Okay, so it wasn't frosty, but the nights were a little chilly, I swear. I am uploading some not-so-recent travelogues to the the world wide interweb, and realized this trip to Western Ethiopia from January 2011 had some amusing images. I have made quite a few trips out there since but this was the first time I landed in the farther reaches of Illubabor, as well as covering Jimma pretty well. There is a lot of promise for wet-processed coffee in the West, which was traditionally sold as low grade, undifferentiated dry-process coffee. With the new work we are doing there, farmers are receiving premiums far beyond what they ever could get for natural coffees of a commercial level, and much of this is based on the fantastic work of Technoserve to provide business advice, agricultural assistance, and market support to these cooperatives. -Tom

So I took this camera to Rwanda for the Cup of Excellence competition and, crazy me, I ended up with a cool 600 photos. I pared it down to 265 "must-see" images and a few of them actually have something to do with coffee! While some airline snafus made the travel a bit harsh, and the food in East Rwanda was, ack, disturbing, it was a great trip. The jury was a great international blend, the coffees were very nice, and my visits to washing stations after the event were very fruitful. I hope you enjoy the images and that the captions impart a little information about how beautiful Rwanda truly is, how incredibly kind the people are, and how sweet the coffees can be. -Tom

Sulawesi is not that easy to get to ... well, at least the coffee areas. Long ago they canceled the air service to the Toraja coffee fields from the main city of Makassar in the south (Sulawesi Selatan). The flight would be just 55 minutes and land near the capital of the Tana Toraja highlands, Rantepao. The drive is 8 hours, if you are lucky, but more like 9 or 10 if you stop for a couple breaks. It's sweaty and hot in the Makassari and Bugis lowlands, following coastal rice fields, and eventually you catch site of a tall escarpment with huge volcanic cliffs, a sign of relief from humidity. As you wind upward the temperatures drop, but as in so many places with winding two lane roads, you risk getting stuck behind a smog-belching bus or truck crawling up the inclines at 10 mph. Rantepao itself is a bustling center of commerce but also has the tarnish of a tourist destination past it's prime and half empty. Even in this season, July and August are the prime tourist months because...

I went on a brief trip to Uganda, for the very first time.We met Charles Angebault, who has a project with a cooperative near Mbale named, rather comically, CoffeeACup coop. Okay, I know you are dying to know ... it stands for Community Organized Farmers From Elgon Escarpment Arabica Coffee Uganda Program! Actually it was supposed to have on E afte coffee, but it was mistranscribed to they thought up "Escarpment" to justify the additional E. Uganda has potential, but their is much quality work to do in harvesting and drying of coffee. Most farmers never drink coffee here ... in fact many don't know exactly what coffee is used for. Because it is ground into powder, and because the government long ago would trade coffee for guns when they lacked money to pay for it, farmers actually believe coffee is ground and made into gunpowder! We met Mathias, the inspired and inspiring leader of the CoffeeACup cooperative, and Joselyn who is the development director, and I found them to be...