A Case For Shade Grown Coffee
These hot days remind us that climate change is real and present in our daily lives, making us want to seek the welcoming shade under some big and mighty trees! Unfortunately, our city planners haven’t paid attention to the issue for decades and are only starting to steer against it by creating green islands within the blazing hot cement. But until these are established, we’ll pay the price for it!
Something very similar happened in coffee production, where conventional agriculture took a bush that originated in the dense forests of the African highlands, and - in an overconfident attempt to control nature - implanted it tightly packed together on fields and slopes that were created by burning down the very same vegetation that would make it thrive naturally. Instead, it has been put on overwork with chemical fertilizers and insecticides. With climate change, these plantations are now unsurprisingly getting a literal burnout, with most regions forecasted to loose up to 50% of their production within the next 2-3 decades, although the trend seems to be even faster, putting our beloved daily wake-up beverage at risk.
El Bosque Microlot - Finca Isabel Bolivia
Fortunately, many smaller farmers are more conscious of the surroundings in which they live and produce. We are therefore witnessing a shift at origin, towards a more sustainable and even regenerative coffee production in the form of shade grown coffee. Different producers might have a different approach to this, which also depends on the situation they have at hand on the land they own, but all of the ones we work with, include some type of high growing vegetation layer that puts some shade on their microlots. This can range from planting some fast growing trees to quickly create some shade on fields that were naked before, to a mix of local and fruit bearing trees seeking to diversify production, to saving the bigger trees within the finca or even going back to an almost wild coffee harvesting style, leaving the surrounding forest completely untouched.
Interested in learning more? Don’t miss the amazingly produced documentary ShadeGrownCoffee which you can watch on Vimeo.
Finca Rio Loa - Reynaldo & Nelly Ardores
One of these producers is Reynaldo Ardores, a coffee and nature lover, who bought his finca in 2011 and left all the high grown trees be. As we can see in the clip, his red catuaí coffee variety grows healthy on an idyllic slope in the Loa Primera community, lusciously overgrown by a native forest. The farm as well as his investment are better protected, making it more resilient against the dangers of the current climate crisis. This is because the tree canopy provides protection against the scorching sun, but is also habitat to numerous birds, insects, mammals and other species. This type of biodiverse farm helps stabilizing the temperatures both at day and at night, provides the right amount of humidity for the plants to thrive, many of those trees help with fixing the nitrogen in the soil that is absorbed by the coffee trees, reducing the need for chemical additives and avoiding soil erosion. The fallen and decaying leaves create a never ending source of organic matter and the rich fauna acts as natural pest control, rounding up the healthy farm environment.
Out of these beautiful surroundings protected by sustainable agriculture, we got our red catuaí, washed processed filter coffee that brings us everyday joy with its sweet acidic apple notes, stone fruits, intense vanilla fragrance and nice & creamy cacao aftertaste.