Fair Grounds Newsletter from Cafe Campesino

888.532.4728 (tel)
229.924.2468 (tel)
229.924.6250 (fax)
(more contact info)

Keeping Up the Good Work
Meeting Our Guatemala Partners Face to Face
Producer Profile: APECAFORM
Introducing Ethiopian Harrar Full City Roast
Café Campesion Community Caravan
Customer Spotlight: Mayflower Coffee Company
Fair Trade Partner: CoffeeTradeJustice.com
Test Your Coffee Knowledge
Quote of the Month
Past Issues of Fair Grounds

We wish to thank EVERYONE who purchased Café Campesino’s Aceh Relief Blend to help us raise funds for our producer partners in Sumatra. We have been heartened by our producer partners there, who, despite their own losses, provided relief at their facility to over 3,000 refugees who also had been affected by the tsunami and earthquakes in December. Café Campesino is donating all of the profits on the sale of this blend to the Coffee Kids Sumatra Relief Project, which directly benefits our producer partners at the PPKGO cooperative in Aceh. To date we have sold more than 400 pounds of the Relief Blend and expect to donate almost $3000 to the Coffee Kids relief project. If you wish to contribute to the continuing relief efforts in Sumatra, please do so directly to Coffee Kids. We will be maintaining our Aceh Relief news section for the foreseeable future, so updated information about our producer partners in Sumatra and their progress in rebuilding after the disaster will still be available at www.cafecampesino.com. Thank you again for your support!

In this month's issue of Fair Grounds, we offer a brief update on Tripp and Lee's visit to Guatemala. We also include a profile of our Guatemala producer APECAFORM, customer and Fair Trade Friend spotlights, a new recipe and trivia question and more. Grab a big ol’ mug of your favorite Café Campesino brew and read on…

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Dear friends, given our need to catch up after being away from the office for the past week and absorb the thrilling experience we had journeying throughout the Highlands of Guatemala, we only have enough time to write a brief summary of our recent meetings with our producer partners there. A more in depth article is on its way though and will be included in a future issue of Fair Grounds.

Roaster Lee and I have just returned from a fantastic week in Guatemala, leaving Bill behind to continue his language studies and ongoing work with our producer partners there.

More...

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Founded in 1992 and legalized under Guatemalan law in 1998, APECAFORM (Asociación de Pequeños Caficultores Orgánicos Maya-Mames) is made up of 400 members living in 19 communities in the western highlands of Guatemala, on the slopes of the Tajumulco volcano. Their fine Arabica coffee is noted for being sweet and clean, providing good acidity and body in the cup. APECAFORM’s coffee is SHP Certified Organic by Mayacert-Oko Garantie.

The Coop’s highest decision-making authority is the General Assembly, though a Central Board of Directors guides and executes the main activities of APECAFORM, coordinating tasks with five Local Boards of Directors based in community centers.

more...

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Café Campesino announces the addition of a new coffee to our lineup: Ethiopian Harrar, one of the most distinctive and interesting coffees available in the world! We roast our Harrar to a full city, which brings out the fruity blueberry and apricot characteristics of the coffee. Our Harrar has a medium body and, as one of our good customers put it, a "lush mouth feel”. And, as the coffee cools down a bit, you’ll begin to taste hints of rum and caramel. We hope that you enjoy drinking this unique fair trade, organic coffee provided by our friends at the Oromia Coffee Farmers Cooperative, who also supply us with our delicious Yirgacheffe and Sidamo coffees.

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Bill departed on February 3rd for his 2-month working sabbatical in Quetzaltenango (locally known as Xela) Guatemala, where he is immersed in daily Spanish lessons and working with our partners at Manos Campesinas. His first email back to the office exclaimed: “my apartment is fantastic – modern, small, clean…and my downstairs neighbors have a golden retriever... all is well in Guatemala!”

On February 10th, Tripp and his 6-year old son Hugh flew to Guatemala to visit Bill and meet our producer partners in Xela. Unbeknownst to Bill and with less than 48 hours to go until departure, Lee listened to his adventurous inner voice and decided to join Tripp and Hugh on their journey. In this edition of Fair Grounds, Tripp offers his initial observations on his thrilling experience in Xela; his son Hugh is preparing a presentation for his fellow kindergarteners at Sumter Primary School…we’re sure they won’t be disappointed!

On February 11th and 12th, Geoffrey represented Café Campesino at The Georgia Organics 8th Annual Conference, which featured keynote speaker Eliot Coleman, in Waco, Georgia (yes, there is such a place). This year’s conference theme is “New Harvest: Connecting Growers and Consumers Year-Round,” which illustrates why Café Campesino is so thrilled to be affiliated with the folks at Georgia Organics!

On February 25th, Lee and Tripp are hitting the road again to sample our coffee and talk Fair Trade at one of our newest customers, The Mayflower Coffee Company in Washington, Georgia. They will travel north from there on the 26th to visit with our long-time friends at Buck’s Coffee Café in Highlands, North Carolina, where, again, they will be sampling our coffee and talking Fair Trade with Buck’s loyal patrons!

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Café Campesino heartily welcomes The Mayflower Coffee Company to our Fair Trade family! Located on the town square in Washington, Georgia, The Mayflower Coffee Company resides in a building that has a very long and interesting history dating back to the turn of the century (the one before the millennium). The Mayflower is a truly unique coffee house and offers a perfect setting for sitting, relaxing and enjoying a great cup of coffee. The Mayflower’s owners, Milton and Terry Roberts, “encourage their customers to stay a while, meet friends and become a regular.” The Roberts’ commitment to community is evident not only in their establishment of a quality coffee house but also in their dedication to Fair Trade and Café Campesino Fair Trade coffee. The Mayflower is located at 16 E. Robert Toombs Avenue in Washington and is open from 7:30am until 5:00pm Monday through Friday. On Saturdays, the Roberts’ sleep in and open at 9:00am, closing at 5:00pm.

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Café Campesino’s long-distance friend and affiliate David Bridger of Plymouth, U.K., has created http://www.coffeetradejustice.com a website that explores the social and environmental justice side of the international coffee trade and offers concerned consumers the opportunity to help put things right by buying only organic, shade grown, Fair Trade coffee. Visitors can subscribe to a free weekly newsletter that is both informative and friendly. Café Campesino highly recommends that you take a moment to check out David’s site, which offers a unique blend of social consciousness and spirituality, reinforcing one’s faith in the human race and, ultimately, energizing all of us who are committed to the Fair Trade movement!

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We're giving away coffee!

Think you know a lot about coffee? Then enter our Fair Grounds Trivia Contest. Click here for our question of the month. Entering is easy and it's FUN!

Our last Coffee Knowledge Winner was Gloria Overholt who was able to tell us that only one quarter of the white blossoms of a coffee plant develop into a mature coffee bean. Congratulations Gloria!

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"When tillage begins, the other arts follow. The farmers are therefore the founders of human civilization."

-- Daniel Webster

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Fair Grounds is produced by:

Café Campesino
725 Spring Street
Americus, GA 31709

Contact Information:

Orders and General Information
Phone - 888.532.4728, 229.924.2468
Fax - 229.924.6250
http://www.cafecampesino.com
www.cafecampesino.com/store/index.php
info@cafecampesino.com

Staff:
Lee Harris
Tripp Pomeroy
Bill Harris
Kayci LeRoy

Fair Grounds is designed and delivered by:

Starstruck Design
335 West Gill Road
Gill, MA 01354

Contact Information:
Don Kruger
Lynn Nichols
Phone - 413.863.7752
Fax - 413.863.7752
http://www.starstruckdesign.com

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