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Today is the last day of the Let’s Talk Coffee event in Colombia — it’s been a heck of a time. Tomorrow—Monday—Chris Baca and I will go visit a farm called La Rochella that’s about 3 hours from here (Armenia). We’ll spend the night on the farm, which should be awesome! Then on Tuesday, we’ll go to Cali to visit Cafe Palo Alto, which is co-owned by Geoff Watts of Intelligentsia Coffee. We’ll join back up with Stephen Morrissey there (he left for Cali this morning). And early on Wednesday morning, Chris and I fly back to the US of A.

I’m telling you this because this very well be my last post from Colombia, because I don’t know what the internet service will be like at La Rochella and at our hotel in Cali. But if this is the last post FROM Colombia, I promise to update on Thursday from Portland.

OK, so today was a big day! We piled onto buses at 9 a.m. and headed for the farm, El Placer.

This farm was pretty incredible in terms of their sustainable practices.  Here’s Christy from Allegro learning all about it.

They had one of the most sophisticated systems for reusing all parts of coffee I’ve ever seen.

For example, in the photo below, notice the canisters that process all the pulp methane.

The photo below shows the mother, father and son who run the farm. I loved what the father said at one point, that in reality, he doesn’t really own the land, he just borrows it. So it is his responsibility to care for it for the next generations of people who will live and work on it.

One part of the tour focused on the germination of the coffee plants. They showed us coffee at various points in growth, as tended in the nursery, from seed to adolescent plant.

And look at these amazing seedlings! They’re growing in sand, which is why the coffee beans look so dusty.

A bunch of us were distracted by the healthy growing areas nearby, so we decided to wander into it and pick and eat some of the cherries.

At the end of the tour, we piled back onto our buses and were bound for Parque National del Cafe, the National Coffee Park.

Silly me, I thought this park would be like a national forest, but no — it was a theme park based on coffee. Hilarious!

We took these trams down to the lower part of the park and had a nice lunch under some tents. And then, it was time to hit the roller coaster! It was called La Broca, after the pest that eats and diseases coffee plants.

It was all pretty cute. And dude, they did a good job with the roller coaster — I was on the very first car and it was a freakin RIDE. Tracy Allen pointed out what was perhaps the coolest thing I saw at the park, which was the biggest coffee tree any of us had ever seen. It was so big, in fact, that Tracy brought one of the agronomists down to see if it really and truly was a coffee tree. When the agronomist saw it, he took off his hat and held it to his chest and thanked jesus. Quite impressive to him, as well, apparently. Just look at the size of this thing!

So then it was time to go, but we weren’t all going together, sadly. Some of our friends were actually headed to the airport, like Phuong. Baca and I were so sad to see her go! But at least we got to get a kick out of the fact that she was riding the “Special Bus” to the airport.

Once we were back at the hotel, we went to the very special moving dinner, which began with a horse show that literally look place in the courtyard of the hotel. It was awesome!

After we’d eaten, David from Sustainable Harvest asked people to take turns on the microphone telling all of us what they thought about Let’s Talk Coffee. Below, the Tanzanian farmers express their gratitude for the experience.

In the photo below, Jorge from Sustainable Harvest ranslates what one of the Guatemalan farmers had said. Poor Jorge did a LOT of translating tonight!

Even the cats who live and keep us company at the hotel came to watch the very special wrap up of what was a simply incredible event.

So that’s the story of Let’s Talk Coffee in Armenia, Colombia. It’s been so memorable and educational, not to mention a ton of fun. I can’t wait for next year’s Let’s Talk Coffee in Brazil! Stay tuned for updates of how our visit to La Rochella was, and what kind of trouble Baca and I get into in Cali! Hasta la vista!

That means “Let’s Talk Coffee Barista Championship”—holla! We just wrapped up the 1st annual LTCBC, with 6 sets of barista teams preparing 4 espressos and 4 cappuccinos with latte art for each of 4 sets of 2-person judges. It was so much fun! Here’s the winning team:

And here’s the scoreboard… you can see it was pretty close between some of the teams!

But we need to back up because a lot has happened since I last blogged. Yesterday afternoon was the beginning of 2 long and interesting sessions on the craft of the barista and espresso preparation, given by Mr. Stephen Morrissey, WBC Champion. It’s so great that Stephen is here — everyone’s really excited to see him, have him sign their copies of Barista Magazine, and ask him questions such as, How can I win the WBC?

Here (above) is Stephen with Olga of Sustainable Harvest. Olga organized much of the Let’s Talk Coffee event and is simply awesome. Before the session on latte art and espresso began yesterday afternoon, people enjoyed espresso on the patio. Here is Blanca, the current Colombian Barista Champion chatting with Menno as she pulls him a shot.

During yesterday’s session, Luis was on hand to help with translation and details on Stephen’s discussion. Notice another Stephen in this photo: Stephen Vick of Sustainable Harvest.

The training was a big success, and all the baristas and growers and roasters who attended it were eager for the hands-on portion, which took place today. But first, we had a big evening of fun to get started on! I went back to the room to change and noticed this spectacular sunset from Phuong’s and my balcony:

After dinner, we were treated to a performance by a local dance troupe that specializes in traditional Colombian dance. They were so incredible!

And then we stayed up late drinking rum and talking… it was great, but there are a number of us who were a wee bit tired this morning. A great way to start the day is by making friends with a goat. At least, that’s what Chris Baca says.

I’ll talk more in an article about the awesome lecture by Marc from Sustainable Harvest on coffee producing in East Africa that took place this morning. Everyone was floored by it, and very moved. I want to give a shout out t the translation dudes who have been translating Spanish to English and English to Spanish all weekend long — they’ve been so great!

This afternoon, lots was going on, including grower-roaster meetings like this one:

In the meetings, no topic is off limits. Growers can tell roasters what’s working and what’s not, and vice versa. If a farm needs to charge a higher price, or a roaster wants the grower to be more focused on a certain kind of picking or processing, they can talk about it here. Below is a photo of Lindsay from Green Mountain meeting with some producers from Tanzania.

Meanwhile, the barista training was in full swing. And it was fun from the get-go.

The participants were from all different backgrounds — there were baristas from Colombia who wanted to learn from the World Champ, and there were roasters who wanted to understand how espresso works, and there were growers who wanted to try their hand at espresso preparation.

There were three espresso machines set up, and Phuong, Baca and Morrissey were each posted at one. Each had a group to train in learning stuff like underextraction and overextraction, and other what-not-to-dos, and then show them the steps to making a good shot. Then the participants got to hop onto the machines themselves to try it out.

Phuong told me later how much she loved the experience because all the participants were so enthusiastic and passionate about learning. Here she is with her group from this afternoon.

Sam for Chris — he’s been loving the experience of meeting and sharing ideas with other coffee people (we have people from 20 countries here!). And the participants in today’s workshop adored Chris — he’s such a great trainer.

So now we’re all caught up! LTCBC was in full effect! And a big, loud and excited crowd of coffee people gathered to watch the competition. Below, judges Phuong and Genna pose for a photo, and David Griswold addresses the crowd about the importance of understanding espresso.

Tonight we have something that should be really freakin cool called Sevan’s Grill. Sevan, from Mystique in Montreal, hosts this meal every year, where he grills a goat and serves amazing liquors — free flowing Zacapa, anyone? Tomorrow we’ll head out to visit some farms and also visit the National Coffee Museum, so I’ll be blogging about that when we get back. To close for now, here’s a shot of the beautiful night sky here in Armenia, Colombia.

I am in love with Colombia, and the Colombian mosquitoes are in love with me. Seriously, I haven’t had this many bug bites since summercamp. But it’s a small price to pay to be here among an incredible mix of coffee producers, roasters and baristas, here in Armenia, Colombia, at Let’s Talk Coffee.

It ain’t your typical convention, that’s for sure. This whole event is about bringing people from around the world together to discuss what works and what doesn’t, and brainstorm about how to improve overall coffee quality through both traditional and unconventional methods. Which is part of the reason baristas are involved this year for the first time in Let’s Talk Coffee — not that involving the barista in any discussion of coffee communication is unconventional, but this is one of those rare (though to my elight, becoming less rare) opportunities where people from every single link on the coffee chain are actually in the same place, eating meals together, laughing together, and thinking together.

The schedule is packed with amazing speakers and activities, so I have to keep this breif, but I wanted to share a bunch of photos from yesterday and this morning before I head in to lunch and the next session.

Here is Morten from Solberg & Hansen ready to begin the all-day session on telling the story of coffee held yesterday with Professional Storyteller, Joel ben Izzy.

Joel begins by telling us a traditional story from Armenia. He’s really awesome.

Phil, roaster for Dillanos, shares a story with the group on one f his company’s relationship farms.

Jay, Chris and Phuong shared their stories of being baristas and the responsibility they feel and honor as the ones who tell the growers’ stories to their customers.

After the workshop, Jay, Phuong, Chris, and I walked over the the animal farm that is adjacent to the hotel. It’s called Panaca. To get there, we walked across a breathtaking suspension bridge.

This is the view from the bridge at sunset. If it’s a little fuzzy, that’s because I was kinda terrified about how high up the bridge was and also how shaky it was.

Here is a sassy, adorable miniature horse at Panaca.

Back at the hotel, we gathered for the official welcome speech from Sustainable Harvest, and it was so terrific to see old friends like Larry from Batdorf & Bronson. Larry and I were on my very first origin trip, in Guatemala, a few years ago, so I feel a real connection with him.

Most everyone hung out by the pool til 11 or so last night having drinks (complementary, yo!) and chatting. Then we crashed.

This morning, we gathered in the conference room for a discussion of what Relationship Coffee is and why it’s important.

On my way back to Phuong’s and my room, I snapped this picture of the lobby so you can see 1) how tropical and lovely it is, and 2) that there are donkeys in pens in the lobby.

Here are Libby (Sustainable Harvest), James (Dalla Corte) and Tracy (Brewed Behavior) hanging out before the coffee break with… World Barista Champion Stephen Morrissey, fresh off a plane from Ireland!

I introduced Stephen to the group of 250 or so producers and roasters, emphasizing the importance of the barista in the seed-to-cup chain, noting that baristas crave knowledge of where the coffee they serves comes from, and they are often incredible catalysts for communicating the real, tangible story of source to customers. I also told them how these days, no one becomes a barista champion without not only intensely intimate knowledge of their coffee’s origin and processing method, but a passion for understanding it.