 Beans are roasted every Wednesday and Thursday at Catskill Mountain Coffee roasters. |
Missouri took his suggestion 11 years ago and began roasting coffee—certified organic and kosher—for the wholesale market in an industrial park in West Hurley.
Today, she and co-owner Katherine Keefe (along with employee Kevin Past) roast, blend, and package Catskill Mountain Coffee in a comfortable space on Route 28 between Kingston and Woodstock. The back of the room is dedicated to the bean business, while the front features a logical addition to Missouri's venture: A cafe where patrons can grab a cup of joe to go or settle in to enjoy their coffee.
"We're in the organic business, and it happens to be coffee," Missouri says. "I couldn't roast regular coffee because regular coffee is produced by clear-cutting forests and using pesticides and herbicides—poisons. That kind of agribusiness is destroying the earth."
To be certified as an organic food handler, Catskill Mountain Coffee is inspected every year by NOFA-NY (Northeast Organic Farming Association of New York), a nonprofit, educational organization made up of consumers, gardeners, and farmers. NOFA-NY is one of 56 domestic agents accredited and certified by the USDA.
After petroleum, coffee is the most valuable globally traded commodity in the world. More than 20 million farmers produce the coffee that is sold to consumers by huge corporations, ever-expanding chains, and microroasters such as Catskill Mountain Coffee. "Most coffee in the world is grown and processed by indigenous people, such as the Mayans in Guatemala," says Missouri. "What happens is that most coffee, organic or not, is harvested by women, and often children. The workers are paid next to nothing."
In order to help provide a decent living wage for the workers, Missouri and Keefe buy their beans from villages, farmers, and importers who are committed to fair trade. The main goal of fair trade is to ensure that the people who grow, pick, and process coffee—often poor farmers organized in cooperatives—receive a fair price for their crops.
Fair trade also encourages small farmers to maintain their traditional farming techniques. These include composting coffee pulp, rotating crops, and not using the "poisons" that Missouri mentioned. By growing coffee beneath shade trees—instead of destroying vast tracts of land to increase yields, a practice called "sun cultivation"—farmers also benefit. Banana, orange, avocado, nut, and other trees can provide food for the farmers as well as additional income. Shade trees also provide habitat for birds, insects, and other creatures.
As a reminder of her product's "roots," Missouri keeps a map of coffee-growing regions on a wall near the roasting machine. "All coffee is grown within 1,000 miles of the equator, from the Tropic of Cancer to the north, to the Tropic of Capricorn to the south. It generally grows at altitudes of 2,500 feet and above. Coffee is produced in Mexico, the Caribbean, Africa, Southern Asia, the Pacific Islands, and Central and South America. One of the best coffees comes from Sumatra, in the Gayo Mountains."
 Emma Missouri, co-owner of CMC. |
"The coffee crop was not affected by the tsunami last year because the water did not come up that high. The crops were spared. After the tsunami hit, the coffee farmers started clearing a path down to the ocean. It's usually the other way around: You start at the bottom and move to the top. However, shipping was affected in the area. The huge freighters were turned on their sides. Coffee was already in the warehouses in the US, so our supply wasn't immediately affected. There was a small blip in imports, but everything is getting shipped again."
Once a week, Missouri and Keefe travel to Staten Island or New Jersey to pick up large burlap sacks of organic coffee beans from their importers, Royal Coffee New York and Harry J. Acer, Inc. "We roast as orders come in," says Missouri, which determines how much and what kind of coffee they buy each trip. Roasting in small batches ensures that the end-product is the freshest possible.
Missouri compares coffee beans to wine grapes. "Every bean in almost every region is different," she says. "Altitude, climate, and soil content influence the product. For example, Guatemalan and Peruvian coffees are very different. The Guatemalan is grown in volcanic soil, while the Peruvian is grown in the Andes."
In 2002, Missouri traveled to Guatemala and toured a Mayan coffee cooperative located on the far side of Lake Atitlan, a co-op called La Voz Que Clama en el Desierto (The Voice that Cries Out in the Desert). "After all of the political upheaval in the '80s in Central America, I wanted to see one of the countries that I had heard about. And Guatemalan coffee was one of the first coffees that I had ever roasted. It was great to meet the people with whom we do business."
Missouri took her son Yeheshua on the trip with her. It is his photos that appear in the Catskill Mountain Coffee brochure, along with the motto—from a poem by Marge Piercy—that sums up the company philosophy: "From the earth we cherish and heal; through labor we respect and reward."
