Relationship Coffee

Coffee fan Geoff Snell spoke to Doug Graf of Origins Organic Fair Trade Coffee in his gorgeous renovated space on Granville Island, from which he and his partner and wife Holly Rodgers wholesale coffee to the best restaurants in Vancouver.

GS: How did you get started in this?
DG: My family was in the coffee business. We bought a coffee shop in the (Granville Island) Market in 1986, and basically no one was really roasting in-shop at that time. About six months after we had bought the shop, we heard of someone who had a roaster down in San Francisco, and just sort of thought ‘what the heck’. We bought the roaster, the fellow came up for a weekend, showed us how to hook it up, spent about four hours showing us what to do, then got on a plane and left us alone. That’s sort of how we got started.

GS: Is that the roaster you’re still using?
DG:No, that was an old Probat 5 kilo. We have two right now that we use, both of them are Royal Roasters. The big one is a #7, and the little one is a #5. The #7 is rated as a full bagger, a 70 kg capacity. We run it as a 25 kg, I don’t think you could realistically run it much more than that. There are limitations on the machine, like the cooling tray, you just wouldn’t be able to dump 150 lbs of coffee into it, it’s impossible. They are about 1913 vintage, built in the US, New Jersey.

They’re very simple machines; we’ve rebuilt both of them. They’re effectively all new, except for the gas controls and the drum, and obviously the outside cosmetic stuff. They have very, very, good cast iron drums in them, making for incredibly even heat distribution. This gives us a great controllable ability to give and take away heat in the roast, very even heat radiation. The heat is in two main forms, convection and conduction, and we want about 80% convection, 15-20% contact heat. That’s what these drum provide. They were good back then, and they’re still good now.

GS: How is fair trade doing these days?
DG: Fair trade in general and organic sustainable coffees are defiantly at the forefront in the gourmet end of the coffee industry today. They are one of the few parts of the industry that’s really growing at any appreciable rate. Coffee consumption patterns worldwide are pretty flat, if not down a little bit in general, but gourmet coffee is going up fairly rapidly. The higher end coffees, like what we roast, the fairly traded, organic coffees, relationship coffees, sustainable coffees in general, are growing very rapidly.

GS: What’s new in coffee these days?
DG: The idea of making the coffee industry more like the wine industry is being talked about again. Something like a VQA in terms of the labelling and marketing, trying to get some hard standards that the consumer can depend upon.

The other big thing that we’re seeing, and what we are doing more and more of is what we would term ‘relationship’ coffees. This is where you’re dealing with direct importers who are bringing the coffee in from a specific estate or plantation, thereby developing, as the name implies, a direct relationship with the farmers who grow the coffee. Trying to remove as many middlemen so the money gets as close as possible to the hands that grew it.

The fair trade model is a very good philosophy; fair trade as a way of doing business is phenomenal, but as a brand it’s not working very well. To take one set of criteria and apply it to coffee that’s grown around the world is somewhat unrealistic.

GS: What is the difference between organically grown coffee and otherwise?
DG: There are massive amounts of pesticides used in coffee cultivation. The last time I checked coffee was the second or third most sprayed agricultural crop on the planet. The biggest thing is a lot of the chemicals that have been banned here are still being exported to third world countries for use there. Coffee is a great example of this. From a consumer standpoint it makes very little difference; when coffee grows it has a cherry around it, a thick waxy skin, then a layer of pulp, then a layer of skin again, and then the coffee bean. So by the time the coffee is processed, there is virtually nothing left of chemicals. When we roast them we apply 400 to 450 degree temperatures; there aren’t too many chemicals that can take that for 15 minutes. So in terms of residual pesticides that would actually reach your cup, it’s effectively zero. But when you talk about the chemical load in the environment where coffee is grown, it’s absolutely astronomical. Ground water contamination, surface contamination, increased levels of birth defects in both animals and people, low birth weight babies, limiting of educational ability in school children, are just some of the problems that are attributed to this. It’s a good argument for organic coffees.

GS: So what is it that you usually drink?
DG:Holly and I generally drink the Cuban Peaberry at home, or we drink espresso here, we’ll drink americanos quite often. First thing in the morning whoever is here first will make a pot of coffee, often it’s the Cuban, or if it’s something new we might try that, but then after 10:00 or 11:00am we just drink americanos out of the machine, with our own espresso blend.

GS: What tips and tricks do you have for brewing a good cup of coffee?
DG: Fresh coffee, decent water, and do it the way you like it. Use a scoop, so you can remember how much you actually use. If you’re too strong or too weak you can adjust it the next time. Once it is brewed, don’t apply direct heat to it. Get it in a thermos, or drink it right away.

Each brewing method will highlight a slightly different flavour characteristic from any given coffee. Some people like vacuum coffee makers, some like filter style brewers. Holly and I quite like Bodums, as there is nothing between the coffee and the water. The best advice is don’t stress about it too much; make something you enjoy, the way you enjoy it. There is no right or wrong way to make coffee, there’s just a right and wrong way for you.

GS:: So what’s up with that cat poop coffee?
DG: (Ha-ha-ha) The real story? The coffee is called Kopi Luwak, and comes from Sumatra. Apparently a type of Civet (a cat like animal, also referred to by the locals as a Luwak) lives on these plantations and eats only the ripest coffee cherries. Unable to digest the coffee beans the Luwak graciously deposits them on the jungle floor where the locals eagerly collect them. Something about the enzyme in their stomachs digests the cherry from the coffee bean, and processes the coffee in some way that apparently makes the coffee taste amazing.

I can’t speak from experience, it’s one of the few we’ve never had. Last I heard it was selling for $650 a pound, and the folks who were doing it wouldn’t give me any to try. Even to get a sample of green coffee, for us as a roaster, is US$100. Depending on who you talk to, some people say it’s terrific, some people say it’s indifferent; like most things I think it’s whether you are willing to appreciate it or not.