可持续性｜咖啡产业中的人文精神
By Patrik Rolf Karlsson, December 6, 2015 (原文发表在Facebook,原链：https://www.facebook.com/PatrikRolf?fref=nf&pnref=story)
Naza简评：咖啡不仅仅是你手中那杯饮品，它的背后承载了千千万万从业者们的劳作与故事。不管是作为消费者还是咖啡产业链中的从业者，你需要看到更多，关心更多，思考更多。
（微博：Naza_Tai；微信公众号：钛星球）
“There is no perfect coffee, only different sort of coffee’s that suit different sort of people”
Coffee is an incredibly diverse product. It excists in so many different shapes and colors. It’s not only the different beverage we drink in the coffee shops or at home but it’s also about the different origins, varieties, roasting approaches and processing methods that are in place all around the world.
Most important to understand is that we all (you and me) like different sort of coffee. Some like a strong, dark roast and some like a light, acidic cup. Some like coffee with milk and sugar, some without. It’s impossible and in fact a waste of time to aim for the “perfect coffee” because it doesn’t excists. A perfect coffee can be so many different things depending on who you ask.
We at Five Elephant roast and ship coffee to almost all the corners of the world. A process that puts us in contact with so many different ideas about how to enjoy coffee. If we send the same coffee to a customer in Taiwan and one in the U.S., they would want two completely different things out of the same coffee.
This made us realize the importance of being able to customize our product, which meant a diverse and flexible roast approach. The challenge is in understanding that the brewing and the roasting is connected and by looking at both as a system we have been able to make our coffee taste the way our customer wants, even do they use the same coffee in two completely different parts of the world and without us compromising with what we believe is quality — because quality is as diverse as the people living in the world.
In the end of the day the important factor of what we do is the farmers around the world. We are getting closer and closer to a situation where we don’t have enough farmers to farm the coffee we need, want and love. If we want to have specialty coffee in the future we need to make sure to give our farmers the opportunity to build a sustainable farm, both from a financial as well as a agriculture perspective. That responsible is on us, the coffee roasters, brewers and consumers across the world. They can’t do it alone and we need them more than they need us.
A farmer who decides do grow coffee today would have to work harder than a farmer that started 50 years ago and will with no doubt also make less money. When you were in your early or late twenties would you have taken a job if you knew that you would have to work harder and get paid less than your parents did? Probably not.
We want to be able to work with high quality coffee in the future and therefor we invest in our farmers. Buying from them year after year with the ambition of growing together.
Warm Regards,
Patrik Rolf Karlsson
Head of roastery at Five Elephant Coffee Roastery in Berlin.
