Sweet Bean Coffee

Credit where credit is due….both #coffeequalityinstitute and the improvement of robusta quality itself. Personally, I love #robusta in a blend…

A NEW YEAR, GRATITUDE AND COFFEE PRICES Another year in the life of Sweet Bean Coffee has passed, during which I once again owe deep gratitude to my wonderful, coffee-loving customers. Many of you have become not just customers, but friends: people I look forward to seeing every week, be that at a market or, outside work, enjoying Switzerland’s rich natural and cultural landscapes. For all this I thank you. As we move into a new year, there is one pressing difficulty for coffee roasters – a less celebratory thought - that needs mention. Namely, coffee prices. This past week saw them the highest they’ve ever risen, causing conflicting emotions for me as a small entrepreneur. On the one hand, the conviction that coffee has been undervalued for years, and that farmers have too often been at the downward receiving end of a volatile value chain. Now is their turn.  On the other hand, my deep belief that coffee is the ultimate democratic beverage, that affordable luxury that should be accessible to all. So here I am, stuck in the middle, trying to balance the act. I’ve had no choice but to raise some of my prices – though not all – as I endeavor to stay true to my beliefs. I trust in your understanding. For anyone curious about why coffee prices have screamed with jet engine velocity into the stratosphere, there is plenty of literature out there to explain the forces of weather in Brazil, geopolitical implications of Red Sea shipping or the flutter of a butterfly’s wing in one corner of the world affecting a storm in another. Suffice to say that it’s a lesson proving our interconnectedness, that the world is but one country and all of mankind its citizens. As we roll into 2025, I wish for peace in the world and good coffee for all! photo courtesy of Rudi Dundas

Why coffee and hope (optimism!) offer meaning to my chosen career

I learned how to fertilise my coffee trees using a 5 and 1/2 -oz fish tin – “tinpis” in Melanesian Pidgin. In the old days, before the foreigners arrived, Papua New Guinea highlanders lived a feast or famine sort of diet. Root vegetables and steamed greens, with occasional protein binges when an animal was slaughtered for a feast, a tribal truce or other special occasion. When foreigners came up from the coast, they brought fish with them, tinned and conserved, oily and salty...a beloved new staple and measure of trade. Pay rates or loans could be measured in tins of fish. But I learned how to measure fertiliser this way....xxx tins of NPK after pruning, xxx tins of lime or zinc etc sprinkled lightly around the drip-line of a tree.... My teacher was a venerable old gentleman, Sir Daniel. He taught me these lessons. “We’ve had the first rains, so now is the time to apply…” “Two small tinpis of this and then one tinpis of that…”. Sir Daniel also taught me to prune in his pragmatic way. “Now the harvest is done and we’ve got to stump back the trees. I don’t want to see you crying for them when you watch how much wood we chop off, it’s for their own good, or we won’t have fresh growth for the cherries next season!”   All these years later, I’m so happy to be able to keep the PNG thread alive, and carry what I consider to be one of the world’s greatest coffee treasures: a plantation coffee from the Western Highlands Province, Sigri A. It’s one of the greats, this farm.     As another one of my teachers - a Californian giant in the world of specialty coffee - famously said: “every blend should contain New Guinea coffee”.   I couldn’t agree more. Check it out on our webshop.

Does this roasted Sumatra smell of fresh strawberries or do I have Covid again??? Early on in the pandemic, a coffee trader friend of mine contracted a bad case of long Covid. For over a year, roasted coffee, cashew nuts and chicken smelled unbearably of something unmentionable to him. Which led me to wonder whether the inverse was true and a trip to the bathroom smelled of fresh-roasted coffee to him?   Be that as it may, I am sure that the sweetly seductive strawberry fragrance of my current Sumatra is part of this coffee’s magic and that I do not in fact have Covid. Produced in Aceh by a women’s cooperative (sweeter still!), it’s as rich to drink as it is to smell. Complex, heavy-bodied, bright yet deep all at once…it’s a luxuriant coffee that warms me as much as it awakens me. You can find it on our website, www.sweet-bean-coffee.ch 

Coffee and humility. Read these words: "I vividly remember my first visit to the coffee plantations. It was truly a memorable experience. Selective harvesting of those ripe red cherries by nimble and experienced hands was a fascinating sight—watching women covering their heads with scarves, tying jute bags around their waist, darting under tall coffee plants with tiny droplets of dew and gusty winds blowing around them, creatures of all sizes and shapes crawling all over them and yet those tender loving hands picking only just ripe red cherries deftly and with speed. What care, what precision, what patience! Look into the bag and you find only just ripe red cherries. Talk to them—there is only a smile which flashes back at you, a smile of satisfaction, a smile of thanks, a smile of humility. I learnt a lesson during that visit that, even in any situation of hardship and difficulty and in adverse conditions of work, you would still need to maintain a balance and carry out the task that is before you with care, humility, and dedication." Now read the full article: https://lnkd.in/eAtT85t4 I stand in awe of this woman, and try to have her spirit of humility guide my every day in this industry.

Thank you Andrew Barnett for putting up this lovely post of a woman, an icon, a friend and supplier, one of two who I am convinced blazed the path for the rest of us! #womenincoffee

#specialtycoffee

Calling for internship or entry-level support for this wonderful young creative talent, Margaux Barré. Sweet Bean Coffee discovered Margaux when she was working on a school project for us at a commercial arts school in Vevey. Recognising her talent, creativity, willingness to work and just all-around delightful personality, I hired her for the maximum that Sweet Bean Coffee can afford - unfortunately not yet full-time! Look at our IG @sweetbeancoffeeswitzerland and you will see the quality of her work. Where posts are gorgeous, with elegant photos, that's Margaux. For any questions feel free to reach out to either Margaux or myself. You won't regret it!