Homebrew

Back in the US one of my hobbies was home-brewing beer. I was never the most prolific brewer, but could usually get out 3 to 4 batches in a year, some of which were pretty good (my Spring Lager was great) while others were a bit ill-conceived (Beet Beer doesn’t even sound good on paper). In either case, I’m happy to be seeing a similar spirit of adventure and experimentation in the kitchens of some of our farmers who are taking the initiative to roast their own coffee.

In January, we showed all of our farmers how to roast coffee using equipment they already have available to the (i.e. a stove/fire pit, an aluminium pot, and a spoon). Normally, after training I will make a program with a few farmers to try out the techniques we covered, so following roasting I made a date to meet one man before market day so that we could roast up some of his beans. I was a little delayed that morning, so I arrived at his house about an hour late to have him surprise me with beans that he had already roasted. That was unprecedented. For almost any other method or technique that we have done training on, the farmers I know are usually so nervous about trying something new that I absolutely have to be there to get the ball rolling. That’s not something I’m proud of, in fact I think it’s a major weakness of my training methods that I seem to intimidate people into thinking the stuff I’m showing them is beyond their own grasp (hopefully Jude can do a bit better in this vein).

Since then, I have had a handful of farmers show me the coffee they roasted themselves. What is it about roasting coffee that makes it so accessible? I can’t say for sure, but I could give some guesses.

1. It’s low stakes. Coffee isn’t expensive, roasting isn’t a huge time investment; it can be done at home so you don’t feel like you’re wasting time, and if it goes terribly wrong, a bit of milk and sugar can always salvage the results (we’re comparing with NesCafe, so not too high a bar to start with).

2. It’s familiar. Roasting coffee and roasting peanuts turns out to have almost the exact same directions (crack shells, sort out bad ones, heat pot, roast to taste) even if the nuances are pretty different.

3. It’s fun. It’s not work really, it’s just plain fun.

Could that be a formula for getting more activity following our trainings? Probably...though I’m not sure it’s feasible for every new idea we trot out. Organic pesticides and manures aren't really low stakes in either time or money. Most techniques we are promoting are pretty foreign (installing grass bunds comes to mind) and a departure from the familiar. As far as fun, well, that’s in the eye of the beholder, isn’t it?