Photo Credit: Mete Sozen and Julio Ramirez, Purdue University School of Civil Engineering
Coffee Bean International's Bruce Mullins and His Coffee Journey to Colombia
August 1, 2008
Colombia – Chapter Two:
My recent assignment for Coffee Corps® in Colombia was spent working with Tracy Ging from CQI headquarters in Long Beach, Al Liu from Atlas Coffee Importers in Seattle, and the staff of the ACDI/VOCA offices in Bogotá. Our mission in Colombia was to help refine and promote Colombia's participation in the CQI's "Q Coffee System" program, a first-of-its-kind program to elevate and expand the skills of professional coffee cuppers worldwide, while standardizing their methodology and reporting terminology to better identify valuable lots of specialty coffees amidst the more common (and more mundane) premium or commercial coffees.
To our delight, we found the staff of the ACDI/VOCA offices in Colombia highly experienced and knowledgeable about specialty coffee, and enthusiastic about the Q coffee program. ACDI/VOCA is a U.S.-based non-governmental organization (NGO) with offices around the world, helping manage aid programs sponsored by donor countries as the in-country administrators. In Bogotá, under the leadership of Luis Alberto Cuéllar - an experienced cupper and wise coffee hand - ACDI/VOCA has built a team including Colombian coffee veteran Eduardo Libreros, formerly the director of both the New York and Brussels offices of the National Federation of Coffee Growers of Colombia ("FNC"), and other coffee aficionados.
Tracy and I – along with members of the ACDI/VOCA staff – presented ourselves and the Q Program to key stakeholders within the Colombian coffee value chain, including the top levels of the FNC, the top private sector exporters, US Embassy and USAID officials, and – most delightfully – with the cadre of certified Q cuppers in-place in Colombia, trained and ready to go to work.
One meeting in particular stands out in my mind. We were to make a presentation about the "Q" program to an important group of local coffee exporters. The meeting was being held at El Nogal, a posh multi-story business club in downtown Bogotá. The elite business community patronizes El Nogal, enjoying its restaurants, spas, athletic facilities, and meeting rooms. As is typical in Bogotá, El Nogal was heavily secured by armed guards and other security measures, including biometric scanning of faces and fingerprints. To me, the security measures were more exasperating than anything else, since they made going anywhere in town – in this case, the El Nogal club – harder and take longer.
After we were finally admitted, and just a minute or two from my presentation, I stood alone off to the side of the room reviewing my notes. One of our contacts in Bogotá sidled up to me, and casually remarked on how nice the Club looked since they finished rebuilding it. I looked around. The meeting room we were in was lovely – large windows overlooking the front of the building, marble floors, walnut paneling, and expensive-looking furniture. I asked why they had had to rebuild it, and the casual answer was "Oh, the car bombing here pretty well destroyed this part of the building."
As I tried to recover my poise, moments before walking on stage to make my address, I asked him "What car bombing?" He replied that the Club had been attacked in 2003 with what they estimated was a 200 kg (almost 500 lb) bomb, smuggled inside a car parked within the building's parking structure below where we were standing. Dozens had been killed, and hundreds injured. Suddenly, the extra security and biometrics seemed less of a waste of time, and more of a prudent idea.
I have no idea how my presentation went – it's only a blur in my mind. I was told that I did well, although uncharacteristically looked a little nervous.
Bruce's Previous Journey: Kenya and Ethiopia
