MACRO ROASTER OF THE YEAR

Equator Estate Coffees & Teas

LOCATED IN THE highlands of Volcan, Panama, stands a 19-hectare plot of land recently dubbed Finca Sofia. The farm sits at roughly 2,000 meters above sea level, with fertile volcanic soils from nearby Volcan Baru providing the ideal conditions for coffee production. Although planted with 25,000 or so geisha coffee trees so far (and more to come), Finca Sofia isn’t producing coffee yet—in fact, it’s probably at least three or four years away from its first harvest. However, the farm is still serving a valuable function for its roasting company owners in San Rafael, Calif.—it’s giving them a fresh insight into the challenges, risks and rewards of coffee production.
     Finca Sofia is the brainchild of Equator Estate Coffees & Teas, an artisan coffee roaster and tea blender co-founded in 1995 by Helen Russell and Brooke McDonnell. Equator Estate—Roast magazine’s Macro Roaster of the Year—has spent the last 15 years earning a reputation as an elite purveyor of specialty coffee, and it has grown from a small garage-based roastery to a successful coffee and tea operation with 18 full-time employees in San Rafael and projected revenues of $4.4 million in 2009. But with Finca Sofia and a number of other origin initiatives, Equator Estate has embarked on the more ambitious goal of understanding what it takes to produce world-class coffee from the ground up.
     “About three or four years ago during our travels, we realized that we had one more frontier to cross to really close the loop on coffee quality,” explains McDonnell. “We’ve always been committed to producing a more rounded coffee experience, and we’d been to lots of farms and got to understand how they worked. So we just decided to wade forward and do it firsthand—to deal with the vagaries of nature and other challenges.”

     Building a full-fledged coffee farm from scratch may seem like a formidable project for a U.S.-based coffee roaster, but it’s not terribly surprising given Russell and McDonnell’s commitment to outstanding quality and full transparency for their coffees. In fact, transparency was one of the pair’s priorities when they opened Equator Estate 15 years ago. “We both owned espresso bars originally, and it was really difficult to get information from local roasters and have the total partnership,” says McDonnell. “It felt like there was a rich, really nutrient-dense scene happening behind the actual roasting of the coffee. … So when we opened, we really put forth the idea that we will share all the information we learned at origin and through working in retail ourselves.”

It Starts With Quality

Equator Estate has always focused on roasting high-quality coffees, but it is putting a renewed emphasis on offering outstanding seasonal micro-lot coffees in recent years. Russell and McDonnell credit the emergence of the new generation of roasters who are emphasizing the boutique aspects of micro-lot coffees, a trend that they’re happy to support. David Pohl, Equator’s head roaster, explains it as a natural consequence of people’s increasing sophistication regarding food.
     “While the vast majority of consumers are still looking for consistency, more and more are looking for things that are fresh or in season,” says Pohl. “The benefit is you really get to enjoy a coffee while it’s at its peak, and you get to appreciate it as something that’s only going to be around for a limited time.” When evaluating whether to offer a coffee as a seasonal single-origin coffee, Equator looks for a special character in the cup. “We’re looking for the best of the season for that particular coffee but that captures the unique characteristics of the region,” Pohl continues. “I wouldn’t say it’s much different than we’ve always done with our single-origin coffees, but now the approach is to really put forward the idea of seasonality and help people understand and embrace that.”
     One innovation that’s helped Equator push the seasonality aspect is the advent of vacuum packaging for green coffees. It may sound counterintuitive, but the ability to preserve the unique flavors of seasonal green coffees for several months actually helps Equator and other roasters sell the idea of short-shelf-life coffees. “You don’t want a seasonal offering to be so short that people catch wind of it after it’s gone,” says Pohl. “And you don’t want it to be around so long that it’s going to affect quality. The vacuum packaging helps you meet both needs, so you can offer the best coffees while they’re at their peak and get people excited about them for a while.”
     And Equator Estate has plenty of exciting coffees from which to choose. The company submitted several coffees to the Coffee Review website this year and received 90-plus ratings for each of them. Among the highlights were an Ethiopian Amaro Gayo coffee from the Sidamo region, which earned a 92 score; an Ethiopian Aleta Wondo coffee that displays citrus and cocoa notes in the cup (and received a 90 score); and a Kenya Fancy AA Karinga that’s sweet and brightly balanced (90 score). Equator’s Ethiopian Misty Valley coffee also took home the first-place award in the 2009 Roasters Guild “Roasters Choice” blind tasting competition at the Specialty Coffee Association of America’s annual trade show.
     McDonnell expresses particular fondness for Ethiopian coffees (“like every other roaster in the country,” she says) but also has a soft spot for this year’s Costa Rica Montes de Oro, a 1,650-meter high-grown coffee from the Tarrazu region. Pohl, meanwhile, leans toward another roaster favorite: Panama’s Hacienda La Esmeralda, which he says offers a totally unique cup character for the region because of its innovative farming and processing techniques. “To me, that’s the next frontier of coffee,” Pohl continues. “Just trying out different varietals and really pushing the envelope to get better coffee.”

Down on the Farm

Pushing the envelope is precisely what Equator Estate hopes to accomplish with Finca Sofia, which is also co-owned by coffee consultant Willem Boot. The farm’s initial planting came from Hacienda La Esmeralda’s prized geisha seedlings, which tend to work better at high altitudes (Finca Sofia sits at 1,950 to 2,200 meters above sea level, making it one of Panama’s highest-altitude farms). However, the roasters plan to work with farm manager Kelly Hartmann to plant other varietals as well, depending on which types show the most potential to thrive on the farm.
     Perhaps the most interesting revelation so far is that starting a coffee farm is about much more than the coffee. “We were under no illusions that it would be easy,” says Pohl, who’s scheduled to spend a month at Finca Sofia in 2010. “However, it’s hard to overstate the number of details. Everything I run into at the Equator warehouse from a production standpoint we run into now at Finca Sofia—you have to hire people, you have to manage people, you have to meet certain regular goals, you have to deal with natural disasters like floods or heavy rains. … Like most things in life, there’s more complexity than you might expect.” And as Russell points out, Equator is running Finca Sofia from another country, which is no easy task.
     On the other hand, Pohl expects a significant payoff the closer Finca Sofia gets to harvest. As a seven-year veteran of the coffee industry—Pohl started roasting after a stint as a fair-trade certifier for TransFair USA—he certainly appreciates the challenges faced by coffee farmers. But he also looks forward to understanding the rewards of coffee production. “I think the more time we spend on the farm, and the more time I spend meeting other farmers, tasting their coffees, visiting them on their farms and having them visit us, the more we’ll develop an appreciation for the good and the bad, the difficulties, and the real opportunities and joy of growing coffee,” says Pohl. “I really look forward to having a world-class farm and a world-class coffee.”

Latin American Initiatives

Although Finca Sofia arguably represents the apex of Equator Estate’s coffee adventures, it’s only one of many programs that Equator is pursuing at origin. As with many previous Roaster of the Year winners, Equator pursues long-term, direct-trading relationships with most of its coffee suppliers, believing that such relationships are the foundation of sustainability within the coffee industry. Equator’s first direct-trade partner, in 1995, was a Guatemalan farmer Edgar Lazo and his wife Sylvia, who run Finca Chipacay in Atitlán. “[Direct trade] didn’t have a name back then,” says McDonnell. “It was really about access at that point. We wanted access as much as our customers wanted access. … We all went to the farm, and it gave us a real education about what farmers have to deal with and how modest the margins are.”
     In more recent years, the company has had the resources to pursue other direct-trade relationships and fund quality initiatives at the farm level. The initiatives thus far have been focused on Latin American farms and include the donation of a cupping lab to Finca Chipacay; a $3,000 microcredit loan to Aldea Global, Nicaragua, to improve the coffee processing facilities; and $3,000 to Fapecafes near Loja, Ecuador, for the purchase of new grinders for the co-op’s cupping lab. Equator’s goal with each initiative is to give the farm the resources to produce higher-quality coffee, which results in a win-win for both participants—better premiums for the grower and better coffee for Equator. The company also donated $5,000 in conjunction with the importer Sustainable Harvest to help create a Pulp to Protein program in Tanzania, which “upcycles” coffee waste into a nutritious food or cash crop, such as mushrooms.
     Russell and McDonnell are applying the same energy to local San Rafael initiatives. Not only does the company have an extensive, ongoing employee training and education program, but it’s also a certified Bay Area Green Business in recognition of its innovations in energy and water use. The innovations include roasting 60 percent of its coffees on a Loring Kestrel S35, which uses 80 percent less natural gas than a conventional roaster; installing skylights in its warehouse to cut down on canned lighting; installing a vented cooling system in its offices instead of air conditioning; and adding a vertical louver system that reflects heat away from the front of the building.
     One of the most anticipated projects at Equator Estate, however, is the Hawkeye Brewing System, for which Russell and McDonnell sit on the advisory board. The system—which the developers hope to release for production by 2012—is based on a patented Steep & Release brewing technology that uses microbursts of compressed air to create turbulence during the steeping process. The system differs from traditional drip, French press and siphon methods, not to mention the dearly departed Clover machine. Not only is the brewing technology unique, but the Hawkeye will also be more scalable than the Clover was, with the ability to brew up to one quart of coffee at once. Plus, Russell says that Hawkeye plans to release a consumer model in addition to a commercial machine, making its coffee more accessible to the masses than the Clover’s.

The Next Challenge

So what can a roaster do as a follow-up to the immense challenge of operating a coffee farm? The only logical answer for Russell, McDonnell and Pohl is to open a couple of retail outlets and fully close the circle. “Retail is really a beautiful thing to have because you can directly control your message and your product,” explains Pohl. “When you’re talking about best practices and who we are, having a retail store really does help.” It’s also a great way to promote seasonal micro-lot coffees, as the roaster decides which coffees to feature and when to hold in-store cuppings—all things that can have a major influence on a consumer’s buying habits.
     The company hasn’t made any final decisions on where to locate its retail stores yet, but expect them to represent the same foundation as the rest of Equator Estate: a commitment to artisan coffees and teas, and sustainability from the origin to the end consumer.

RIVERS JANSSEN is a freelance writer and editor based in Portland, Ore. He can be reached at riversjanssen@gmail.com.