Coffee

Gumutindo.

This is morning coffee for fresh taste buds.

The Gumutindo project makes a single origin, high quality coffee, marketed by Equal Exchange, certified organic in Sweden, and in process of organic certification in UK with the Soil Association.
The coffee grows at a high altitude on the side of Mount Elgon.
The first photograph gives a mountainside view of the smallholdings and huts from the coffee farms.

They are growing maize, cassova and bananas.

The Shamba.
Kelemnsia Nabuduwa and Zita Wanyense.
These women are working on the shamba, where the coffee bushes are planted in between the banana trees.
The banana trees provide shade for the coffee bushes.
The women are weeding.

When they grow organic coffee they need to concentrate on the quality and need better farming techniques to achieve pest control.

Coffee beans need careful handling to create the quality of product that sells in Europe. A lot of physical hard work is involved as demonstrated by Beatrice Nambafu, who is carrying a 50kg bag of beans down to the cooperative.

Parchment coffee.
Has a papery skin over the beans. The coffee is being delivered to the Buginyanya Coffee Association which a small group of three co-operatives in the villages.

Picking over the Gumutindo beans.
Once the coffee is down the mountain, the coffee beans are checked for substandard beans which are discarded.
These women are picking out any diseased beans. These are paid by the number of bags of beans.

Coffee tasting (a.k.a. Coffee Cupping).
This is at the factory where it is milled, and at the back is the parchment coffee.
Then milled green coffee, graded into large, down to the smallest known as peaberries.
The coffee is bagged in these size grades prior to export.

For the tasting it has been roasted on the spot. This tasting session was intended to check variation of taste with height of farming.
The taste in Uganda favoured the lower farms. BUT. In London, when the beans were older and the water different it was higher level beans that tasted best.

Gumutindu Buginyanya meeting.
Richard is showing the Cafedirect poster / advert. Richard works for Twin.
The fair Trade premium pays 55% more than the local price. This comes in two payments, the last being in cash at the end of the season (unusually early).
Plus a social premium for use on community projects.

Albert Tucker, MD of Twin talks to coffee farmers in Uganda.


See Gumutindo again