Coffee’s Ticking Time Bomb

James Harper:

Hello, James here. I know it's been a while since I posted anything here, but I have something that's quite exciting that I'm brewing up. So I'm hard at work on a new spin-off series for Filter Stories that I'm going to drop maybe around autumn time.

And no, it's not about history. In fact, I actually think it's one of the most confusing, misunderstood and hotly debated aspects of coffee. I'm not going to tell you what it is, though, because it's still kind of early days.

But if you follow me on Instagram at filterstoriespodcast, I've actually dropped a few hints. In the meantime, though, I want to share with you an episode from another podcast that I make called Adventures in Coffee. So this particular episode, I am really proud of because for one, it's a cracking story.

And second, well, frankly, it sounds a lot like a Filter Stories episode. So I'm pretty sure that you're going to like it. It's a story about Sri Lanka, which is really the worst case scenario when it comes to killing coffee off the face of a country.

But it's also a story about the potential for resurrecting coffee after a catastrophe. I won't say any more for fear of ruining the story for you. But suffice to say, we tell quite a few of these sorts of stories on Adventures in Coffee.

In the last season, we had a banger of an episode that lit a fire under the notion of single origin. You know, why? Especially coffee people.

Why are they so anti-blend? And we have future episodes in Series 3 about the lie of direct trade, which I'm personally going to be leading, greenwashing in coffee, lots of it, and much more besides. So if that sounds interesting to you, I've put a link to Adventures in Coffee in the show notes.

Go subscribe. And there's one more thing I want to tell you about before I press play. The 2022 Barista League High Density Conference is happening again on March 10th.

I presented a few sessions last year. This year, there are over 50 speakers with fresh ideas and perspectives that many of us haven't heard before. And this year, I am definitely tuning into Chad Turek's talk, Empowering Producers with Information.

Chad is one of the founders of Transparent Trade, which is an initiative that helps specialty coffee grocers know what prices they should be paying to ensure that the farmers who grow coffee that they buy can stay in the coffee farming business for the long term. If you're curious, I put a link in the show notes. Go check it out.

And now without further ado, here is my episode from Adventures in Coffee. Coffee's ticking time bomb.

Jools Walker:

Welcome to Adventures in Coffee, a podcast by Caffeine Magazine about the mysterious and myth-laden world of coffee.

Scott Bentley:

Oh, yes. We journey around the globe so you, dear listener, can have coffee adventures in your kitchen.

Jools Walker:

I'm Jules Walker, also known as Lady Velo. Now, I'm a best selling cycling author from East London. Very proud of it.

And of course, you're very everyday coffee lover.

Scott Bentley:

I am Scott Bentley. I'm the founder of Caffeine Magazine, art director and all round funky coffee freak.

Jools Walker:

Now, dear listener, as we said at the top of the show, we are all about taking you on adventures. And producer man James is actually joining us for this episode to take us on a little journey around the world.

James Harper:

Hey, peeps, how are you both doing? Very good. Very good.

Very good. So today, I'm going to take you on an epic saga. And it's going to sound a bit more like one of my filter stories episodes.

But I want to start with a question. Have you ever drank a coffee from Sri Lanka?

Scott Bentley:

Oh, I can say never. Well, funnily enough, I have drunk coffee from Sri Lanka once before. It was for a lovely gentleman who wanted to bring green coffee into the UK.

But yeah, we sample roasted it and I've never heard of him since. What? Did you taste it?

I did. I remember it being quite similar to something like a Brazilian. So I felt that it was quite chocolatey and there was sort of a biscuity quality to it.

How interesting.

James Harper:

So Scott, what you enjoyed is a really, really rare thing because it's one of the hardest coffees in the world to actually taste. Wow. Oh, and actually for this episode, I tried to get some Sri Lankan coffee, you know, on Amazon across the internet could not do it.

But that's really, really weird because Sri Lanka is like the perfect place to grow coffee. And indeed, it was once one of the biggest coffee producing countries in the entire world.

Jools Walker:

Oh.

James Harper:

So in this episode, what I'm going to do is I'm going to take you on a journey back in time, right to the brink of coffee to the point of no return. We're going to stare into the scary abyss. And then I'm going to show you a way about how we could do coffee better.

And the way to do it better might have been under our noses the entire time. I am intrigued. I want to know more.

Scott Bentley:

Come on.

James Harper:

Now, let me introduce you to one of our guides to the story.

Prof. Stuart McCook:

My name is Stuart McCook. I'm a professor of history at the University of Guelph in Canada. And I teach more than anything else, the history of coffee.

James Harper:

Okay. Sri Lanka, 1860. At this point, it's called Ceylon, but for the story, I'll just use Sri Lanka.

And the British are very busy colonizing the world, including Sri Lanka and India.

Prof. Stuart McCook:

At this point in time, Sri Lanka is probably about the third largest coffee growing place in the world. Yeah.

Jools Walker:

Okay.

James Harper:

So the British are growing coffee everywhere. And I mean, have you been to Sri Lanka?

Jools Walker:

Never.

Scott Bentley:

Yeah. My honeymoon there. Oh.

So I've been to the tea plantations, been all over the island. Actually, it's incredibly beautiful.

James Harper:

So Scott, on your honeymoon, did you happen to get a car and drive around the island?

Scott Bentley:

Well, we were driven around the island. Let's say that. Right.

James Harper:

Yes.

Scott Bentley:

It was our honeymoon, for God's sake. I'm not going to do it myself.

James Harper:

Okay. Well, now imagine, right? If you were like driving back in the 1860s, you stop the car, you get out, you go to the beach.

Now you have your feet in the water and you have your back to the ocean. And now you're staring inland. If you did that in 1860, this is probably what you were going to see.

Prof. Stuart McCook:

There would have been settlements along the coast and then more or less wild tropical forests up on the hillside. And the British conquered these interior highlands, the kingdom of Kandy, and then started clearing the wild forests almost completely and planting vast stands of Arabica coffee up the hillsides.

James Harper:

So coffee stretching from the coast all the way up into the hillsides and the British are making a lot of money. Sounds about right. Now, let's fast forward 15 years.

Okay. You're back there in the beach. Your feet are in the water.

You're staring into the island and all that coffee, poof, gone.

Jools Walker:

Oh.

Prof. Stuart McCook:

Well, the trees are still there.

Jools Walker:

Yeah.

Prof. Stuart McCook:

But there's a 19th century American traveler who described them as standing skeletons.

Scott Bentley:

Wow. It's actually grim. So they just kind of like scrap it and replace it with tea then?

Exactly.

Jools Walker:

I don't understand. Why did coffee die?

James Harper:

Okay. So the thing is, Sri Lanka this whole time was actually a ticking time bomb. And it was actually just a matter of time before the entire island blew up.

And the really interesting thing is, it will happen again. And I'm going to tell you where. Okay.

Okay. So let's fully unpack this, right? So now I'm going to rewind the clock even further.

Let's go back like a thousand years, 2000 years. We're going to fly from Sri Lanka up, zoom across to Ethiopia and dive down into the cloud forests. If you dive under the forest canopy, you'll see lots of different coffee trees.

All sorts of coffee trees. You'll see short and dumpy ones, tall and lanky ones. Because Ethiopia is the birthplace of coffee.

And there's lots of biodiversity there. Absolutely. Now, not only is there coffee, but there are also a lot of diseases and pests.

Prof. Stuart McCook:

Because coffee is native to that area. And so it's normal for crops to kind of co-evolve with diseases and pests.

James Harper:

So it's not only the birthplace of coffee, it's also the birthplace of coffee diseases. Because the two things go together, right?

Jools Walker:

So what's an example of a coffee disease then?

James Harper:

Well, coffee leaf rust. Think of it like a fungus.

Prof. Stuart McCook:

It looks like a series of rust coloured spots. A mild infection. It just might have one or two, but it's the bad ones that cause the leaves to fall off.

And it doesn't kill the tree. So the next year, the leaves sprout again. And the tree looks healthy.

And what happens is, you know, over a number of cycles, the tree can get weakened as the disease really takes root.

James Harper:

So the trees don't die, but they're like crippled.

Jools Walker:

See, I can actually visualise this because I have a pear tree in my back garden and it gets pear rust. And all of the pears end up looking quite manky. And the leaves have this weird kind of brown spore that grows underneath it as well.

So it looks like something out of an alien film, where they're just sort of sticking out from underneath the leaves. So yeah, it's gross. Right.

James Harper:

So the thing is, if there's a disease that affects one specific variety of coffee, it might take that specific variety of coffee tree down. So if the disease gets the short and dumpy one, the tall and lanky one's going to be fine because its genetics are very different. So the point is, there are loads of varieties of coffee in Ethiopia and all these different coffee pests and diseases, all kind of coexisting in the cloud forests of Ethiopia.

But then something happens.

Prof. Stuart McCook:

People took it out of Ethiopia and took it across the sea to Yemen.

James Harper:

What is the environment of Yemen? When you think Yemen, what comes to mind?

Jools Walker:

The immediate thought is just desert.

Scott Bentley:

I'm looking at a world map at the moment. And you know, Ethiopia's got, even today, vast swathes of green. And Sri Lanka I've been to is incredibly green.

It's lush, isn't it? But you zoom into Yemen and there ain't a lot of green there.

Jools Walker:

No.

Scott Bentley:

It's very, you know, like sandy. There are little pockets of green, but very little.

James Harper:

And it's in those pockets of green where coffee actually can grow and did grow. That's where it was planted. And the thing is, because it's such a dry place and a hot place compared to Ethiopia, the coffee kind of got cleaned, quote unquote.

Prof. Stuart McCook:

What do you mean by that? Yemen is a very, is a very tough environment. And so coffee survived, but the diseases and pests did not.

Jools Walker:

Oh, OK. So the disease that were with those plants, so like, you know, the coffee rust that couldn't survive in that environment. It killed the diseases off.

James Harper:

So I sanitized it.

Jools Walker:

Yeah, absolutely.

James Harper:

And coffee leaf rust is a good example because it's a fungus. It's like mold. What environments does mold love?

Jools Walker:

Damp and wet and yeah.

James Harper:

Now, the other thing to mention is that of the trees that got taken from Ethiopia all the way to Yemen, it was just a handful of varieties, like just a handful out of hundreds and hundreds. Right. So very narrow genetic base gets exported, so to speak, out of Ethiopia.

And then, as you will have learned in the history of coffee episode, it breaks out of Yemen eventually and it starts getting planted around the world. It goes to India. And then, of course, it lands in Sri Lanka, the Dutch take it there.

So let's zoom back to this Sri Lanka. It's the 1800s. The Dutch have planted some coffee, but the Brits come along, kick them out and just plant a hell of a lot more to make a lot of money quick.

Now, this is the moment that the ticking time bomb kind of ticks faster and faster. For Sri Lanka, because if a disease were to go to Sri Lanka and infect one tree, we're in a lot of trouble because.

Prof. Stuart McCook:

In a world of COVID, this is perhaps easier to imagine now, but there are some diseases that are diseases of crowds. When you have a lot of people in one place, it's very easy for one person to infect a lot of other people. Now, imagine a coffee plantation is basically like a crowd.

So you get one tree that's infected. And with this disease, which disperses hundreds of thousands, if not millions of spores, each of which has the potential to infect other trees.

Jools Walker:

It's making my skin crawl thinking about that. All it takes is one disease tree and then that's it. It could just take everything else out with it, which is that's horrid.

Prof. Stuart McCook:

One rotten apple, isn't it? That sort of thing. And you've got, you know, these vast plantations on Ceylon.

You've got warm temperatures, which the fungus likes, and ample rains, which the fungus also likes. And it was like an incubator for this.

James Harper:

So the coffee leaf rust disease gets to Sri Lanka and just blows it up.

Scott Bentley:

And then our entire industry then just goes down the toilet.

Jools Walker:

That's devastating.

Scott Bentley:

For Sri Lanka and coffee, that's it. It's over.

Jools Walker:

But I have to ask, James, how exactly did the disease travel?

Scott Bentley:

It took a plane, didn't it? It kind of said, look, I'm really fancying getting out of Ethiopia. It's a bit dull here.

Jools Walker:

I want to see the world, put some devastation elsewhere, you know, leave my mark. But yeah, no, in all seriousness, how was it able to travel?

Prof. Stuart McCook:

This is the big mystery. And I don't have a smoking gun. What I have is probably a sense that it is associated with the British Empire.

By the mid-19th century, the Indian Ocean is described by many as basically a British lake. There's a lot of trans-oceanic trade. We know there's ivory and slaves moving from the Great Lakes region of East Africa, Kenya, Uganda, where we know the rust existed in the wild on other species of coffee.

And so it could have come in through there. I've heard other people speculate it came from a British military expedition into Ethiopia.

Jools Walker:

Is this a stupid question? Were they not checking?

James Harper:

It's a really good point, Jules, because it's not like you take the leaf, right? And you bring a diseased leaf across the oceans. It's actually about tiny little spores.

Scott Bentley:

Oh, I see. So you don't, you probably don't even have to bring the live plum. It can, it can stay in other things.

Boots.

James Harper:

I mean, who knows? But I just want to caution. We don't know exactly how the rust came to Sri Lanka.

It could have been there well before the Europeans came along. We just don't know. Now you want to hear something really crazy.

You know, like a bomb explodes and sends shrapnel everywhere. That literally happens, but on like a country level scale.

Prof. Stuart McCook:

Wow. If you can think of Ceylon as at this point, a huge spore factory, the coffee plantations are sending, you know, countless billions of spores up into the atmosphere. And they're getting circulated through the Indian Ocean basin and landing in places like Java and Sumatra.

It's like miles away. Yeah. Yeah.

Thousands of kilometers away. But as if that weren't enough, you have the British moving indentured laborers all over the Indian Ocean basin.

James Harper:

And an indentured laborer is what we today call someone who's in modern day slavery. Someone who's probably drowning in debt, trapped by their employer, working in horrendous conditions. And in fact, many indentured laborers did die trying to grow coffee in Sri Lanka for the British.

Prof. Stuart McCook:

And you can imagine an indentured laborer who's been working as a coffee farmer in Ceylon, you know, his clothes or the planter themselves, you know, with clothes or gear that's brushing up against infected coffee plants and then going off to Fiji, going off to these new coffee frontiers and carrying spores with them.

Scott Bentley:

Wowzers. We really did infect the world, didn't we? That's pretty, that's pretty crazy.

James Harper:

So Sri Lanka turns into this spore factory. Asia, which up until then was like a rising star in the world of coffee production, starts to fade to black. But of course this isn't the end of coffee because if you fast forward like a hundred or so years, like Brazil and Latin America, they're producing loads and loads of coffee.

That's where most coffee now comes from, you know, Brazil. But remember that ticking time bomb analogy? Let's fast forward.

Let's say to like just even 20 years ago, the coffee leaf frost, it's still around, but it's not like the runaway disaster that it was in Sri Lanka and Asia, you know, back in the day. And a lot of this is down to the fact that in Brazil and Latin America, more generally, you know, where a lot of coffee is grown, the microclimates are different to Sri Lanka.

Prof. Stuart McCook:

The rust doesn't like cooler temperatures. And so a lot of the higher altitudes, the rust would be present, but it couldn't flourish in the way that it did. Also areas that have a well-defined dry seasons, the dry season helps keep the levels of rust down.

James Harper:

So rust is still around, but it's just not the right environment for the rust to go crazy.

Scott Bentley:

But also you mentioned that these monocrops, they're being kind of affected by rust, but is it also the case that some of these places didn't use those plants and so therefore weren't affected by that disease? That's a good point.

James Harper:

The problem with a lot of coffee, even today, is that of all the Arabica coffee that's grown across the world, Arabica being the coffees that, you know, we have in our cups in the morning, Arabica coffee comes from an extremely narrow genetic base, most of which comes from those handful of varieties taken out of Yemen. Right. Okay.

Interesting. So they've evolved since, they've been mixed since in different ways, but at the end of the day, that is a very narrow genetic stock. But also another reason the rust isn't out of control is because we've developed technology to keep rust under control.

Prof. Stuart McCook:

And so they, by this point, they have figured out that chemical sprays applied at the right moment can help to keep the rust in check.

James Harper:

So, you know, about 20 years ago, the rust situation was totally manageable. Professor Stuart McCook, that's when he began researching his book back in 2004 about coffee leaf rust. And, you know, it was as if he was doing a study on like measles.

Yes, it's still around, but it's very much history by this point.

Prof. Stuart McCook:

I'll just say when I started my rust project in 2004, scientists told me there's nothing to say here anymore. We've, we've got this. We, we, you know, the history of the rust is basically over.

We know how to control it. And all we need to do is make sure that farmers do it and we're good. Right.

James Harper:

So that's my story.

Jools Walker:

Is it?

James Harper:

No, I'm kidding. Of course, that's not my story. I know it's not.

No, because then something very surprising happens.

Prof. Stuart McCook:

So in 2007 and 2008, there's a really bad outbreak in Colombia.

James Harper:

The rust begins spreading again.

Jools Walker:

Ah, something woke it up.

James Harper:

And now it's all across Central America. Mexico's harvest like decimated about 10 years ago. The rust makes its way further down.

And, you know, even up until recently, when I was in El Salvador, just a couple of years ago, I was kind of in a truck going down a volcano with a farmer and we were passing coffee farms decimated by rust. Do you wanna hear the conversation that I had with the farmer at the time?

Jools Walker:

Yeah.

James Harper:

So I'm going down the mountain. We stopped the car and me and this farmer get out and just talk about what we're seeing.

Salvadoran Coffee Farmer:

All right. So what are we looking at? So this is a farm that was hit by Roya 2012.

James Harper:

Roya is Spanish for coffee leaf rust.

Salvadoran Coffee Farmer:

The farm was left abandoned and now you can see the results. What does it look like? It's, you know, there's a lot of trees that aren't even coffee trees.

The coffee trees are very tall, you know, three to five meters and very little foliage. So they have no way to really grab energy, you know, based on photosynthesis to produce any cherries or... Because they're really tall trees, but they have very few leaves.

Yeah, very few leaves. And in fact, you can tell they're overridden with all kinds of things that aren't, you know, all kinds of different vines and things. I mean, it just looks like a forest to me, like a bush.

Absolutely. Absolutely. Very foresty, you know.

And you can tell that coffee isn't even the main plant you see here now. And this all used to be coffee. It's just one of the many...

I mean, how many farms, you know, have ended up like this? Maybe at least 80% of all farms in El Salvador. Wow.

Jools Walker:

That's really sad. Sounds really devastating as well, what's happened with that.

James Harper:

Yeah. El Salvador used to be one of the biggest coffee growing countries in the world. Today, it's barely more than a rounding error.

God, yeah, absolutely. And I just want to be clear, like it's not all the rust's fault. The other really big factor is low coffee prices and, you know, coffee farmers not earning very much money.

If you ain't got much money in the first place, it's hard to fight this thing. And on my filter stories channel, I actually did a whole series about what killed coffee in El Salvador. I'll link it in the show notes.

Jools Walker:

I mean, from what I'd heard, the last bit of tape, everything sounded like it was under control with the coffee rust, James. So how did it come back? How did it just suddenly re-emerge like that?

James Harper:

Climate change. This is a warming climate. This is a fungus.

It likes warm temperatures. Wow. That's interesting, isn't it?

Professor Stuart McCook, you know, the title of his book is Coffee Is Not Forever. And I'll link that in the show notes as well. And for me, the moral of this particular story is kind of tied up in that phrase, coffee is not forever.

Prof. Stuart McCook:

I guess what I'm not saying, first of all, is that coffee is going to disappear from our lives anytime soon. But I think what I really wanted to get at with that title is just the idea that coffee exists in time, that coffee frontiers have had beginnings and sometimes, and more than sometimes, have had ends. And that we cannot take the permanence of coffee in any particular place for granted.

James Harper:

To go back to the example of El Salvador, you know, used to be this massive place that grew coffee. Now it hardly does. Now, Scott, I've got to say, I have particularly bad news for you.

Oh, okay. Tell me. There is a lot that's working against your average coffee farmer these days.

You know, low coffee prices, climate change, rising costs, the roya, also known as rust, coffee leaf rust. And the thing is, coffee leaf rust tends to affect the coffee growing areas in the world, which tend to produce the best cups of coffee.

Prof. Stuart McCook:

Yes. And especially, especially for people who drink specialty coffee, for the people who drink the good stuff, those are the very environments that are under the greatest environmental pressure and greatest other kinds of pressure. So I'm thinking Central America in particular.

So for your friends who drink the specialty coffee, these are the environments that are really, really, really the most delicate.

Scott Bentley:

Thanks, James. I feel thoroughly depressed. All right.

Look, to me, this feels like this is not a story about rust per se, but it's really more of a bigger topic. This is about monoculture and the dangers behind just growing the same thing right next to each other with an incredibly narrow genetic base. I mean, you're literally just asking for trouble.

You get one disease, the thing just spreads. It's like wildfire.

James Harper:

I mean, absolutely. And now across the world, we have ticking time bombs because of monoculture. Do you feel a bit depressed by it all?

I kinda. Okay. I want to bring some light back into proceedings.

I want to share with you a story about coffee in Sri Lanka. You know, Sri Lanka was the worst case scenario. I'm going to show you a story where actually, maybe today it might be the best case scenario.

And actually it could potentially, asterisk on potentially, offer a solution to coffee growers across the world where you have so many ecosystems suffering, you know, in these kinds of monoculture deserts.

Jools Walker:

I'm very curious about this, James. So tell us about it.

James Harper:

All right. So the story starts with this guy.

Ajantha Palihawadana:

My name is Ajanta Palihawadana. I'm an ecologist by profession, meaning I work with plants and animals.

James Harper:

Ajanta is Sri Lankan. And in the early nineties, he was working as an agricultural advisors to, you know, a bunch of NGOs that were operating in Sri Lanka.

Ajantha Palihawadana:

Because when a foreigner comes, so there should be a local partner who will have to show him the village to explain the trees and everything.

James Harper:

Okay. So there were all these NGOs back in the nineties, and they were trying to fix this problem. Basically Sri Lankan farmers in the nineties are poor and they live in their farms because they're just not earning enough money.

Now, the thing is, though, like when you think of a farm, what comes to mind?

Jools Walker:

Tractors, you've got fields, you've got the fields petitioned off with fences, like a farm. Right.

Scott Bentley:

Yeah. I mean, I don't, I don't see it like that. I mean, as you know, I spent my honeymoon in Sri Lanka and the way I see it is like valleys and hills, just full of tea, the same crop.

James Harper:

Also monoculture, by the way. So actually I'm going to show you a third type of farm. And this might be a farm you never even thought you could even call it a farm, you know, quote unquote farm.

Jools Walker:

Okay.

James Harper:

Basically Sri Lanka has a tradition of what are called home gardens. Now imagine this, right? You have jungle, you know, natural forest, like an acre or two of this, and like a family will live in this forest.

Although it looks like a forest from the outside, it's actually very intentionally planted so that all their lifestyle needs and nutrition needs and everything are met in that one acre of what they've planted. So like being self-sustainable then. Absolutely.

So the good life.

Jools Walker:

Yeah, like the ultimate version of the good life in the sunshine. Yeah.

James Harper:

Now imagine this, imagine you had a home garden. This is what it would be like if you walked in.

Ajantha Palihawadana:

You will see a small pathway. And then on the pathways, you will find plants like ginger, turmeric, and then you will find the coffee tree. And then you will find nutmeg.

And then you will find the king coconut. And then you'll find a bunch of banana. Then again, after some time, you will see about three or four coffee bushes.

And then you will see an orange tree. You will see a lime tree. You will see taller forest trees buzzing with bees.

And you will find a lizard crawling up the tree. And you'll have lots of butterflies going around. And it's a paradise of biodiversity.

Wow.

Jools Walker:

That was beautiful. And I'm also ever so slightly jealous listening to that description as well. I want to go back.

It sounds amazing. Hang on. We just need to rewind for a moment.

There was coffee on the island.

Scott Bentley:

Yeah, yeah. I thought it'd all been wiped out though. I thought that was the start of this story.

Jools Walker:

Yeah.

Scott Bentley:

Right. Back in the 90s, there was coffee.

Ajantha Palihawadana:

And here's the really crazy thing. The story is, so we have the roots to Ethiopian coffee. The coffee came to Sri Lanka originally by Arab from Ethiopia.

James Harper:

So there's evidence to suggest that even before the Europeans came along, Sri Lanka was already growing coffee. And in fact, these varieties of coffee, or maybe even these species of coffee, came straight from Ethiopia and not via Yemen. Although I do want to caution, this is just a theory.

And a lot of research has to be done to prove the theory.

Scott Bentley:

So then it kind of makes sense that the coffee trees are thriving in Sri Lanka. I mean, because if they're not part of that sort of monoculture system, it's more similar to what's happening in Ethiopia, where they've got like hundreds of species growing. So it doesn't matter so much if one species gets taken down because there are hundreds of other species growing there.

Like a backup.

James Harper:

Absolutely. And so it's this ecosystem where no pest is allowed to go uncontrolled because it's not a monoculture.

Ajantha Palihawadana:

Yes, it's a polyculture.

I mean the insect pests are being controlled by the beneficial insects and the birds are there to control the pests and diseases.

Jools Walker:

Okay James, so let me let me get this right. There are all these lush home gardens that are just scattered across Sri Lanka and they're all managing to grow coffee alongside all these other things that they have going on, right? But you mentioned that they weren't really earning enough money for this?

James Harper:

Yeah, no exactly. So they had the land but they weren't growing the kind of crops that were going to make them very much money.

Ajantha Palihawadana:

Right.

James Harper:

And it was actually a bit of a crisis back in the 90s.

Ajantha Palihawadana:

They were declined because most of the home gardens not profitable and they were cutting the home gardens and thinning out the forest and they were going for vegetable cultivation like beans and tomatoes and potatoes and all that. So that was a big threat for the home gardens.

James Harper:

It's a threat because beans, tomatoes, potatoes were being done in a monoculture.

Scott Bentley:

Well what isn't the point of these home gardens more that they're not there to make like shed loads of money for a corporation? They're there to feed the families that live on that land. So there is ginger and turmeric there for their own personal cooking and the coffee is there for their own personal consumption.

James Harper:

That's a great point. Remember that beautiful vision that Ajanta just painted? Yes.

That is what a home garden looks like today. I understand there weren't that many of those sorts of very very like lots of different types of food planted home gardens back in the 90s.

Jools Walker:

Right.

James Harper:

And the reason behind this is because they weren't being managed perfectly let's say. And actually Ajanta did a lot of work bringing in fruits and other foods that these home gardeners could grow and eat on their land from Latin America.

Scott Bentley:

These home gardens then. So the benefit of a home garden is is it to feed the family that lives on the land but also maybe to sell what is excess in local markets?

James Harper:

It's a bit of both right.

Scott Bentley:

So if you grow a few more vegetables or a few more coffee and you can sell those in the market that's all very good. But these aren't huge corporations. Oh god no.

James Harper:

An acre or two acres. Okay so I'm gonna go back to Ajanta's story. So here he is early 90s working with these foreign NGOs and then along comes this guy called Luke Bucker.

Ajantha Palihawadana:

And then the Luke Bucker was a great coffee drinker and he was disappointed about Sri Lankan coffee and one day he just got me to his office and said Ajanta you're supposed to be agriculture. What what the hell is happening with your coffee? Why the coffee is so terribly taste?

That's when I first got really interested about coffee and I got excited. He said you are an advisor, you are an expert. Go to the field and find out why the coffee is so bad.

James Harper:

So Ajanta right he gets out to the field and realizes what's wrong. That it was actually the picking and processing of the coffee which was not being done to a very high standard. You know to get the best coffee you're supposed to pick the ripe cherries but you know the home gardeners weren't necessarily doing that.

They were just kind of stripping it. So you get a lot of green and ripe ones along with the red ones.

Jools Walker:

Was there any training going into the people who had these home gardens who were also growing this coffee like no shade to them or anything at all but it's like if the coffee is terrible if at the source they're not sure what it is that they're supposed to be going for that's unfair on them.

James Harper:

Exactly there wasn't any education.

Jools Walker:

No.

James Harper:

Just like we don't know if we were to try to grow you know tropical fruits in our gardens we'd screw it up but they'd know how to do it because they're the experts. Anyway this is what happens. So Ajanta begins working with these local farmers right to help them pick and process the coffee really well.

Ajantha Palihawadana:

And then I showed it to Luke. Luke said my god this is amazing this is the exactly the same thing what I have seen in Latin America. This is the best quality parchment.

So how could you roast this? So then he asked me to find out how to roast it. Then I found there was a nearby town called Candy.

They were having a coffee roaster so I took first 10 kilo of green coffee and roasted it. What was that like? Luke was amazed.

He said this is the best coffee I have tasted and we got a small grant and we started a small business call it Hansa Coffee.

Scott Bentley:

That sounds amazing. So what did what did that taste like then?

James Harper:

Well here's a curious thing. One of Ajanta's collaborators a guy called Harm wanted to get some feedback from some expert coffee tasters. Remember this is back in the 90s.

Ajantha Palihawadana:

So he was searching and he found a link in India where they are if you send a sample they say what coffee is that. So we send the sample without saying this is from Sri Lanka. Oh right.

And to find out this was labeled as Ethiopian coffee. Wow. You know?

What? Yes. They thought it was Ethiopian?

That's the story.

Jools Walker:

I love the element of the blind testing of that as well and then just the shock.

James Harper:

Anyway so the story goes they begin selling this coffee through Hansa Coffee to the local tourism market you know hotels restaurants and the coffee becomes really prized and the prices start ratcheting up seven dollars per kilo of green coffee. That's basically what you pay for like a really really nice specialty coffee.

Jools Walker:

Okay so we're talking seven dollars per kilo like what was the impact on the farmers? Was this filtered down as a good thing?

James Harper:

Right. So Ajanta shared the story with me actually about one particular home farmer.

Ajantha Palihawadana:

So in fact I visited them after 30 years and one of the farmer was just staying there lazy and all that. I asked how are you doing? Oh I'm fine.

Are you not working hard now? No I'm okay because you know thanks to you I have planted so much of coffee and so much of paper. Now I'm just harvesting and waiting you know.

This is the life. Yeah this is the life. He's enjoying so we are still working.

He's retired. He said I get enough money every year from coffee and paper. I don't have to worry.

I'm not digging the ground anymore. The plants are established. I just have to harvest during the harvest time and I have reserve of you know 400,000 in my bank.

I'm happy and you loaded my vehicle with paper coffee and all kinds of and all kinds of things. This is my you know gratitude. I'm paying back.

I'm also now observing the birds and all that which you were crazy all those days but now I know how important them because I had a problem of coffee borer which was controlled by the birds which came.

James Harper:

Coffee borer is a little pest which bores its way into coffee beans and ruins them but the birds were controlling them because of the polyculture they had.

Scott Bentley:

Right I see.

James Harper:

So you said back in the 90s when you were getting involved in a project home gardens were kind of on the decline and now where are they? How many success stories do we have like the person you met the other day?

Ajantha Palihawadana:

Yeah there are quite a few like we used to work with about 100 farmers but the the number has increased that there are more than like in in the Norelia district there are more than 1000 viable home gardens so the mixed cropping is being really regarded as a very profitable thing to do in terms of management. So this is a success story? Yeah of course that's why I was excited to talk to you.

Jools Walker:

This all sounds really great that there has been a positive and successful effect and that the you know with that farmer in particular he was talking about sounds like he was living the good life.

Scott Bentley:

I love the fact that we we started this story on like how an entire country got wiped out and we've now taken a full 180 and we're like no this is getting good again this is a success story. We'll all be drinking Sri Lankan coffee soon.

James Harper:

But I'm going to put some dark clouds on the horizon.

Scott Bentley:

Oh James can't we just stop it here? It's good I like it. Come on let's just say hey I'm glad you enjoyed this episode of Adventures in Coffee uh that's it.

James Harper:

No no listen I do have some actually genuinely worrying news.

Jools Walker:

Oh.

James Harper:

Okay the hot coffee goss on the island is that there's this company this local coffee company that's been funded by Lavazza who are investing very heavily into growing Sri Lankan coffee because you know it's so prized it's so valuable but the thing is they're doing the monoculture full sun pesticides fertilizer.

Scott Bentley:

I think the problem here is that you know big companies are going to be big companies aren't they? Just big corporations and how they think.

Jools Walker:

What's the use in doing it? Is it because you can just do it bigger and better and faster?

James Harper:

Cheaper. Boo. Boo.

But Ajanta is not worried. He's got this amazing perspective.

Ajantha Palihawadana:

That because they're stupid. These people never will understand you know how bad is the monoculture.

James Harper:

So so really it's just it's just a matter of time right? It's a matter of matter of time. Because the next great wave of coffee killing disease will come and they're going to be exposed.

Of course.

Ajantha Palihawadana:

And we'll be back. Yeah they'll be back to zero and then you know they'll have to go back to the home guy.

Jools Walker:

It feels like it's going to be the biggest I told you so. What did I say? Well I told you so Lavazza.

James Harper:

And this is this is for me what is maybe the most exciting thing about the whole story. There are monocultures across the world when it comes to coffee. They're not big farmers.

They're not big companies doing it. They're like small farmers doing monoculture. Now imagine if we had instead of all these monocultures we had home gardens across the world where coffee is now being planted.

I mean from an ecological perspective alone. I mean that would be a dream right?

Scott Bentley:

Yeah I mean yes it would be a dream. But that's also like incredibly hard work. You're going to get 100 kilos of coffee cherries out of each place.

That's not enough is it? Build a sustainable business on that.

James Harper:

It is literally the opposite of a commodity right? Yeah absolutely. And I think that's one of the barriers for why we don't see more home gardens across the world because they do exist in different places beyond Sri Lanka.

The thing is it's hard to make a lot of money because you don't produce very much. But hey maybe we should change that by paying good money for little they do produce.

Scott Bentley:

Yeah I mean I think it's a lovely and noble idea.

Jools Walker:

But how do you actually get coffee drinkers to pony up all of that money for it?

James Harper:

Well that's not my problem. That's the roaster's problem.

Scott Bentley:

And that's the end of that. And that's why he'll never happen.

James Harper:

Okay but let's just imagine for a moment that we did source our coffee from home gardens all the time. This is what you would expect to see and you're hear from Lawrence Goldberg. He's the guy who runs Hands of Coffee today and he does do this.

He goes to the farm to the little home gardens and he sources coffee. Get this for how different each lot of coffee is.

Lawrence Goldberg:

One farmer will depulp and dry it. Another farmer will leave the covers on and dry it. Another farmer will leave it out in the rain overnight.

And so you get this huge medley of flavors emerging which I really enjoy. I like to have a dance of flavors in the cup.

Jools Walker:

The really cool thing with that then is that when a farmer picks and processes the coffee and they do it really well, it then becomes a super special and quite sort of limited coffee experience.

James Harper:

Indeed. Now Scott, Jules, do you want to taste some Sri Lankan coffee?

Jools Walker:

Oh yeah. After all this I really wouldn't say no.

James Harper:

Yeah so you should have all received a package. So Lawrence Goldberg very very kindly sent us some of his his roasted coffee from Hands of Coffee. Nice.

So let's brew some up then. I mean we're all in our respective apartment. So you both have some coffees in front of you.

Scott Bentley:

You do? Yes.

James Harper:

How did you brew them?

Scott Bentley:

I mean I looked at the beans. I saw they're you know quite dark roast. So I thought to myself this would be really good as an espresso with some milk.

Jools Walker:

Oh I'd went for a V60 for mine.

Scott Bentley:

As did I. What are you getting on the nose?

James Harper:

For me it's a sort of deep chocolatey smell. Oh that is nice. That is sweet.

Mouth coating.

Jools Walker:

It's got body. It's definitely got some body on it.

Scott Bentley:

A little bit chocolatey and fruity. I'm definitely getting a more caramelized nuance to it. It is chocolatey but for me this is more like a toffee caramel than a cacao or for a dark chocolate.

It feels sweeter. The sweetness is definitely there.

Jools Walker:

And you know what for me it tastes even more amazing knowing that it's actually come from you know from Sri Lanka and these incredible home gardens that are out there producing this coffee. It's luscious in that sense then. Very lush.

So to actually taste the story is incredible.

James Harper:

Perhaps our listeners on Patreon would like to taste the story. Indeed. Indeed.

Should we offer some of this coffee to our Patreon listeners?

Scott Bentley:

Absolutely. If our UK patrons would like to taste some Sri Lankan coffee then they can.

James Harper:

Dear listener if you would like to try some of these beans hop on Patreon. Become a member. We'll pick a handful at random and send some coffee.

And I think at the moment we have one patron so chances are subscribe and get some coffee.

Jools Walker:

Okay Scott you know what time it is don't you?

Ajantha Palihawadana:

Oh yeah baby.

Jools Walker:

It's time for the credits.

Scott Bentley:

Dear listener if you don't know already Patreon is a platform where you can support Adventures in Coffee financially in return for some cheeky perks.

Jools Walker:

Cheeky perks like the coffee from Hansa that we have just been drinking on this episode. Now we have a link in the show notes.

Scott Bentley:

Yes and if you like the show please tell a friend. Think for a moment who would love a podcast about coffee? Maybe your cleaner?

Maybe the butler? Maybe your valet? Tell them.

Tell them about Adventures in Coffee.

Jools Walker:

Okay Mr Big Lifestyle. You can also hop on Instagram and tell your friends about the show too. Why don't you do something juicy like create an Instagram story from a screen grab and tag us.

You can tag Caffeine Mag. So that's Scott. Myself Jules at Lady Velo and James at Filter Story Podcast and we'll repost it on our channels.

Scott Bentley:

Yeah and if you listen to us on Spotify did you know you can rate the shows now and you can give us a five star rating.

Jools Walker:

Now this podcast was produced by James Harper who is also the creator of the coffee podcast Filter Stories.

Scott Bentley:

Yes he also writes and tinkles those little ivories in the background. Now Jules we're coming back soon aren't we?

Jools Walker:

We are. We are going to be back in a few weeks so you know you've got this lovely bonus episode to tide you over but we have taken on board your feedback and in our first episode we're going to be busting coffee myths.

Scott Bentley:

So many. So many myths to trash. So until then thank you very much for joining us and we will see you in season three.

Jools Walker:

Bye bye.