The Journey of a Cuppa

We have been getting some very welcome winter rain the last week or so. This is setting the fields up well for an August / September flush – we don’t get this every year, but is important to us for cashflow reasons and because it is a time of year when we can make some of our best quality teas.

We receive our winter rain in the form of days of very light precipitation with complete cloud cover and no sun for days at a time. This unfortunately  makes our roads a bit of a hazard – here are a few snaps of a container load of tea bound for the UK market that almost overturned as the truck slid off the road – if the top of the container hadn’t hit the bank, the truck would have ended up on its side.

 

Earlier in the morning, the truck was leaning against this bank. See the tea bushes roots sticking out of the bank. We hooked a chain to the top of the LHS of the container and pulled it straight with a tractor.

 

 

This set of tyres was 30cms off the ground.

We eventually managed to tow the trailer out backwards with a tractor – hope you enjoy the tea!

Audit Season

We have fairtrade auditors around for the next 2 weeks. 1 week at Satemwa and 1 week at Msuwadzi smallholders association. This involves a great deal of paperwork and ties up several people for the duration.

This year is a year 2 check which is an interim audit – this monitors our progress against the standard, to help ensure that we are ready for the year 3 audit which is a full audit. The auditor will also be checking our weak areas that have been highlighted in past years to ensure we have dealt with them effectively.

Next month we have our second Utz audit which will be done by Africert. Tomorrow we also have members from the Utz Kenya office who will be going through our pre-audit checklist with us to ensure we are well prepared.

Coffee Harvest & other news

The coffee harvest is now in full swing, with about half our estimated crop picked.

As well as the usual washed style of coffee, Mark Gomani has been experimenting with some pulped natural coffees. We are just getting the first of these coffees through for tasting with some interesting results – more on this later.

Work on improving soil and general environment continues. Both Rob Emmott and Mark Gomani notice a significant increase in earth worm activity in the coffee fields compared to past years. The action of the earthworms will improve soil structure which will definitely impact on plant health and cup quality.

We exported our first consignment of roast and ground coffee to Zimbabwe in May. It seems to have been well received and will be sending the next lot in early July.