Why Coffee Never Ceases to Amaze Me –
- Scott Gilbert
- Nov 4
- 8 min read
– or how Sally, from Puerto Rico, visited Old Forge, bought some of our coffee, shared it with her husband, Daniel, and then we ended up visiting Sally and Daniel at their coffee farm.
I knew that Sally’s husband, Daniel, works at the San Juan VA hospital. I thought he worked as a podiatrist. Apparently he’s a pathologist… big difference. Regardless, I always assumed there was some connection with Fort Drum, NY and a vet that had introduced him to our coffee. In our brief correspondence when Daniel ordered our coffee online, he mentioned that he grew coffee himself and would like to spend some time roasting coffee together. It doesn’t take much to get me on a plane to coffee producing regions, so with my Ikawa Pro50 sample roaster in hand, I gladly accepted the invitation. Later, I found out that while Daniel does work at the VA hospital, he did not discover Tug Hill Artisan Roasters through a vet, but because Sally had bought coffee from me at a Festival in Old Forge, NY a few years ago (yup, we actually met a few years ago.) And that’s how Vanessa and I found ourselves in Puerto Rico over the weekend.
Off to the “Island of Enchantment" we went and it truly is an enchanting land. I think it’s only natural to try to put places into frames of reference that we understand. Today when I think of Puerto Rico, while I recognize it as a unique entity, it also seems to be a fun blend of Caribbean Island, Spanish history and the modern United States. This hybridization creates a place that in my opinion is totally unique and very refreshing.
Puerto Rico became a territory of the United States following the Spanish American War in 1898. Today, it remains a territory, yet its history is complex and nuanced. For our purposes, this means that Puerto Rico is one of two places in the United States where coffee is grown. The other, of course, is Hawaii. We’re really not going to include the experimental farms in California and Florida. I have a few coffee shrubs growing in my shop too.
I wanted to go to Puerto Rico because I wanted to learn about coffee production in the US. I was also interested in doing a Puerto Rican coffee as a limited release, or even better, a coffee-of-the-month. What I discovered about Puerto Rican coffee ended up blowing my mind on multiple levels.
As a point of reference, typically when I travel to “origin” (that’s coffee language for a place where coffee is being grown), I meet up with some farmers who are usually interested in selling you their green coffee. You then proceed to find a mill that will work with you and eventually an exporter and an importer. You essentially negotiate with the farmer, pay for the coffee and additional services through the importer and finally wait a few months for it to show up. Puerto Rico is part of the US. How hard could it be to source coffee from the “Island of Enchantment”? Apparently, very hard.
Tariffs are something we build into our price structure at Tug Hill Artisan Roasters, so while tariffs are causing an interest in Puerto Rican Coffees, avoiding tariffs is not the reason we wanted to explore the island’s coffee. That being said, the first important thing to understand about Puerto Rican Coffee is it is very expensive and most farmers can’t even give you a price for green coffee. Because coffee is so expensive, the farmers I met also just roast it themselves. For authentic Puerto Rican coffee we’re looking at $20/lb farmgate. In the words of Israel, a coffee farmer, “Now with the tariffs, people email me all the time asking about purchasing coffee straight from Puerto Rico. I tell them that if they’re not already roasting Kona Coffee, they’re not going to be able to afford Puerto Rican coffee.” Recurring themes that make coffee so expensive in Puerto Rico are required minimum farm wages of almost $11/hr not including benefits, a lack of labor and H2A Visas as well as additional FSMA requirements.
Here’s the irony: these requirements are not necessarily a bad thing. There’s a conversation taking place right now in the specialty coffee community where we’re asking, “why is it okay for a glass of wine to cost $7 or $8 or even more at a wine bar, but we’re not okay paying the same amount for coffee?” Obviously the free market has its hand in all of this and while Tug Hill Artisan Roasters prides itself on paying above market prices for coffee, the truth is that coffee is still just way too cheap. Some argue that this is due to the colonial legacy of coffee. Wine is a global north to global north product. We expect it to cost more. On the other hand, coffee is a product that originates in the Global South and then arrives in the Global North, we just expect it to be cheap. While the specialty market has done a tremendous job helping to qualitatively differentiate coffees, cheap coffee is just baked into the system. Coffee producers in the rest of the world are getting paid less than they are in Puerto Rico.
To say it’s just labor costs though is not a fair assessment.
The Puerto Rican weather and how it contributes to inefficiencies is a big eye opener. On one hand, the weather in the mountains of the island is incredibly stable. I was told that the “Trade Winds” keep the Island very temperate considering its latitude. Even though we were only at about 1,800 ft. (ironically, this is just about the same as the altitude of my house on Tug Hill), the weather was cool in the 60s at night and up to about 80 during the day. Ideal coffee growing weather is usually from the mid-50s at night to the mid-70s during the day. We’re not far off. Indeed, many coffee varietals grow very well in Puerto Rico at this low altitude. While Limani and Fronton are relatively unique varietals in Puerto Rico, I also saw Bourbons and Caturras growing beautifully. The problem is that Puerto Rico does not have rainy and dry seasons. The flowers blossom over an extended time and as Daniel explained, “it's not unusual to have ripe beans as well as blossoms on the same branch.” When I asked how many passes pickers take, I was told it can be anywhere from six to eight over the period of half a year. To put this in perspective, in Central America where there are defined rainy and dry seasons (at least traditionally) coffee will be picked in three passes over the course of two months. Of course the harvest is longer than two months as coffee at different farms ripens at different times depending on its altitude and average temperatures. But, generally speaking, any one lot will be picked over three times over a few months. Not six to eight times over half a year. This harvest issue means that picking coffee is extremely inefficient as only a few berries are ripe on any branch at any given time.
I could not believe the things I was learning about Puerto Rican coffees. I thought I had heard it all when Daniel informed me that while Puerto Ricans like their coffee, only 20% of the coffee consumed on the island is 100% authentic Puerto Rican coffee. The other 80% is imported from Mexico in a government bid process and then sold and blended together with some Puerto Rican coffee to the Island’s larger roasters. This way, grocery market coffee can cost about as much in Puerto Rico as it does “in the States”. In other words, while at one time, Puerto Rico did produce a lot of coffee. It hasn’t done so for over half a century. Everyone is dealing with leaf rust fungus, anthracnose and the coffee berry borer. The only difference in Puerto Rico, is that while there are means to deal with these diseases, because labor is so expensive, these are often neglected. After all, it requires people to tend to the plants.
Not to sound cliche, but the upside of Puerto Rican coffee is the people. Sometimes people have an outsized influence. Daniel, our host, introduced Vanessa and I to Israel Gonzalez. Israel is 86 years old and has more energy than I do. He and his wife Sandra own Sandra’s Farm where they combine coffee production with agro-tourism and now even cacao production. While Vanessa and I were there a group of Spanish tourists showed up. Israel told me that they get tourists from all over the world and their crew can do tours in Spanish, English, and German.
Israel grew up in Cuba, then migrated to the US and finally ended up in Puerto Rico. He’s a social worker turned serial entrepreneur and according to his son-in-law, “his mom passed at 106, so we can expect quite a few more good years out of him.” Israel’s coffee passion is resurrecting an overgrown farm of original “bourbon, caturra and typica”. These varietals of coffee tend to have a lot of challenges in modern coffee agriculture because of low levels of resistance to the above mentioned diseases. But as Israel reminded me on multiple occasions, “if we were sane we wouldn’t be doing this.”
Currently two H2A visa workers from Costa Rica and Colombia are managing the whole harvest. Labor costs cause Israel to do things unconventionally. Instead of allowing the coffee to dry the traditional way on patio or on raised beds, Israel chooses to mechanically dry his coffee in large dehumidifiers (not hot air dryers). It’s still cheaper to pay for electricity than for labor. To be fair, both Israel and Daniel praised the work of the dehumidifiers because of the way they allow for consistent drying where otherwise the coffee would re-absorb moisture at night from the high humidity. Israel’s coffees are phenomenal. The farm level diversification with chocolate and agrotourism is amazing and allows him to pursue his passion.
I had a lot of fun roasting with Daniel. He has a nice Mill City 7lb roaster on the second floor of a house with a patio overlooking the lush Puerto Rican countryside. Sign me up. I walked into the roastery and immediately noticed his Q-Certificate on the wall. When asked about it, he told me that it was just part of a course that he took. I’m always humbled by people who just get their Q for fun.
There are a lot of different roasting theories with a few basic guidelines. The guideposts Daniel uses while roasting are very different from the theory I had been introduced to. So, it was great to learn some new theory and see it in practice. We also roasted some batches using a theory that I am more familiar with. I think that in both situations the results were good.
Vanessa and I are both so grateful for having had the opportunity to go to Puerto Rico. It was a lot of fun roasting coffee with Daniel and Israel. The opportunity to hear their perspective and get a vision of what coffee production on the “Island of Enchantment” is like was enlightening. Just like there is boxed wine, there will always be commodity grade coffee. The specialty world needs to continue to get its act together if we’re to live up to our claims of “sustainability”. If there’s one thing that stood out to me from our trip is the passion of all the farmers on the island. There are so many challenges to growing coffee in Puerto Rico. Those who engage in it are interested in coffee because they’re passionate about coffee. We’re still trying to get some real Puerto Rican coffee, so keep your eyes open and we’ll let you know when it’s available.
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