Great Mountain Coffee

If you’ve got a Keurig® K-Cup® or Vue® brewer, there are lots of options for trying something new to “Renew Your Brew.” Things like flavored coffees – Limited Edition Island Coconut comes to mind – and Brew Over Ice flavors like lemonade, iced coffee, and iced tea. (You did know that every Keurig® brewer can make iced beverages, right?)

The point is, single-serve packs are a really convenient way to enjoy a great cup of coffee any time of day. But being able to use your brewer to make iced coffee, iced tea, lemonade and other fruit drinks is a little like discovering that your washing machine can also fold and do ironing. Sigh…if only.

So in case you need a little more motivation, here are 10 Ways to Renew Your Brew that you may see floating around as you travel through cyberspace in the next few weeks. And if you do try something new – beverage related or not – please leave a comment; we’d love to hear about it.

10 Ways to Renew Your Brew

1. Start chillin’ with your Keurig® brewer. Enjoy iced coffee, iced tea, and more.

2. Raise a mug to Mom. Order a special Mother’s Day Brewer Bundle to make her morning easy.

3. Think outside the bean. Try Brew Over Ice lemonade by Green Mountain Naturals® and other fruit brews.

4. Stockpile your favorite flavors with 15% off storewide, now through May 7. Just use keycode RENEWBREW at check-out.

5. Give a gift of good taste to someone special (see #4 regarding storewide sale).

6. Take a sip to paradise with Green Mountain Coffee® Island Coconut® seasonal coffee.

7. Get a special delivery. Café Express® members enjoy regular automatic delivery of their favorite items AND save 15% on every order.

8. Get a newer brewer. Check out the Keurig® Vue® V500.

9. Make time for tea with Bigelow and Celestial Seasonings K-Cup® and Vue® packs.

10. Try something new to you. Fair Trade Certified™ selections, Tully’s Hawaiian Blend, and more!

You know where to find all these great options, but here’s a shortcut to get you started: www.GreenMountainCoffee.com

Below is a Guest Post by Jonathan Bloom from the Millennium Challenge Corporation (MCC). On April 29th, MCC awarded GMCR with its 2013 Corporate Award. 

"At the Millennium Challenge Corporation (MCC), we work with partners across the world. By the time I arrive at the office, there are often emails from Asia, Africa, Europe, and Latin America that need a quick response.

That’s why the coffee pot is my first stop each morning. And that’s why a coffee addict like me was thrilled to hear that we are honoring Green Mountain Coffee Roasters, Inc. (GMCR) with our Corporate Award for its sustainability work to improve the lives of the world’s vulnerable populations.

The award got me thinking on a recipe for a great new drink using the products of both Green Mountain Coffee and MCC’s beneficiaries from across the world. So prepare to treat your taste buds with the Millennium Challenge Macchiato.

Millennium Challenge Macchiato

1)      Start with Green Mountain's Sumatran Lake Tawar whole-bean coffee from Indonesia and grind as fine as possible. As you brew the perfect shot of espresso, take delight in knowing that one of the suppliers of this dark roast, the Gayo Organic Farmers Association, has started a project to bring safe drinking water to more than 1,500 people. The cooperative has also saved funds to help farmers with the reconstruction of their homes, many of which were destroyed in recent fighting, and to aid in the construction of two new schools.

2)      Steam milk sold by dairy farmers in El Salvador’s Northern Zone. As the steam rises, take a moment to read how many dairy farmers are now enjoying a higher income because MCC helped about 17,500 people by providing training, seeds, equipment, and technical assistance. The agency also built or rehabilitated more than 220 kilometers of road and 23 bridges as part of a five-year, $461 million compact.

3)      Pour the milk into the espresso and top with foam.

4)      Sprinkle a bit of cinnamon from the legendary spice island of Zanzibar on top to give it a pleasing kick. As you enjoy that first sip, read a bit about how MCC is strengthening the island’s electrical grid with the aim of increasing investment and reducing poverty.  Or if you have a sweet tooth, add a bit of cocoa from Ghanaian farmers who are more effectively receiving payment on their harvest, thanks to the computerization of rural banks as part of MCC’s five-year, $547 million compact."

Jonathan Bloom is the acting vice president for compact operations at the Millennium Challenge Corporation. On April 29, GMCR CEO Brian Kelley accepted the Millennium Challenge Corporation’s Corporate Award—recognition for the work that GMCR does to create a sustainable future for its farmer partners.

We're committed to creating a higher quality of life for our coffee communities all over the world, and a better cup of coffee for you. That's why we're excited to announce that one of our best-selling and most loved coffees, Green Mountain Coffee® Nantucket Blend®, is now one hundred percent Fair Trade Certified™!

That’s right. One hundred percent fair trade!

This means approximately five million pounds of our coffee will switch to being fair trade this fiscal year alone!  That's almost $1 million in fair trade social premiums that go back to the farmers each year.  Named the world’s largest purchaser of Fair Trade coffees in 2010 and 2011, this is just another step in toward our commitment to support fair trade - and other opportunity to share the great quality and familiar tastes that a conversion of such a beloved coffee can do for fans!

Take part in our quest to do good and pop in a Fair Trade Nantucket Blend K-Cup® in your Keurig® brewer.  Brew a Better Day™!

Colleen, Green Mountain Coffee Roasters Inc.'s Coffee Community Outreach Manager, recently traveled to Colombia to visit the region of San Lorenzo. Below is a report of her trip:

Oh, Valentine’s Day. You can smell the love in the air! Or is it just Green Mountain Coffee® brewing? While a mug of one of our coffees is delicious alone, when put together with the right foods, they are irresistible – much like your special someone, we’re sure. Here is a list of some of the food and coffee pairings we love, and we're sure you’ll love, too.

Green Mountain Coffee® Breakfast Blend and blueberry pancakes are a morning delight.  Breakfast is in the title of this light roasted coffee for a reason! This duo is perfect for starting your morning off right.

Green Mountain Coffee® French Roast  and almond biscotti are a perfect snack to get you through the day. The almonds in this treat play very well with the full-bodied and smoky taste of this coffee.

Green Mountain Coffee® Fair Trade Organic Sumatran Reserve  is at its best when paired with dark chocolate and cherry cupcakes. Is your mouth watering yet?  The rich taste of the Sumatran coffee’s chocolate and dark fruit undertones will only magnify with the help of these cupcakes.

Green Mountain Coffee® Guatemalan Finca Dos Marias™ goes nicely when matched with apples with a caramel dipping sauce. The sweetness of the caramel and the spicy notes of the Guatemalan roast will knock your socks off.

Green Mountain Coffee® Tanzanian Gombe Reserve is a great with a slice of cheesecake. Only a deep and rich cup like this could match the thick and creamy goodness of this dessert.

Take our advice and surprise your Valentine this year with one of our perfect pairings. What’s not to love?

Do you have a food that you love to drink with your Green Mountain Coffee®?

Every once in a while I find that it is good to change things up. Whether it’s reorganizing my living room or going to a restaurant I wouldn’t normally frequent.  At Green Mountain Coffee we’ve found the same to be true with our K-Cup® and Vue® packs. That said, we have taken the time to add some serious pizzazz to K-Cup® and Vue® pack lids across our family of brands so that you can enjoy the same great beverages with a new and exciting twist! Have you seen the new lid art? Let us know what you think!

In Waterbury, Vermont, the Green Mountain Coffee® Visitor Center & Café located at the historic train station is bustling with activity. The café is nestled in between five ski resorts and the energy is high this time of year. The holidays have passed and many are working off those extra calories on their skis or snowboards. In the morning, we see many energetic faces gearing up for a day at the mountain by starting it off with a hot Golden French Toast® Maple Supreme. We start off with hot Golden French Toast coffee, steamed light cream, and a shot of pure Vermont maple syrup. Of course, a dollop of whip cream can be added for those planning to hit the slopes hard. Although ,if you prefer a good ol’ cup-o-joe over a specialty drink, we have seven daily brews of the day to choose.  A mug for every mogul you tackle that day?

Being a stop before and after skiing has its perks for us. Skiers and riders are happy to tell us what the conditions were on the mountain that day, and we make sure to pass that information on to our other guests. Most recently, we had a skier coming back from one mountain report that as he was just getting off of the lift and about to rip down the mountain and he saw a moose chasing a fellow skier. Yes, a moose! Fortunately, the skier was able to get good speed quickly and the moose gave up the chase and retreated to the woods.  Wonder if the mountain will now put up a moose crossing sign at the top of the lift…

The Visitor Center & Café also serves as a stop on the Amtrak Vermonter line. If it’s not the skier and riders stories that keep us entertained daily, it is the periodic visits we receive from major news outlets. Just last week, CNN visited the train station with the Vermont Department of Tourism for an interview to discuss the improvements on the high speed rail and Vermont being the first state to complete the improvements. Vermont certainly has a lot of firsts and this is just an example of the progressive nature of our state.

There are still many powder days ahead of us in Vermont which powers our local economy and helps make us a great retreat from the hustle and bustle of cities like Boston and Montreal. Won’t you come and see us soon?

Earlier this month, SingleServeCoffee.com gave Hot Apple Cider by Green Mountain Naturals™ Vue® packs a perfect score: 100-out-of-100!  But who’s really surprised? With a total of five all natural ingredients and no artificial flavors or preservatives, this drink should be at the top of the list for hot apple cider lovers (Like me!).

The review was sure to highlight the “rich notes of sweet apples with bursts of spicy cinnamon” and the “silky smooth” consistency. Overall, it was decided that Green Mountain Natural’s Hot Apple Cider was, “spot-on with real mulled apple cider.”

Don’t just read about how great the apple cider is, taste it!  Hot Apple Cider by Green Mountain Naturals is available in both in Vue® packs and K-Cup® packs on our website, as well as in grocery stores and retailers nationwide.

Life is always interesting in the event marketing world, and you never know where the opportunities may take you or who you may be rubbing elbows with. From both a professional and personal standpoint, you can mark down the Green Mountain Coffee® sponsorship of the 46^th Annual Country Music Association (known as the CMAs to us fans) Awards in Nashville in the time-well-spent column.

In October, the Green Mountain Coffee brand sponsored a massive 2-day marathon of remote radio broadcasts preceding the Country Music Association Awards (CMA) Show in Nashville, TN. Personnel from 50 Country stations from around the U.S. were there, all part of the Clear Channel Premiere Radio Network. Naturally, all those radio personalities need people to interview, so also in attendance were over 100 of the biggest names in Country music today. Artists and bands like Faith Hill, Luke Bryan, Little Big Town and Kelly Clarkson were there, along with Tim McGraw, Reba McEntire, Miranda Lambert, Darius Rucker, Zac Brown Band, Eric Church, Lady Antebellum, Jason Aldean, Taylor Swift, and many more. Many of them enjoyed the unlimited access to our Keurig® sampling array and tasty lattes and cappuccinos served up by a talented local barista that we partnered with.  To say the least, it was an elbow rubbing time.

(My strictly un-scientific poll revealed that the Green Mountain Coffee Caramel Vanilla Cream K-Cup® packs were the belle of the ball, and seemed to be the variety of choice for many country fans.)

We also served free samples of great K-Cup® pack varieties like Fair Trade Organic Sumatran Reserve and Fair Trade Vermont Country Blend® to all the fans lined up in front of the hotel, waiting patiently for photos and autographs from some of their favorite Country stars. 

Another part of our sponsorship entailed working with a great new band called The Henningsens. The band is currently in the midst of a ten-city promotional tour, and are criss-crossing the country in a beautifully wrapped Green Mountain Coffee bus. Let us know if you happen to spy the bus in your area!

Hope to rub elbows with you at an event sometime soon…

Today, we honor those who have served in our military. 

Veteran's Day is a day when Americans pay tribute to those who who have served.

Here at Green Mountain Coffee Roasters, Inc. we too honor our soldiers. As I’m sure many of you have heard from service men and women is the importance of coffee while in the field; especially good coffee. It is a comfort from home and a small luxury while on duty.

That is why we donate thousands of pounds of coffee to troops serving Afghanistan every year. We work with a great organization called Holy Joe’s Café, that provides coffee in a café setting at bases in Afghanistan. Soldiers can go to the cafés for spiritual guidance from the Chaplains, listen to music on open mic nights, or just enjoy a great cup of Green Mountain Coffee’s Dark Magic.

When our very own Vermont National Guard deployed to Afghanistan, we knew that the comforts from Vermont that they would miss would include maple syrup and Green Mountain Coffee. Again, working with Holy Joe’s Café, every Vermont National Guard Chaplain has received coffee which will find its way into the hands of the Green Mountain Boys.

Thank you Holy Joe’s for helping us make an impact in our soldiers’ lives as they make a sacrifice for us. 

The question: How best to generate excitement for a live stream concert in support of Fair Trade Month?

The answer: Rent a vacant storefront in Los Angeles, build a pop-up café, and invite Michael Franti to do an exclusive online concert for fans of the Green Mountain Coffee Facebook page. Bingo!

A beautiful venue was located, and the team went to work creating the fabulous “Great Coffee Good Vibes Lounge”. For two days we gave away Fair Trade favorites (like Fair Trade Organic Sumatran Reserve and Colombian Fair Trade Select) and after the end of the second day of non-stop sampling, the event culminated with an amazing live set by Franti and his longtime guitarist and collaborator J “Boogie” Bowman. The size and atmosphere of the venue were perfect for the intimate performance, and Franti wasted no time setting the tone and getting the small crowd to “make some noise”. Between songs he talked about the importance of Fair Trade and about some of the experiences he had during a recent trip to visit with coffee farmers in Sumatra. The vibe was special and electrifying, the music was phenomenal, and the message was spot-on. Fair Trade provides better coffee for you and a better life for farmers – pass it on …

Recently, Rick and Mary Beth had the opportunity to visit three Supply Chain Outreach-supported projects focused on food security, potable water, and sanitation with coffee farmers in Nicaragua.

They spent two days in Matagalpa with members of the coffee cooperative CECOCAFEN conducting Most Significant Change interviews. As the name implies, they asked the project participants what was significantly different in their lives as a result of the food security project. Many they spoke with told them that ‘the thin months’ had changed: they not only had more food, but also more diverse food year-round or nearly year-round now – a big change from 4 years ago, before the project started, when most reported 3-4 months of extreme scarcity of food every year.

They also spent time with nonprofit Water for People in Jinotega learning about their progress towards providing year-round access to potable water and improved sanitation in homes and schools. In Estelí,  GMCR supports a project with CII-ASDENIC, a local Nicaraguan nonprofit, that brought potable water to people’s homes, allowing them to leave behind the chore of walking several hours each day up the mountain to get water for their family. The families also received vegetable seeds that allowed them to establish family gardens, providing another source of nutritious food throughout the year.

They spent their final day with our Nicaraguan project partners in a training focused on our guidelines for how projects should monitor and report their progress and impact to GMCR. It was a great conversation and we are eager to follow the projects’ progress and continue to share this exciting work with all of GMCR.

We love you, we love you, we love you! And Michael Franti, too!

Michael’s free live in concert kicks off tomorrow night, October 24 at 10:30 PM EST, on Green Mountain Coffee’s Facebook page! We'll be brewing up Sumatran Reserve as we soak in the melodic tunes in the Great Coffee, Good Vibes Lounge – some of us in L.A. to see Michael in person and some of us virtually from home, relaxing in our pajamas.

Remember: If you’re in Los Angeles tomorrow, October 24, 2012 visit 7111 Melrose Avenue and enjoy a free cup of Green Mountain Coffee® Fair Trade brews.  You never know who you’ll meet when the great coffee is flowing and the good vibes are all around!

October is Fair Trade Month!  For more than a decade, Green Mountain Coffee® has been a leader in the fair trade movement, providing a better cup of coffee to you and a better quality of life for coffee farmers.

This year, we’re celebrating with our “Great Coffee, Good Vibes, Pass It On” campaign – bringing Fair Trade Month to life with good vibes you can taste, hear, and feel!  Here are some ways you can take part in the fun:

To celebrate Fair Trade Month, both Grace Potter and Michael Franti will give exclusive performances streamed live on the Green Mountain Coffee Facebook page. You’re invited to RSVP for the events on our Facebook page and experience the good vibes firsthand:

• - Oct. 9 at 9 p.m. EST/6 p.m. PST — Grace Potter will perform live from famed music venue Joe’s Pub in New York City. Potter’s set will feature unique acoustic versions of songs from her new album, The Lion The Beast The Beat. You can RSVP here!
• - Oct. 24 at 11 p.m. EST/8 p.m. PST — Michael Franti will rev up Los Angeles from the first-ever Great Coffee, Good Vibes Lounge, brought to you by Green Mountain Coffee. Fans will be able to visit 7111 Melrose Avenue on October 24 and enjoy a free cup of Green Mountain Coffee Fair Trade. Be sure to RSVP here so you don’t miss out!

Join us on the Green Mountain Coffee Facebook page to view photos and videos from Grace Potter and Michael Franti’s trips to fair trade coffee cooperatives in Colombia and Sumatra.  After watching these videos, you’ll have the chance to receive free fair trade coffee samples or coupons and enter for a chance to win a trip to one of our source countries: Costa Rica!

We're jamming a lot into 31 days so you can enjoy great coffee, listen to good tunes, and pass on the fair trade vibes!

It’s National Coffee Day!  While you know we’d use any excuse – finished breakfast, found a lost sock, waiting for a haircut, you get the idea – to enjoy a good cup of coffee, today is the day that no excuses are necessary!  To celebrate, we’re all brewing up our favorite coffees, just the way we like them.  But how does our blogger team like to take their coffee?  We weren’t so, so we asked!

Roger - "I like very strong, dark roasted coffee and I drink it black as night."

Missy -  "I like iced coffee year-round and take it as follows… strict guidelines, you know."

• - Full cup of ice
• - One shot of Dark Magic® Espresso Blend
• - Smidgen of Wild Mountain Blueberry™, double brewed
• - Fill to the brim with Nantucket Blend® coffee
• - Top with a little cream and simple syrup

Winston - "My wife says I am an old man and stuck in my ways. I'm only 47 and I disagree, I just like what I like. At night before bed, I put out my French press, my whipped honey, the blue mug that my aunt made, and I fill the kettle with enough water for the pot. When I get up (and I get up pretty early) it's all ready for me. I like Ethiopian Yirgacheffe in a French press, served with honey and half and half. I know, it's heresy to use condiments in such a nice clean coffee like that. But I'm 47 and I can have my coffee any way I like it."

Amanda - “I love the unaltered taste and aroma of black coffee. No sugar, no cream masking the flavors of a great Sumatran or Kenyan. Every now and then though, I enjoy a splash of almond milk (lactose and I don’t mix), whose nutty flavor brings out the earthy notes in my coffee.”

Kristen - "I don’t drink coffee, but I’ll happily say that I take ice cream with my coffee – who doesn’t love an affogato?  Coffee and ice cream? The perfect combination."

We are excited to introduce 6 new ways to enjoy your Vue® Brewer. Green Mountain Coffee® Hazelnut, Pumpkin Spice, French Vanilla & Fair Trade Organic Sumatran Reserve bring flavor and character to the Vue® line, while Barista Prima Coffeehouse® Decaf Italian Roast and Celestial Seasonings® Lemon Zinger® bring great variety. Shop these wonderful new additions to the Vue® line of beverages today! 

“When you at Green Mountain buy coffee to roast, how do you know it’s going to taste good?”

We drink a lot of coffee here as part of our jobs. And even better, we get paid to drink and then evaluate it. Even though a lot of evaluating any beverage you drink for pleasure is subjective, there are still some objective ways to judge coffee for purchase. By the way, I should explain: I'm talking about the Coffee Department in Waterbury, Vermont, where we shop for and buy the millions of pounds of green coffee that we then roast and package and ship all around the United States and Canada.

We can't taste every single pound of coffee we buy (though that would be fun), but we do taste a lot. And when I say taste, I'm really talking about cupping, which is the professional version of tasting. (Want to know more about cupping and slurping, go here: “Why slurp?”).

We buy coffee by the container, which is the big metal box you see on large shipping vessels. Generally speaking, you can put about 42,000 pounds of green coffee in one container. When we evaluate that lot of coffee, the seller sends us a composite sample from that huge pile of green coffee. A few beans from this bag, a few from that bag, a few from that bag over there, until we have one pound of green coffee ready for us to roast and cup.

Before we roast it, however, we measure how wet or dry the coffee is in terms of moisture level. If it comes in too wet, it might not have been properly dried at origin, or maybe it got wet on the boat ride over the ocean. If it's too dry, it might be old coffee. We still cup it, but that's an example of an objective way to evaluate coffee.

We do a visual inspection of each sample as well. It should generally be a uniform color and size, without foreign material, bits of stone, twigs, and beans with insect damage (among other issues.) Even if a sample looks sub optimal, we still cup it, but note the state of the sample. Some coffees look beautiful, but don't taste that great while some coffees don't look so great but taste amazing.

We roast the samples ourselves so that we can control that important stage. And then the real proof is in the cup. We use the Specialty Coffee Assosication of America cupping sheet to tally our scores, average up the scores and then decide if the coffee passed the grade or not. The cupping sheet lets you score based on fragrance/aroma, flavor, acidity, body, aftertaste, balance, uniformity, clean cup, sweetness, and then there are ways to score defects and taints in the coffee as well. If it seems like a lot to keep track of, after the first 1-2,000 samples, it gets easier. Our supply chain uses the same scoring system so that we can all communicate in the same language, in spite of everyone speaking so many different languages.

We like metrics here and so we keep track of a lot of our activities:

• I can tell you that I have cupped 3,779 samples of coffee this year.
• For every sample (1 sample represents a container), we put out 6 cups of brewed coffee to evaluate. So in the past 12 months, I have "put a spoon" in 45,348 different cups of coffee.
• Two of my coworkers, Brent and Penny, cup more than I do (4,613 and 3,756 respectively).

So, if you ask how we know if the coffee will taste good, it's because we drink so much of it. We drink the bad stuff so that you won't have to. On top of that, every sample that we cup was also cupped by the importer, by the exporter, and even by the co-op or farm. There are many, many ways for a coffee to shine or receal itseld as an imposter of great coffee.

Next time you have a nice cup of our coffee, don't forget how much work went into making it a nice cup of coffee, and also don't forget all the work that went into making sure it's not a bad cup of coffee.

Imagine a lazy late-summer weekend, with warm winds whipping the white caps up and down the New Hampshire coast, and acres of options for fresh-from-the-ocean culinary delights. Not too bad, right? The only thing that would improve the image is an oasis of free freshly brewed hot and iced gourmet coffee served up by our knowledgeable and enthusiastic sampling team.

Now you’re in the frame of mind – you’re walking along Ocean Boulevard at the Hampton Beach Seafood Festival, and there, like a mirage, in stark contrast to the multiple white tents of vendors selling everything from driftwood art to emu oil soap, is our giant green and blue Green Mountain Coffee® tent, doling out thousands of complementary cups of great Keurig® Brewed® coffees.

The tent is alive with activity as many people, like you, were drawn there, enticed by the lure of specialty coffee. You enter the massive booth, and read about coffee harvesting and processing.  Who knew?  You choose from one of the 12 Green Mountain Coffee® varieties being offered (ooh, Dark Magic®, good choice – I was thinking the same thing!). You take a goofy picture with your friends inside our 9 ft. tall My Coffee Moment coffee cup-shaped photo booth, and can’t wait to share the picture on your Facebook wall Monday morning. You take a caffeinated coffee quiz and get some fun prizes for showing your java knowledge. Suddenly your good day just got a whole lot better…nice! So good to see you, thanks for stopping by.

And if we missed you at Hampton Beach (maybe fried dough and lobster quesadillas aren’t your thing), hopefully we’ll see you in our backyard, Burlington, Vermont, for a rocking good time at this weekend’s Grand Point North Festival!

As Director of Social Advocacy and Supply Chain Community Outreach in our CSR Department I frequently travel to source to check on our coffee growing communities and the programs that assist them. I find that being there firsthand gives me a much clearer insight on how we can best help our supply chain, and I have watched our supply chain and initiatives make huge development strides over the last 24 years.

The following notes are a part of an eye-opening part of my latest trip. It feels amazing to see what changes we can actually make in our world to improve normal people's lives.

 -Rick

Wednesday, July 18: 

Bill, Jonathan, Paula, and I left our hotel in Guatemala City, Guatemala at 6 a.m. for an 5 hour drive to the village of Copan Ruinas in Honduras, where we met an employee of the nearby Santa Rosa de Copan dry mill, and traveled to the mill.  After, we met Omar Rodriguez, General Manager of COCAFCAL (a coffee coop we work with) located in Capucas, Honduras. Omar then led us on our journey to Capucas in 4-wheel drive pickup trucks.  I had previously spent 3 weeks as a volunteer in this small mountainous community in 2005 and 2006 to help this young co-op develop a marketing plan and make market linkages.  GMCR is now purchasing coffee from COCAFCAL, and the community is one of those being served by a GMCR-sponsored Heifer International project in the region.

 When we finally arrived in Capucas, I was amazed by the changes that have taken place since my last visit.  In 2005 the co-op had 75 members; it now has over 800 members!  In 2005, it sold 1 container of coffee; in 2011 it sold over 100 containers.  In 2005 it had no certified coffee.  Today, it has organic, Fair Trade, Bird Friendly, and Rainforest Alliance certifications.

During my first year as a volunteer I lived in a long cinder block building, just off the beneficio's drying patio that had 3 rooms: a room with 2 chest freezers (used to freeze chickens from a Plan International project), a storage room, and finally my 15' x 15' room with a cinder block bathroom and cold shower.  My "home" was now engulfed in a large 2-story co-op office building that houses a cupping lab, an espresso cafe, QC rooms, offices, and more. 

My "Home", 2005	New Office Building, 2012

In addition significant improvements have been made in the wet mill and dry mill that have improved the capacity of the co-op and the quality of the coffee processed. 

 After visiting the co-op buildings, we drove to the buildings where we would stay.  We arrived at a small compound of 3 cottages (all brand new) that had two bedrooms, an open area with a flat screen TV, and a full kitchen.  Most amazing was the presence of two swimming pools!  This compound was built by Omar's family to support the co-op and with the hope of developing an eco-tourism business.  Celaque, a pristine national park, is within hiking distance of the community.

 While we were in Capucas, we had all of our meals with Omar's family.  It was great spending time with them again.  They were a wonderful host family during my prior visits, and it was great to see how their coop had improved with the help of some of our CSR programs!