exclusive high mountain regions of Antigua Guatemala. If you want to know more about coffee, coffee tours and our passion, please visit http://www.kafesguatemala.com/ .

Like we say:

“Straight from the plantation to your cup…live the experience.”
Best Regards,

Pablo Castaneda

Sunday, August 05, 2007

MY DEAR DAD

Dear Friends:

Thank you for your support and prayers. I can only say that God is perfect and it amazed me how he works things. The funeral was perfect and so many people came to gave their respects and love to my dear Mami and family. As I share with you they were the center of my entire family, and now my Mami would still have that responsibility, those of you who had met my parents knew that they could touch your life and heart even if they don’t speak the language.

My dad got really sick, he was diagnosed with ALS or a.k.a Lou Gehrig’s disease , http://www.lougehrig.com/about/als.htm he was loosing his voice and some muscular movement and strength, in less than 2 months he lost almost 20 pounds and there is no cure for this disease, eventually he was not going to be able to move at all, he wasn’t going to have a life. Every time he was eating or drinking water he was choking because his throat was pretty much dying, so he was so scared of being hungry, can you imagine that?

I want to share with you what my Mami shared with me, how he left her life: Pablo It was a wonderful way the way he left me she said, it was 3am and he asked to go to the bathroom and I took him, after that I fall sleep very deeply and after an hour or so I woke up all the sudden to hug him and make sure he was ok, after I hugged him I realized he was sweating a lot and he was cold and I knew what was going on, my daughter in law was with me so I called her to come to the room and he keeps trying to say everything is ok, I asked him if he wanted to go to the hospital or if he was in pain and he just moved his finger saying NO, he could not speak anymore and he had this big smile, I putted his head on my lap and I was whispering to him, I knew it was the time to say good bye, I told him he was the love of my life, that I wanted to thank him for everything and he was the man that stole my heart 50 years ago, after a while I started whispering to him psalm 23, word by word, and then he just hold my hand really tight and simply had a deeply sigh and I knew he was gone, it was the best way he could left my life she said and I thank God to woke me up to say good bye to my love.

After she told me that she said: for 48 years your dad never missed making coffee at 5am and now Pablo I want you to make sure that the tradition will never ever stop in my house.

Dear friends I shared this with you because this is not a sad story but an amazing story of love and I thank God for my parents, my dad identified a lot with Job and he always confessed Job 1:21 (I don’t want to translate it, please read it). I had the honor to give the final words at the funeral and I can only say my Papi is in the best place we NEED long to be, let’s keep walking towards our goal…………Jesus.

This picture was taken 2 weeks ago at the coffee plantation.

Wednesday, April 18, 2007

DO WE NEED ANOTHER MASSACRE TO ACT INSTEAD OF REACT:

Hey dear friends this is an article I wrote for a magazine regarding the VA TECH MASSACRE. Perhaps you can share this with your University staff. I will post it on my facebook and I will love to get your student perspective about what I propose as well

I can’t believe that again in the United States, militarily the most powerful nation in the world, there has been another massacre. This time we are talking about an astounding 32 dead and dozens wounded. I can tell you there could have been more people killed had the murderer had more time, but then there could have been fewer victims had a security plan already been in place. Please allow me to share my perspective, as a Guatemalan businessman that travels a lot to the United States.
Before 9/11 I felt secure in the U.S.; for me, visits were about enjoying myself and being at peace all the time, taking pleasure in the landscapes, awesome places and people. The people of the U.S. are kind, and once they welcome you into their world, they simply touch your life. Over the years I have become increasingly conscious of the differences between my country and the United States. The U.S. has a serious lack of security, not only in universities, but everywhere. People are not prepared for any type of violence and I keep asking myself, “Why?”

My reality is different in Guatemala. I come from a country where we had a civil war that lasted almost 40 years with more than 250,000 people killed; entire villages were wiped off the face of the earth. Guatemala is still a violent country with murders and kidnappings daily occurrences. About 10 years ago my parents were held hostage in our own house for over 2 hours. Another day my brother was shot as he ran away from his would-be kidnappers. Yes, that’s the reality in which I live.
As a result of these conditions I have in essence been trained to be aware of my environment; I have been trained to check my threats in seconds—every one of them—and I know how I should act in every scenario. Every time I go to the U.S. I keep that same mentality, and I can tell that the people of the United States are not ready to do that, but it is imperative that they do it for their survival.
I have come to realize how the violence in the United States is so different from my country’s violence. Guatemala is a battle zone, whereas violence in the U.S. seems to have a deep emotional connection. Someone with extreme emotional problems and automatic weapons shoots at everything that moves and is alive. They are not fighting for a cause, they are not trying to extort money, they are simply lashing out at anyone that is in their path. No matter the individual reason behind each act of violence, they all have had a common denominator: the actions have taken place in schools and universities, or occasionally in a company. Because of that reality, every time I go to a university or a similarly enclosed place I am continually checking my surroundings. I am always developing a mental strategy of how to survive if I am in one of these situations when I am there. People in the United States need to start doing that, because it is like Russian roulette: you don’t know who has gotten up today and decided, “Today others will die because my life is unbearable.”

The reality of these cases:

In the past decade there have been numerous massacres in schools and universities: Colorado, Arkansas, Pennsylvania, including last fall’s Amish school killings, and countless others. Two weeks ago a worker decided to kill his boss and others simply because he got fired from his job. Now at Virginia Polytechnic Institute we have the most deadly mass shooting in U.S. history, with one student making a decision to change all of his victims’ lives forever, in only a matter of seconds. Though the facts of the case remain unclear at this time, the killer had more than 2 hours between incidents, with the police and the SWAT team trying to prepare their contingency plan. That left the victims at the killer’s mercy—and unfortunately they were not prepared to act in this type of situation.

I can visualize the scenario: someone realizes there is a shooter killing people and they call the police, waiting for them to come, but the shooter continues on his rampage killing and wounding dozens—it is simply too late. Victims don’t have minutes, they have seconds. It takes time for the police to arrive and to formulate a plan. A shooter with an automatic weapon and several magazines will have more than enough time to have killed and wounded many more. That is what happened to these students—they reacted to the situation, where they needed to act on it. It is alarming to watch the frequency of these situations rise with no real plan of action in place.
Students in the United States need to learn to have a contingency plan for this kind of situation. When a massacre like this happens all the NEWS programs make sure they get the fastest and most exclusive information, and then that’s it—people die and nothing changes. Time goes by and once again another MASSACRE comes into our lives. The police try their best to rescue everyone, but it is always too late. At Virginia Tech the killer chained all the doors, there WAS NO WAY OUT and police couldn’t stop him. I have to say it again: students need to be trained and learn to ACT, not react.
I decided a long time ago that I would rather die trying to fight back than just waiting, hoping not to be shot and left to die. I had to learn how to develop the mindset to be able to deal with this type of situation. There are so many steps that need to be taken in U.S. schools and universities. Numbers and statistics tell us that these are the main places where these massacres are taking place. I hope you can understand my point of view: the students and staff of schools and universities need to learn how to deal with these situations. If they continue to react to the situation and wait for the police it will always be too late for someone. Think about it, at VA Tech the gunman chained the doors—the victims didn’t have a way out, and were at the killer’s mercy. Students must learn to protect themselves; they must be taught how to take back their campuses.

This article is not about telling the police what to do or to lay blame, but to emphasize the need to create and develop a security strategy that will give students and faculty a contingency plan to follow in these types of situations. Of course, universities and schools need to develop rigorous security plans to guard against these incidents happening, and to be prepared for those that do. They especially need to prepare for the minutes when the police have not arrived, for the time when only a crazy person with the goal of killing EVERYONE he thinks he has the right to kill is in control.

I couldn’t believe all of the images from Virginia, of the police hauling people out with gunshots or even dead. All I could think about were the friends I have in universities around the U.S., friends I have met perhaps in Guatemala, working on a missions trip for my people. I can’t help wondering what they would do in that situation, wondering if they would be the next victims. I have been preparing for a coming U.S. university visit and presentation, and have thought about the possibility that it could happen while I am there, another senseless, selfish act of violence taken out on strangers. I am saddened to think that of the thousands of faculty and students on that campus, I may be the only one there that is prepared to ACT if faced with a similar situation.
I am tired of learning about this violence, and I feel I have a responsibility to the country that has helped me a lot when I have needed it the most. To be honest with you, my concern about these incidents sharply increased with the murder of the Amish schoolgirls. I have come to realize that I need to share what I have learned as a civilian in Guatemala: you need to be in a protective mode every single day in every situation. Just to give you an example, in every fast food restaurant in Guatemala we have armed guards; we take nothing for granted. The people of the United States cannot afford to take anything for granted as well.
I would love to be able to bring people—especially in schools and universities—in the United States a better sense of security. If you would like my assistance and consultation I would be happy to share with you more of what I have been developing in terms of security planning and issues. Thank you for your time.
Sincerely,
Pablo Castañeda
President & Founder
Kafes Guatemala
www.kafesguatemala.com