Novato women embark on enterprise with coffee farm in Panama
(marinij.com) First they sold it, now they'll grow it.
Equator Estate Coffees & Teas in San Rafael, a wholesale coffee company, has purchased a 47-acre undeveloped coffee farm in Panama.
Named Finca Sofia, the land in the Panamanian highlands near the town of Cerro Punta was purchased for an undisclosed sum by Equator co-founders and Novato residents Helen Russell and Brooke McDonnell with their partner, Willem Boot, a Mill Valley resident and international coffee entrepreneur.
"It's very much an extension of our curiosity and interest in growing coffee," Russell said. "It just comes full circle, from the retail to the wholesale to the farming. Not many wholesalers do farming."
At about 6,500 feet and surrounded by vegetable farms and a national reserve that is home to native wildlife and migratory birds, the land is being developed in
three stages, McDonnell said. She is the company's master roaster, a New York native who studied art and art history at Skidmore College in Saratoga Springs, N.Y.
A third of the farm, which the company acquired in late 2007, was planted last year with a boutique variety called Geisha, McDonnell said. One-third will be planted this year and the final third next year. A full harvest is not expected for another four years.
The two women are learning about weather, soil quality, shade trees and other farming techniques from farm manager Kelly Hartmann, a third-generation coffee farmer whose family farm and mill in Panama was founded in 1912 by his grandfather, a Czechoslovakian immigrant.
Seven employees live on the land. A project to build sustainable housing for them is planned.
"It does take a village to grow coffee," McDonnell said. "It's a labor of love. There's a lot of patience. The harvest is quite a few years up the road, so this is a period of learning and patience and literally feeding the land."
"We go down probably three or four times a year," Russell said. "Even though we are here, we are very much involved in what goes on the farm every week."
At the farm, the emphasis is on the environment, Hartmann said through an interpreter. Planting shade trees cools the environment, attracts birds and insects and provides fruit to feed workers, he said.
"Most farms go only as high as the lowest part of Sofia. The climate is therefore a bit colder, but the trees we have planted seem to be doing quite well despite this," Hartmann said. "In general, higher-grown coffee is more unique than lower-grown coffee, so our hope is that the Geisha coffee we are growing at very high altitudes will be of exceptional quality.
"Unlike the (nearby) vegetable farms, which have almost no trees, Finca Sofia is attempting to be an extension of the natural reserve - a place for wildlife and native fauna to live," he said.
Russell, 49, and McDonnell, 52, the former owners of two espresso bars in San Francisco and Oakland, got their start on the retail side in the early 1990s. The began selling coffee wholesale in 1995.
"That gave us so much credibility when we started Equator as a wholesale coffee roaster," said Russell, a Medford, Mass. native who earned a bachelor's degree in business from Northeastern University in Boston. "It wasn't 'we're buying coffee from Equator,' it was, 'we're buying coffee from Brooke and Helen.'"
Over the years the company, with its emphasis on sustainable practices such as organic, fair-trade and shade grown products, has produced blends for the French Laundry, Bouchon, La Boulange, Jardini re and Citizen Cake. The company last year had gross revenue of $4.5 million.
"I think the reasons that we've worked with them - it's been over 10 years now - one thing is they're a small company that's really dedicated to not only the high quality of their coffee and their espresso and their teas as well, but the high quality of service that comes with it," said Jimmy Hayes, beverage director for Yountville's the French Laundry, Bouchon, Bouchon Bakery and others in the Thomas Keller Restaurant Group.
"I would say it doesn't surprise me at all," he said of the company's new venture into farming.
"They're obsessed with quality and getting the best coffees available," Hayes said. "If you can do something better by doing it yourself why not try to do it? É I know it will make their coffee better than it already is."
The 16-person shop roasts about 11,000 pounds per week at its roasting facility on Jordan Street in San Rafael. The coffee comes from countries such as Guatemala, Ecuador, Nicaragua and even Rwanda - the new frontier of coffee, according to Russell. Soon it also will come from Panama.
"We've been doing this 14 years," Russell said. "We call it Equator 2.0."
"Coffee is transformative," McDonnell said. "Anybody who spends time in the industry, you are just transformed by coffee one way or the other.
"It's a very exciting industry to be a part of," she said.
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Original Source: marinij.com
Date Retrieved: May 5, 2009.
