Had a chat with the famous Patrik Rolf, founder of April Coffee.
Patrik Rolf had made a guest appearance at Apartment Coffee, in Singapore.
I asked him a question: “what is the biggest problem that coffee farmers face today?”
Patrik answered: “it is coffee buyers who ask for green beans, without possessing much knowledge about the subject matter. They demand a certain processing style from the farmer, but the farmer may not be suited to that processing style. Many of these farmers don't even know what they are doing. For example, in the natural process, there may be all kinds of micro-organisms growing in an uncontrolled manner. Whereas I prefer to have a more deliberate – instead of laissez-faire – approach to processing coffee. And the coffee buyer – who presumably roasts the green beans – may not have received much education or training before becoming suddenly becoming a buyer of green beans, who ends up making unsuitable demands on the farmer.”
