28 February 2005
This article first appeared in Vogue Entertaining + Travel in Feb/March 2005
Topiary.
Yes, topiary is one of the first sights you’ll see when you arrive at the airport in Dili, East Timor’s capital at the country’s north. It’s hardly indicative of a nation where stray dogs roam the airstrip and much of its infrastructure remains in a state of decay, thanks to untold damage by Indonesian militia during the Independence conflict of 1999.
I’m flying to Dili to check out the truth behind Fair Trade coffee. Do the growers truly earn less per kilogram of coffee than they used to a decade ago? Is the premium paid for Fair Trade coffee going where it’s needed most? And just what are the projects that Fair Trade purports to fund?
Dili, all year, is hot. Today, in the dry season, it’s dusty, sooty and predictably tropical. The hills ringing the town are dotted with sparse trees, looking like stubble on a holidaymaker’s chin, and small plumes of smoke rise from innumerable fires. In many ways it looks like Port Moresby from the air. At sunset, the road along the waterfront is lined with fishermen, cooking some of the day’s catch to entice passers by.
The plan is to travel to Timor’s highlands with Toby Smith and Jo Jouin, the owners of Sydney based roasters Toby’s Estate coffee, a forerunner in the focus on Fair Trade. They’re here to meet the growers, the cooperative and the people behind East Timorese coffee. Like me, they’re here to go to the source of Fair Trade coffee.
Toby’s Estate has been licensed to roast and sell Fair Trade coffee since late 2003, one of the first in the country. According to Jouin, they became in involved because the general living conditions of coffee farmers around the world are so poor. “Fair Trade creates a link between roasters and growers,” Jouin says. “Because we specialise in single origins, we feel like we’re more actively involved with education and promotion of coffee growers. There’s so much cultural background and diversity, (our involvement in Fair Trade comes from) a desire to understand where coffee is coming from. To make sure there’s more integrity in our product.” Smith agrees when his sister Jouin explains that any kind of fair trade (lowercase) is a way to “forge and maintain links with farmers and share that with coffee lovers.”
As a roaster, Smith is really enamoured with the quality of East Timorese coffee. “It’s quite a balanced, rounded coffee, with a nice spicy acidity and some chocolate notes,” he raves. According to Smith it makes a very good single origin coffee to drink, is silky smooth, works well with and without milk (though he recommends without).
East Timor, lying a 90-minute flight to the north of Darwin, is shamefully poor. After centuries of Portuguese occupation, and a short-lived independence in the 1970s, Indonesia moved in (aggressively, it must be said) and ran the place until the late 1990s, building substantial infrastructure. But when it all went sour, and the Indonesian government pulled out after an independence referendum, disgruntled Indonesian military and their paid local militia left the place in ruins. Four years on, and there’s a lot left to rebuild, not least many shattered families and lives.
Fortunately, despite calamitous times, the Timorese are a bright, friendly mob whose spirits soar and whose laughter is infectious. They’re great hosts and quite pious Catholics, whose drinking is moderate and welcome warm. Our translator, Cristiano de Fatima Sarmento, whose previous job was working with eyewitnesses of war crimes, smiles readily, and quips with our coffee guide, Mateus Maia de Jesus. The names are as romantic as the glorious beaches that line Timor’s coast.
It’s up towards Maubese, at a none too paltry 1500 metres above sea level, however, that they show us the serious business of coffee. Even the road from Dili winds through throngs of coffee trees, many of which are the lower altitude Robusta species, along with the more esteemed Arabica. Much of the lower canopy in the forests is coffee, their delicate branches well shaded by indigenous trees. It was the Portuguese who brought coffee to Timor about 300 years ago, so the plants – and the forests that house them – are well established.
At the local markets, such as Aileu along the road or in Maubese itself, women squat on weatherworn haunches, touting their wares. It could be sticky, sour/sweet tamarind, tobacco leaf, fiery chilli sauce or green coffee beans, for sale by the glass. Australian’s shouldn’t buy these beans to take home, however, as beans need to be commercially packaged to pass quarantine in Australia.
Nestled in a valley just south of Maubese lies a production facility, where a gaggle of farmers jostle and joke as they gather for their harvest to be sold. Every face tells a story. Here the Arabica coffee cherries are weighed, then wet processed the same day, and it’s here that we ask about price. Yes, it’s true that the price today is less than it was a decade ago. We find out later it's due to a world oversupply, where only 80% of coffee production is sold.
We meet a local grower, Manuel Benevides, who has two farms totalling 2000 coffee trees. He manages an annual harvest of 50 sacks of coffee “cherries” (so called because of their colour), each sack containing 50 kilograms. He sells them to the Cooperativa Café Timor, the local Fair Trade co-op, for a meagre 16 cents US a kilogram. The cherries are picked at a lustrous red, then wet-processed by the Cooperativa to soak off the relatively soft skin, exposing two slippery green coated berries inside each cherry. These beans are then dried, leaving a fine skin on the outside, called parchment. Before the coffee can be sold, this skin must be removed and the stable green beans shipped around the world ready for roasting (when they become unstable and more difficult to handle).
The hills that ring Maubese and much of central Timor are dotted with more of those forests under which coffee flourishes. Growing is by organic means (though not everybody is certified organic due to the cost) and the coffee cherries are hand harvested. Toby reaches into a sack of coffee and strips a cherry. Inside, the coffee beans are pale green and perfectly formed. He shows us the small marks on other, lesser beans that will be made into instant coffee, or sold to markets with less discerning buyers. All the coffee is hand graded, and such a labour intensive crop makes Cooperativa Café Timor the new nation’s largest employer.
One woman has her cherries rejected, due to too much deterioration – the beans had started to ferment inside overripe cherries. She sits with her family and sorts the ripe from the overripe, as crowds of other growers watch on. Standards are high at Cooperativa Café Timor, and they all know why. East Timor coffee has a justifiably good reputation in the world. The Cooperativa pays a premium for the best coffee around, so it’s in everybody’s interests to keep the product at its best.
Toby Smith says he’s impressed with the quality of Timorese coffee, with a flavour somewhere between Indonesian and Papua New Guinea beans. The trees, unlike many he’s seen around the world, are well shaded, the growers’ conditions superior, the end product second to none. We’re all impressed by the quality of the health clinics, which the Cooperativa runs with proceeds from coffee sales. Not only do they pay the growers a living wage, but charge a Fair Trade premium, which provides regional health services the families of the growers.
East Timor is still rebuilding, and it’s one of the few places left in the world that you can visit without seeing an Aussie backpacker. Accommodation can be limited, but if you book ahead it’s clean and comfortable. With a new Lonely Planet book out, facilities (and backpackers) will be much easier to find. As East Timor gears up for tourism, however, it’s likely their largest industry will remain. You’ll always find lush forests filled with coffee plantations, looking more like shrubbery’s than an orchard.
Just don’t expect to find too much Topiary once you leave the airport.
What is Fair Trade?
Fair Trade is an independent umbrella organisation that ensures growers receive a living wage, and also that proceeds from sales (in this case of coffee) are used to benefit the community. It uses a labelling system and licensing approach to ensure that only properly audited producers, importers and retailers can use the Fair Trade logo, and identity. While other producers, importers and retailers may share the same ethos, currently only the Fair Trade group is a guarantee to coffee drinkers that what they have bought has met all the checks and balances. From humble beginnings, Fair Trade products throughout Europe earned sales worth 260 million Euro in 2002. Fair Trade coffee from East Timor helps provide an extra level of clinic-based health care to 25 000 growers and their families, as well as a guaranteed minimum price that ensures they avoid debilitating poverty.
Where to Buy Fair Trade Coffee
Toby’s Estate is one of the original licensees roasting and selling Fair Trade Coffee. Victoria leads the way in outlets, as it does in quality coffee generally. For other Fair Trade shops and cafes visit Oxfam’s website www.oxfam.org.au/campaigns
Where Does Your Coffee Money Go?
The average cup of coffee in Australia costs about $3.
But think about this next time you drink a decent brew – according to Fair Trade – the coffee grower only receives about 4.4 cents per cup. Without Fair Trade they’d only get about 2.3 cents of your $3 brew.