Can you imagine a chef who has never tasted his own food, or a vintner who has never tasted her own wine? We can’t either. Yet coffee farmers work every day picking and preparing a crop they have never tasted and cannot understand. mypressi Origins solves this problem by giving coffee farmers the right tools and training for the job. You can also help. It’s easy.
But how difficult is coffee farming? In a word, very. Coffee farmers earn as little as four cents per usable pound of hand-picked coffee cherries they sell. They will pick over 4,000 cherries for each pound. It’s arduous, labor-intensive work conducted at high altitudes over difficult terrain. Maximizing the quality and value of that work is therefore one of the highest priorities for every farmer, but saying so is much easier than doing so.
The main problem is that coffee farmers can’t taste-test their crop as espresso. If they can’t do that, how can they improve? They’ll miss the specific insights required. The difference this makes is fundamental. They’ll miss transforming a subsistence-level crop into a profitable one that can break the poverty cycle and vastly improve the quality of life for themselves, their family and their community.
Think about it this way: What would you do if you were forced to sell a product at market with no idea of its true value? How would you manage your finances when there was no benchmark to determine if your next sale will provide enough money to feed your family—let alone pay your staff or purchase needed supplies to maintain your livelihood?
This is the problem that faces more than 20 million coffee producing families around the world on a daily basis. The solution is easy, and it all comes down to a matter of taste.
Tasting coffee under normal circumstances is easy. Many coffee farmers do just that in a cupping setting—a type of brewing method where the coffee is steeped like tea. This is an important step in developing and maintaining quality, but it is not an accurate representation of how their coffee will taste as espresso, and it’s as espresso, a high pressure extraction, that the rest of the world typically consumes it…or as lattes, cappuccinos, iced frappes, machiattos and so on.
The challenge is that coffee is grown in remote, high-altitude regions where basic services such as an electrical supply are a rarity and traditional expensive espresso equipment nonexistent. Farmers are left powerless as their coffee is inconsistently rated through sequential harvests. Fluctuating pricing leaves them in a blind spot, unable to improve. It’s only a short step from there to the point where they can be forced to not only give up their livelihood, but also their land.
How can you make a difference? mypressi Origins delivers a unique technology into the farmer’s hands, providing the fundamental tool that was previously lacking: a robust, proven commercial-quality espresso maker that extracts the complete flavor profile from every bean. The best news of all? This espresso maker requires no electricity, just a little hot water, making it the world’s first espresso maker that can be reliably used in remote coffee-growing regions.
Training and proper tools are the key to quality-driven growth and sustainability. For the first time in the history of espresso, the mypressi TWIST allows unprecedented access to a high-quality extraction in almost any setting: from a wood stove in a remote coffee farm to the cupping room of a national auction.
Your participation in the Origin’s Give One, Get One program will give a coffee farmer the unprecedented opportunity to taste and profile their beans in a new and empowering way. By doing so as espresso, and learning how this impacts the price at auction, farmers will better understand what buyers are looking for in higher-priced specialty coffees. They will also be left with a diagnostic tool that will continue to improve their understanding of the variables that create quality coffee, increase demand, and yield consistent and higher prices, laying the foundation for a more sustainable system.
Earning even a few more cents per pound can make a significant difference to the quality of every farmer’s life and community. Now you can also make a difference.
As sponsors of the TED Global Conference 2010 and ESPN's 2010 ESPY Awards, the Origins program is making its global debut. Every speaker at TED, and every ESPY award winner will receive a mypressi TWIST to sponsor increased awareness of the plight of coffee farmers. While you may not be able to travel the world to meet coffee farmers at origin, you can also do your part to help improve their lives from home. Purchase a mypressi TWIST for a coffee farmer through mypressi Origins and we will send you your own mypressi TWIST so you can enjoy the great taste of world class espresso and coffee every day.
Make a difference to a beverage the world enjoys every day. We started the program in El Salvador, and with your help we will keep working hard to build Origins into a global program of hope for rural coffee farmers around the world so they can better their lives, their understanding of their livelihoods, and last, but not least, the quality of their coffee. That’s good for everyone.
Interested in staying up to date on our efforts? Sign up for SMS updates by texting1 "origins" to 303030, or email us. You will receive updates about the program, and learn more about how Origins and your donation are directly transforming coffee farmers’ lives for the better.
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