Oso Negro Coffee

TALES FROM THE OUTBACK, Or, HELEN, JOHN, AND ALEX'S EXCELLENT ADVENTURE, Or, FEAR AND LOATHING ON THE ITUNDUJIA TRAIL. [Mexico]

by Helen Nicholas, Royal Coffee, Inc., Green Coffee Importers, San Francisco

Three days in Mexico, piece of cake, right? Not necessarily. Wild winds and rain prevented my landing in Oaxaca last week; off to Acapulco for a quick re-fuel and then finally a landing in sodden Oaxaca where the streets were hip-deep in water. Dinner at Miguel's house, a charming garden oasis in the city, where we are regaled with stories of Miguel's communist past in Spain opposing Franco. The mezcal flows, Miguel the Commie waxes poetic, and the excellent adventure begins.

Roll up, Roll up for the mystery tour

6:00 a.m. Wednesday morning, we hit the road-Alex Mason, John Cossette, and I along with our Mexican compadres, Jaime and Jesus, who are driving us up to the Putla/Mixteca coffee-growing region that we have come to appreciate so much. Three hours of riding on paved roads, two hours of driving a bucking bronco on pitted, pot-holed, unpaved roads, and we arrive at Miramar to meet with the campesinos and see their trees. Apart from a bout of Oja de Gallo, the trees look healthy and well-tended, albeit somewhat sparse in cherry due to the heavy rains. The head guy wants to know why his money is worth less and less; I want to know why they didn't fix when New York was over 2 bucks. This is a meeting of two worlds so disparate that I realize I'm going to have to re-think everything. My intention in going to Mexico was to try and help the co-op with Market advice that could garner them a higher price for their coffee (what do you think about buying some Options?). The realities of a 2,000 member co-op are that no decisions are made quickly or lightly, and the coyote licks his chops on the sidelines offering quick cash on feast days to pay for flowers and candles for the dead.

Dinner in a rain-soaked shack prompts fear and loathing until we taste it: ricissima! The bathroom is a terrifying place of darkness but perhaps we'd better not go there. We leave with profuse thanks and a memento of a hand-painted bottle of Mezcal. Five more hours of bucking bronco down the mountain to Putla, a more or less real city in the heart of the growing region. By now, I'm exhausted. Sleep is heaven until 6:00 am when the hammering starts above my head -our not-so-luxury hotel is still in the process of construction-and we're off once again.

Thursday-eight hours of driving up into the mountains. Our goal today is Zargossa de Itundujia, a far-flung puebla on the co-op map. This is physically the hardest coffee trip I've ever made. Once again, it's bucking bronco time as we ford streams and hang on for dear life, negotiating unpaved roads through the most beautiful landscape I think I've ever seen: wild flowers that create a natural garden of salvia, morning glory, palm and exotics that would command a fortune on the gardeners' Black Market in Berkeley. This place is heaven. Lime green butterflies and that elusive electric blue mariposa that I have come to associate with magic. Sunflowers taller than a man begin to create that hallucinatory quality that comes from either very wild mushrooms or too long out in the coffee bush. Things are getting interesting as we get more and more exhausted.

Picture yourself in a boat on a river With tangerine trees and marmalade skies

Surely they don't get their coffee down these roads (in fact they walk three hours with bags on their backs and THEN get them down the road)? Where is the government and haven't they ever heard of pavement? We pull into town feeling wasted indeed and the intrepid (young) John and Alex fix me with accusatory stares and say "YOU wanted to come here." The campesinos have prepared a feast of lamb and maize for us. That and the whiskey they serve it with brings us right back and we're off to see more trees (a paradise of organic methods).

These guys are living proof that the best coffee comes from typica trees grown with traditional methods. You want organic, we got it. Shade-grown, yes. Bird-friendly, you bet. Fair trade, mm-hmm. But more than all that, this is good coffee. It cups and it's priced right. And if you're doing a good thing by helping out the poorest, hardest-working people on the coffee chain, well, don't let it keep you up at night.

Speaking of night, it's coming on, and we face an eight-hour drive back down the mountain. The jouncing of my limbs commences once again, and we're beginning to wonder how much more we can take.

Sleep again in Putla; awakened 5:20 a.m. by Mexican pop blasted on a boom-box: oom-pah, oom-pah. Surely I am on drugs. Why else the surreal quality to that little black pot-bellied pig trotting earnestly down the main street?

Friday-Once more dear friends unto the breach; today's road should be easy: six hours of pavement (sort of) to Oaxaca for a quick visit to Señor Rojas, whose lovely home stands in contrast to the poverty of the campesinos. The politics and economics of coffee remain complicated and murky. Against my strenuously explicit advice, the co-op fails to fix its prices at the high inspired by the hurricane. They think the hurricane will bring higher prices. We think it's already old news. The market drifts downward and my hopes for helping the campesinos to get a higher price for their coffee seem hopeless, for the time being. But, hey, the speaker of the house stepped down while I was gone. The Lord moves in mysterious ways.

You say you want a revolution, Well, you know, We all wanna change the world Shooby-doo-wah.