I can't tell you what coffee I'm drinking right now. I would be breaking the law if I told you. I'm not kidding.

It's not a secret coffee that you've never heard of. It's not named with words that would be offensive to use in public. And no, it's not named after a top-secret government initiative to monitor the ripeness of coffee cherries using NASA spacecraft. We got trademark problems.

I'm sure you all heard about the efforts of the Ethiopian government to trademark the names of its' coffee territories. It came into the news when Starbucks challenged their trademark application. I think it's telling in that linked article how ridiculous the trademark procedures are and how incompetent the USPTO is. Especially when they say it's clear that when the USPTO granted the trademark to Starbucks they didn't know that Yirgacheffe was a geographic region. You tell me: how difficult would it be to google Yirgacheffe and find out it's a geographic region? Probably about as hard as it would be to figure out that "double" means "two" and "shot" is a measurement used in espresso.

Anyway, I've been reading, listening, and trying to understand what's going on with the Ethiopian trademark issues for the past year or so. I'm always leery when anyone starts meddling in intellectual property law. I've had a few theories about why this is happening and what it is leading to. Strong suspicions. And when we were in Minneapolis at the SCAA, I had the chance to ask questions. Isaiah and I were walking around the tradeshow when we found the Ethiopian booth. I walked in, picked up some literature, and stood and waited. Eventually a white man in a suit (everyone in that booth was wearing a suit) came over and asked if he could answer any questions. I told him I wanted to ask about the trademarks and he said he was the guy to talk to. His name is Steve Williams, and he works for Light Years IP, the company that helped Ethiopia obtain their trademarks around the world.

Steve was a great guy. He sort of seemed like a street thug who fell into an Oxford education. Personable, good humored, very intelligent, and long-suffering, he put up with a good half-hour of our questions, assertions, and conspiracy theories. I truly believe that Steve (and probably Light Years IP) wants to do right and thinks the path they've chosen is the right one. But I see only problems.

Here's the deal. Ethiopia has been successful in trademarking the words "Yirgacheffe," "Sidamo," "Harrar," and "Harar." ONLY Ethiopia owns the right to use those words in the United States. It is now illegal for me to sell coffee using those terms, even if that coffee comes from those regions. Ethiopia is now actively pursuing licensing agreements with people down the line, so that we can use their trademarked words to describe our coffee. For instance, if Royal Coffee, one of my brokers, signs the licensing agreement, they can sell Yirgacheffe and call it Yirgacheffe. If I sign the licensing agreement, I can do the same. If we don't sign the licensing agreement, they can't call it that and neither can I. So unless we're speaking in hushed tones behind closed doors, I may not know that the Misty Valley natural Yirgacheffe I just bought is from the Yirgacheffe region of Ethiopia. And I won't be able to tell you what region it's from. Unless I sign the licensing agreement.

The license is free for the first five years. (They'll most certainly institute fees when this term ends.) But it puts Ethiopia in control of the way I advertise, market, and sell my coffees. They have regulations and want to know my numbers - how many, how much. Supposedly they will limit the number of licenses they assign, and currently they have issued 69 or 70. Some of the big boys are already on board. Which is funny because Starbucks, who owned a couple of the trademarks before, is now a licensee. And according to the licensing agreement, they can police the trademarks for Ethiopia and prosecute anyone using the trademarks (like me) without a license. Seems like they did an end-around and got their trademark back.

I had a suspicion that part of the reason this whole thing began was the fault of Starbucks. I figured Ethiopia saw that Starbucks owned the trademark for their territory, and was using that trademarked name to make money selling coffee. And I had a feeling that maybe the coffee in that bag of "Sidamo" may not have been from Sidamo at all, or may not even have been Ethiopian coffee. There's no regulatory or certifying agency that makes sure there's truth in advertising. I'm not saying they did, but there would be nothing stopping Starbucks (or whoever) from selling a bag of coffee they call "Ethiopia Sidamo Gizmo Shmizmo™" even if the beans inside were a blend of Vietnamese coffees. I mentioned this scenario to Steve, and his physical reaction affirmed a lot more than his mouth could sidestep. He did say there were companies using the Ethiopian territory names to sell coffee and only putting a very little amount of coffee from the actual territory in the coffee blend. That may or may not have been Starbucks (but Starbucks did own the Sidamo trademark and were selling the black apron Sidamo coffee for $26 per pound). And one of the obvious stipulations in the licensing agreement is that any coffee labeled as Sidamo, Yirgacheffe or Harrar actually come from that place. I know, I know, my lawyer would strongly advise me not to post this blog. So for the record, I have no evidence that any of the above information about Starbucks is true; it is purely a hypothetical scenario.

So the reason Ethiopia and Light Years IP say they are executing these trademarks is to help the Ethiopian coffee farmers get more money for their coffee. That's interesting. I'm all for that. Sounds good. But when Isaiah and I looked around that tradeshow floor, we didn't see coffee farmers. We saw exporters and heads of coops and administrators. We saw only wealthy Ethiopians. We hear the heads of state saying they want to give more money to the farmers and we see exporters in expensive suits in Minneapolis. (I guess I'm paying my employees too much to be able to afford to buy a suit and fly to Addis Ababa.) So apparently there's already SOME money to be made in coffee in Ethiopia. How do we know that if I give more money to the government of Ethiopia (in licensing fees), it will actually trickle down to the lowly farmer? The farmer has no leverage to "own" the trademark for their territory and charge me licensing fees to use that name. It's up to the government and the people who buy the coffee from the farmers- the coops and the exporters- to pass on that money. When I asked Steve about this, he said of course there are bad people in every industry, every walk of life, but there are also good people who want to do the right thing. And those people will make sure the money gets to the farmer. But I'm not so sure.

I emailed Mark Pendergrast (author of Uncommon Grounds) about Ethiopia, and he asked me if I heard his talk about the human rights abuses in Ethiopia. I didn't, so I asked for more info. He told me to google "Ethiopian human rights abuse," and look at the Human Rights Watch website. Looks like they have the same types of problems in Ethiopia that they do in Kenya. One group is in charge and they do everything they can to keep the other groups from gaining power. It's shameful; you should read the article. Now, I'm not saying this is evidence that the Ethiopian government won't do the right thing and take care of their coffee farmers if this trademark scenario plays out in their favor. But it raises more doubt, doesn't it? It's not like I'm going to go to the SCAA tradeshow next year in Atlanta and run into a farmer from Yirgacheffe and get a chance to ask him how things have changed.

The specialty coffee industry has lately been on a course that is beneficial to coffee farmers. This relates back to what Bill McAlpin (from La Minita) was saying about coffee prices. If you encourage farmers to improve the quality of their crop, keep lots separate, identify exactly where each lot of coffee came from and who grew it, the coffee becomes worth more money. The free flow of information from farm to consumer and back to the farmer creates an economic situation that rewards farmers for producing delicious coffee (and in turn, rewards brokers for finding and identifying these coffees and rewards roasters for roasting and not ruining these coffees and rewards coffee shops for proper brewing and educating customers). The key is an open flow of information. The problem has been that I don't know exactly where some of my coffees come from. And some of them are not just from one farm; they are mixed at the regional mill or auction. These Ethiopian trademarks hide information. They make it illegal for me to tell you where some coffees come from. The new Misty Valley Yirgacheffe will simply become an Ethiopian Misty Valley. Where is that? Doesn't matter to you. Or to me really; I can just buy what tastes good from my broker. I don't have to try and locate the origin and the farmer, or try to figure out how to pay him more money for his coffee. And that's what's going to happen. They're going to make it harder for me to do those things.

Imagine this. I go to Ethiopia someday. I visit the Sidamo region and I find a farmer who (through luck or great farming methods) has produced the most outrageous, amazing coffee I've ever had. I take tons of pictures, buy the coffee for a "fair" price, and come home to share it with you. And I have a slideshow. But I can't tell you where the coffee came from. Can I even show you the pictures? And how long will it be until Ethiopia trademarks their other regional coffee term... Ethiopia™?

Steve (from Light Years IP) tells me this is just the beginning. He thinks most coffee producing countries will follow suit- trademark the regions our coffees come from. Then I won't be able to tell you where any of them were grown.

This trademarking and licensing program probably will end up just like the Fair Trade program. They're no longer selling quality coffee; they're selling the names of their regions. Selling coffee at a base price or a price that includes a licensing fee per pound sold in order to use a marketing term is no different than Fair Trade. And quality will most likely suffer.

I'll still be able to buy these coffees. We just won't be able to advertise where they came from. But I have an idea. I've been thinking about this for a while, and I think it's a good idea, but I'm not sure our legal system allows for it. If we make up new words to use instead of the words that have been taken away from us by Ethiopia, and we publicize these words enough that everyone knows when we say "Disamo" (for instance) we really mean "Sidamo," we can re-invent geographical identification. Why not? They're just words. We could even do some research and find out what Sidamo, Yirgacheffe, and Harrar regions were called before they inherited these names. And go back to the old names.

Until someone trademarks those words and takes them away from us.

I've been asking lawyers about this, and maybe someone out there who reads my blog will know a solution. It seems like our system of intellectual property law ONLY favors selfishness. I can invent a word and trademark it and then police it to make sure no one else uses it. But I want to protect a word in the other direction. I want to protect a made-up word for everyone to use for all times. I want to protect a word so that no one else can tell us we can't use it any more. Is there no way to do that? Everything is MINE MINE MINE!

Maybe there are enough smart people in the coffee industry that we can figure this out. And build community by sharing words. And information. And achieve what we all want: great coffee that rewards the great coffee producer and pays fair wages for labor.

Maybe JRR Tolkien could help.

Our tamper hero, Reg Barber took this picture of the three DoubleShot amigos at the SCAA show. Jason and I finally sat down and discussed part of our experience at SCAA in Minneapolis. You can listen on AA Cafe #51. Isaiah and I will soon record part 2 of that discussion.

In the mean time, I wanted to let you know about the hours of coffee this Memorial Day weekend.
Today (Friday) open til 3p as usual
Saturday 5/24 9a-2p
Sunday 5/25 SHUT as usual
Monday 5/26 9a-3p
Tuesday 5/27 (my bday) resume regular hours

Have fun at the lake.

I hate the rule that the punctuation goes inside the last quotation marks. Seems wrong.

Anyway, when we were at the SCAA conference, we were graciously invited to attend a party by the good people of Hacienda La Minita. I think Isaiah, Jason and I were the only three in the hizzle without suits on. Oh well, that's not how we roll. As I mentioned in the previous blog, we got into a little conversation with the owner of La Minita, Bill McAlpin, about the value of coffee. What is it worth? It's an interesting conversation and I'm still mulling it over in my head. I'm not sure I totally agree with Bill. But I'm posting this blog because I want your opinions.

It may seem like a dry, uninteresting, and unimportant issue. But if you know me at all, you know that's not the case for me. This is one of the most important issues I've wrestled with over the past couple years. So important that I find it hard to keep selling coffee some days without knowing how to do what's right.

Basically, Bill's premise is that I should pay the farmer what he asks for the coffee. If I pay more than he asks, it's charity, and that charity doesn't teach the farmer anything. He says the price should be based on quality. And he posits that high quality coffee requires a higher amount of work. So if I go to a farmer and ask this farmer to do some things differently to improve the quality of the coffee, the farmer will ask me for more money for that coffee because of the increase in labor to produce it.
Well, the problem (in my opinion) with this premise is that La Minita has charged the exact same amount for their coffee every year for the last 20 years. It's true that Bill has cultivated his methods in order to minimize risk (by picking only ripe cherries, multiple water, mechanical and hand sorting processes, and by mechanical drying to keep the weather from messing up his coffee), but coffee is still a tasty agricultural product and it still varies year to year. So how could a coffee whose quality theoretically changes year to year maintain exactly the same price for 20 years? Upon discussing around the campfire, we decided that the only thing that remained constant throughout those 20 years was the quality (and amount) of labor involved in producing the coffee. Thus, when Bill says "quality of coffee" he must mean quality of labor to produce the coffee.

I asked, what about a farmer in Ethiopia who produces a natural dry processed coffee? He has a good year one year and then conditions are bad the next year and his crop isn't as good. Do I pay the same amount both years for the coffee, since he put in the same amount of labor both years to produce it, even though one crop was clearly better than the other? Bill was adamant in saying "no." If you pay the farmer the same price for the poorer quality coffee, he will know that I am willing to pay more for lesser quality and will either never again put in the work to produce high quality coffee or will never sell me high quality coffee again because he knows I will pay more for less.

Again, his premise is that if you teach a farmer to produce a product that is worth more on the open market, he isn't just dependent upon my buying the coffee or my charity, but has a product with an actual higher value.

Back to my Ethiopian farmer. Bill says the only exception to this rule is if I ask the farmer to do something specific and that results in lower quality coffee; then I am obligated to pay the higher price. Bill also informed me that a bad year at La Minita doesn't mean the quality of his coffee suffered, rather more of the coffee was sorted out as lower quality and the high quality crop was smaller. He claims the quality has been sufficiently high every year to deserve the high price he asks. (We'll get back to this point later.) But the Ethiopian farmer doesn't have the same processes. His crop doesn't shrink in bad years; the quality of his crop diminishes overall. This poses an interesting problem. To this, Bill told me I shouldn't reward someone for getting lucky. Getting lucky = producing a high quality dry processed coffee (in Bill's opinion). He is against dry processing altogether. For one, it's too risky for him and he told me I should NEVER ask someone to dry process coffee. And for another thing, he told me that my palate is still young and as it develops, I'll recognize that the flavors in dry processed coffees aren't interesting, they're off-tastes. It's over-fermented, moldy, baggy, musty, and just plain bad. He grew up in coffee and the way he learned was wet processing. He was taught to taste coffees and identify when there are problems, and those problems (in wet processing) are sometimes what we celebrate in dry processed coffees.
So I have a problem because I love dry processed coffees (when they are good) and apparently by buying these coffees, I'm encouraging farmers to take risks that cause them to have unnecessarily bad crops some years. But I love them and there must be another way to compensate these farmers for producing exceptional coffees under such enormous risk. (I think I know how these types of investments are supposed to pay off.)

But let's forget about dry processed coffees for now and focus on something less controversial: wet processed coffees. What is the value of wet processed coffees? According to Bill, the coffee is worth whatever the farmer is asking for it. He calls this "Fairly traded coffee." According to this principle, all of my coffees are "fairly traded" because as far as I know, everyone down the line paid not a penny more than what the seller was asking them to pay. That's fair. Right?

Here's another conundrum I'm dealing with: Bill McAlpin did not grow up poor. He grew up in a wealthy family and he went to prestigious schools and he is a very intelligent and learned man. One difference between his asking price for coffee and the asking price of a small Guatemalan farmer is education. Bill knows the market. The Guatemala farmer gets what the mill is paying today. It's not as if a small farmer knows that changing his methods and producing higher quality coffee will get him more money (and for that matter, maybe it will and maybe it won't). And it's not as if this small farmer has a computer and an internet connection. And it's not like this farmer would have any idea who his market is, where they are, and how to get in contact with them. And it's not like this farmer even speaks English (or Dutch or Japanese). I wonder if Bill McAlpin would feel differently about the "worth" of coffee if he had to live within the system and play by the market's rules.

My opinion has been that coffee is priced too low. Almost all coffee is sold with regard to the commodities market, but we're not selling commodity coffee. I believe the price of commodity coffee should go up too, but that's guided by market forces - supply, demand, and speculation. What we're selling is something very special. It's akin (in my mind) to a gourmet chef sourcing the very best ingredients to prepare a dish. When you produce the best, it seems like you should be compensated commensurate with that quality. But it ain't that simple.

Let's say I stand before a Central American coffee farmer. He tells me he will sell me his coffee for the same price that the mill is paying today. I look around and wonder if that is enough. I'm not that worried about paying more because I know that if the coffee is great, and people know the excess went into the farmer's pocket, I can charge more for a coffee. What do I do?
And I look at the coffee pickers, and wonder. Why are they paid such low wages? And I guess the farmer has the same problem I do. Should he pay the pickers more than they're asking?

Should I pay my employees more than they are asking?

Should I change the way I price my drinks? If I base the prices on what I feel is quality, we're talking about a $7 small americano, a $6.50 small coffee, 50 cents for an iced mocha... Wouldn't that be an interesting pricing structure.

Tell me what you think. Tell me how I should pay for coffee (when I get the chance to have a say in it). Tell me what you think it's worth should be based on. Because I'm not sure.
And there's so much more that could be said.

Let me finish this long post by saying a couple things about Bill McAlpin. At La Minita, he takes care of his people. He teaches them how to produce an excellent coffee, and they've done it year after year (it's been great each of the four years I've been in business). He expects more quality from his people, but he pays them more in return. He gives them the option of living in a house on the farm so they can save their money to buy something they really want- maybe their own house, or a field to grow their own coffee, or a car, or whatever. And I've talked to people who told me stories of Bill spending thousands of dollars out of his pocket to help them in their time of need. He does a lot for the people around him, and I'm barely even a speck on his radar screen, so who am I to question his beliefs? No one. So believe me, I mean no disrespect to Mr. McAlpin in this post. It's only a necessary mental exercise because I'm in a totally different place in the coffee industry with totally different considerations.

What's this? A new, shiny grinder at the DoubleShot? Yessir. After four years of hard labor, I let the Mazzer Super Jolly out to pasture and "upgraded" to a new Compak grinder that was used in the United States Barista Championships. It's bigger and shinier and quieter. But the reason I bought it is for the grinding burrs. The grinders we've been using have flat burrs and the new one uses conical burrs. So the burrs rotate a lot slower and stay a lot cooler. The coffee grounds come out of the doser a lot fluffier and the espresso is pulling that way too. The best thing about it is that the shots seem to be more consistent and smoother with more fruit aromas and it doesn't fall off at the end- the finish is a lot smoother, sweeter, cleaner.

The conference was fun. We drove up. We'd all worked all day before we left, so we slept in a rest area on the way. We camped in Minneapolis. The first night was cold and pouring rain, but after that it was pretty nice. There's so much to tell about, we'll probably cover more on the podcast than in this blog, but I'll try.

SCAA is the big show. Seems like a lot of the big players in the specialty coffee industry are there. It's interesting. The barista championships were going on the entire time, and Isaiah and Jason seemed to get into that whole scene. We ran into Mark Pendergrast. That was pretty cool. I recently finished reading his book, "Uncommon Grounds," and he was featured in the documentary "Black Coffee." I've been so impressed by the guy's knowledge of coffee history that meeting him was pretty cool. I'd love to have him sit down in my store and just talk.
I also ran into Mark Prince of coffeegeek.com. He's a funny guy. I enjoyed chatting with him for a little while. What an animated fellow. I made OBEY stickers of him before we left, so when Isaiah walked up with one stuck to his shirt, Mark freaked out. Started sweating and was clearly uncomfortable with whatever message he took from this inane sticker. Anyway, he was a fun guy to hang around with at the show for the short time I did.
We attended the party that Hacienda La Minita invited us to. It was a fancy soiree with complimentary drinks and an impressive spread of delicious seafood. The highlight of that party (aside from the salmon and the chocolate covered strawberries we devoured) was getting to talk to the owner of La Minita, Bill McAlpin. He's the king- in one man's words, answerable only to the government of Costa Rica and to God. I enjoyed talking to him as we delved, over the course of a couple days, into what makes a quality coffee and what coffee is "worth." Bill is an adamant opponent of Fair Trade certification, and for good reason. He believes it is evil and voiced a lot of the concerns he has with this system. Bill has a certain way he does things, and a lifetime of experience in coffee. Hard to argue with a guy like that, but I did my best.
Another guy I find myself running into a lot at SCAA is George Howell. This guy is huge. He originally started a chain of coffeeshops a long time ago called Coffee Connection, invented the frappuccino, and sold the whole thing to Starbucks. But now he's a real coffee guy. Like Bill McAlpin, George has a lot of firm ideas about what coffee should be, and there is a lot to learn from guys like that.
One of the funniest encounters we had was with Reg Barber, the guy who makes our tampers. He's a quirky Canuck. He came up and took a picture of Isaiah's back because he recognized the DoubleShot logo on his shirt. Reg seemed excited to meet us and we all stood around yucking it up for a little bit. I'm not so sure Reg knows that he puts out the best tampers in the world.
Of course we talked to Nick Cho (portafilter.net and Murky Coffee). He's a fine fellow, but he always seems like he's distracted - maybe trying to find a more interesting conversation.
Jay Caragay of portafilter.net and Spro was really a great guy to talk to. He took the time to have a real conversation with us a couple times, and we appreciate his kindness and attention. Jay is an interesting guy and I think he's really trying to do some cool stuff with coffee.

There were a lot of other people we talked to. A lot of stuff we did. A lot of products we looked at. A lot of espresso we drank. (Notable espresso included Intelligentsia, 49th Parallel, and Alterra.)

I'll try to blog in more detail about some of the more interesting things, and I'm sure we'll be podcasting soon.

Come in and try an espresso or americano on the new grinder. Yum.