​In Kenya, after a certain lot has been processed, it will be delivered to the Marketing Agent (MA) in parchment by the producer or cooperative. The MA then, will mill and grade the lot by shape and size, and give this lot an unique "Outturn Number" (ON), before delivering a sample to the Nairobi Coffee Exchange. This ON will be crucial to provide transparency and traceability to the system.

1.- The birth of a new reality.
 
With this article, we begin a new series of educational content, this time focusing on one of the biggest and probably most controversial topic in the coffee industry: PRICE.
 
All of us who work here know that our industry is in an unprecedented crisis in various fields; Ethical, Environmental, Genetics and Socioeconomic. We know that the prices we pay to coffee growers (with only few exceptions) is well below their production costs. And when we pay excellent prices for quality, for example in Kenya; we know that most of this revenue does not reach farmers, because there are so many hands, so much corruption and so much bureaucracy in the industry, that most of the benefit is lost in the darkness of a network of connections that we do not fully understand.

From a botanical point of view, the definition of an heirloom variety establishes that this must be open-pollinated. Arabica coffee is a self-pollinated crop, so from the very beginning the definition of heirloom doesn’t apply to Arabica coffee.

​Only two centuries ago, we began to understand this important process, when in 1854 the French chemist Louis Pasteur determined that fermentation is caused by yeast. In very simple terms, yeast is an unicellular microorganism classified as a fungus, which perform the decomposition of sugars by alcoholic fermentation.

​In Kenya, after a certain lot has been processed, it will be delivered to the Marketing Agent (MA) in parchment by the farmer or cooperative. The MA will then mill and grade the lot by shape and size, and give this particular lot an unique "Outturn Number" (ON), before delivering it to the Nairobi Coffee Exchange. This ON system will be crucial to provide transparency and traceability to the system.

​Certainly, the specialty coffee industry has grown exponentially in the last five years. The progress we have seen and experienced in farming, processing, logistics, roasting and brewing are undeniable and certainly admirable. But is this level of growth sustainable in the long term? Are we neglecting quality to privilege the quantity?

​After crossing three oceans, the Suez and Panama Canal and also the Red and Mediterranean Sea, we finally have totally available in Barcelona and Santiago our new Tanzanian lots and microlots.

​A microlot is a term that designates not only a small volume of coffee production, but also designates a selectively hand-picked coffee, from a particular cultivar, in a specific farm or micro-region, within a certain altitude range and processed separately; or at least a combination of some of the above. In summary, it's the result of some concerted effort to separate and carefully prepare a quantity of coffee that will have special characteristics.