"Welcome to Five Senses Coffee"

A recent trip to Bali showed Tom Beaumont that ‘direct trade’ is more than just a marketing cry — it’s bloody hard work.

Packed into a van, we wound our way uphill, passing wild coffee bushes growing by the side of the road and farms growing fruits we’d never seen before. Our destination was the Kintamani region, which is perched high on the rim of a volcano, around one hour north of Ubud. Here were two Subak Abians (farmers’ cooperatives) that we had been working closely with for the last four years.

Direct trade is a well known term by now, branded on many coffees to attract a consumer with high standards in both taste and ethics. But what does it mean to the farmers at the source? Or to the coffee companies they deal with? On my first trip to Bali, I was eager to find out.

Our first project was building worm farms at two of our direct trade farms. We had exported many kilos of worms from Australia and quickly set to work with the farmers and the Bali Organic Association, shifting tonnes of coffee pulp that smelt like the rotting fruit that it was. A coffee bean in parchment only accounts for around 40% of the weight of a coffee cherry. Typically at origin there are large amounts of coffee pulp dumped back onto the plantation. The disadvantage of this is that the pulp actually draws essentials nutrients out of the soils as it breaks down and is not really a great fertiliser. By building worm farms which would use this pulp, it would then break down into a useful fertiliser and steer the farmers toward a totally organic process.

Already, my expectations of direct trade had shifted. Before me was a new, improved coffee pulper and now worm farms, funded by Five Senses. The price we paid to the farmers for coffee was also 30% higher than all other buyers. As I was yet to discover, direct trade had very little to do with the marketing hype and almost everything to do with managing coffee quality, from origin to the cup.

In the days to come we harvested cherries, collecting samples for research. Scattered throughout the farms were orange trees that provide both shade for the coffee trees and a supplementary income for the farmers. Occasionally we were met by coffee harvesters, usually groups of women. They were geared up with baskets for the cherries, snippers and sun hats and all were hard at work. My basket was no bigger than a standard household bucket, yet I had not half filled it in a couple of hours.

Harvesting was hard work! Even cherries that seemed ripe from the top may have had a slight green colour underneath. To manage hand-picking only the perfectly ripe fruit requires an incredible amount of concentration and hard work. This ripe picking was very important to our needs as a wholesaler.

We visited homesteads drying the coffee in parchment and observed families sorting out defective produce. I expected this to be a mundane experience but there was a social and peaceful feeling around the coffee sorting process.

Being at Kintamani, observing the negotiations with farmers, being part of making improvements in harvesting and understanding each others’ needs was all about give and take. Trading at origin — not just buying direct trade — is a philosophy of coffee quality and a long term commitment. While it’s easy to talk the talk in the industry, managing a relationship with coffee farmers is far more complicated. This is a tough job and always a work in progress.

I am not even sure that ‘direct trade’ is the terminology I would choose. When a trading relationship is based on quality and mutual respect, it’s more a partnership that links us as consumers with the farming community.

My favourite memory of the Kintamani region, with its cool altitude and little noise but the birds and the trees, was the quiet serenity of the place. As much as I love the hustle and bustle of a Melbourne café, it’s nice to think about our coffee coming from a place like Kintamani.