The interest resurges to satisfy the demand of a drink of high quality and places where to taste it
The coffee is more than a drink. For many it symbolizes culture, it evokes memories, it wakes up the spirit in the morning and constitutes the complement or it excuses suitable of encounter, social gatherings and businesses.
If you are loving of the coffee, you will have noticed the proliferation of noncommercial puertorican marks and small local businesses dedicated to the drink, where the intention is to offer to the client a experience of aroma and flavor to the pallet.
It will seem a contradictory panorama to the difficult reality that it faces the coffee industry that has come experiencing a dramatic loss in production, specially during last the five years. In the 2009 they took place here about 90 thousand quintals of coffee, as soon as one third part of which we consumed. Of the coffee which commonly we bought in supermarkets, very few net offer a local but mixed product with grains of the foreigner.
The decrease in production is consequence of many factors, between which they stand out the lack of laborers to gather the grain, the epidemic of reel and the high production cost.
Puerto Rico is the country where more expensive it turns out to seed coffee.
At the moment, the stability of the local market depends on the protection which they offer laws of the Congress of the United States, which authorize the purchase of foreign coffee solely through government. The grain of other countries buys three times more expensive than the one of here. Without this it safeguard, the industry would have few probabilities of subsisting to the competition of giants like Brazil or Colombia.
Facing this scene, according to it explains the secretary of Agriculture, Javier Rivera Aquino, to elevate the quality of the coffee that sowing in the Island to become it a profitable business is outlined like the alternative to save one of the main ones and more distinguished agricultural industries of the Country.
Although in Puerto Rico always coffee of high quality has been cultivated, with happening of the time the production became commercial more and more. The special grain market, as it is known the type of more high quality internationally, has had a presence very limited in recent decades, although the climatologic conditions surpass here to those of other exporting nations of very prestigious marks.
The first step to enter this competition is to promote the increase of the production of special coffee and to characterize the cup to trade its qualities, explains Creek. "This will take years, but it must become", indicates the Secretary.
What distinguishes the quality of coffee
The criteria to denominate a coffee special they are diverse. In principle, the grain must be 100% Arabic, in some of its varieties such as Bourbon or Typica. Other factors include the storage, gathered way of (if he is manual or by machine), the place and the height where sowing. The suitable conditions for the culture are height and shade, because they do that the grain behind schedule more in maturing and its properties of flavor are pronounced to the maximum. Zones like the Guilarte Sector in Associates, with elevations of on two thousand feet, turn out very favorable to obtain a culture of optimal conditions.
When the handling of the grain fulfills all the requirements, their characteristics can be different from other marks, be traded and compete in the international market to obtain that the business of the coffee is profitable. Nations as Panama exports the product to prices that reach the $1.200 by a coat of 100 pounds. In Hawaii, only producing American territory of coffee, takes place a coffee of particular value under the Kona denomination that is not mixed with any grain of the Hawaiian archipelago.
The local market account with 30 varieties that are traded like special coffee, some of which they are exported in small amounts besides to be sold in the local market. This year, the Association of Special Coffee, created in the 2004 to impel the production of this type of grain, will travel to countries of Europe to identify potentials international markets, explains its president, the agronomist Rafael Rodriguez.
Meanwhile, locally also an increasing interest by the coffee is being satisfied with high quality, that some attribute to the sprouting of coffee chains which they break the stereotype of which a cup of the drink only can cost 60 cents.
"When you have a public who is arranged to pay more, that repels in the industry that can work a coffee of more quality", it maintains Germa'n Negrón, president of the Association of Baristas of Puerto Rico.The barista, a craftsman
The barista office was originated about 100 years ago in Italy. In a principle bartenders was `' that at night served to coffee during the day and spirits. With time, they were perfecting its art.
"Now the barista, besides to serve coffee, comprises of the chain of elaboration of the drink.
Just as chef it chooses the meat or the paste, the barista chooses the coffee and it prepares it of the correct way", explains Germa'n Negrón, president of the Association of Baristas of Puerto Rico.
These professionals work with four main pillars that are: the grain, the machine, the good maintenance of this one and the mill.
Part of the work of the barista is velar by the maintenance of the coffee maker, to watch the quality of the grain and its freshness, to maintain the mill calibrated and to make tests to notice the flavors of the product, because he himself changes every day.
The barista is not taster, but it must have an ample knowledge of the profiles of flavor of good espresso. In Puerto Rico there are about 80 of these professionals, whose work is integral part of the charming world of the coffee.Good cup in house
1. It buys a special coffee of quality, 100% Arabic.
2. If you use a machine espresso, you must assure of that has a water pump that maintains the pressure in nine bars. This equipment is most expensive.
3. A much more economic option of equipment is the French press (`french press'). It is obtained in stores by departments from the $20, depending the size. In order to use it correctly, the ideal is to warm up the separate water during four minutes and never to reheat the drink.
4. The lambda-type one that traditionally is used in so many homes difference of the French press in which during the preparation process it burns the coffee. When burning the coffee, their natural sugars are also burned and the flavor becomes very bitter.
5. If you use milk, heat to a temperature of 170 degrees Fahrenheit. If you do not have thermometer, avoids that milk boils, because a temperature very elevated causes that it loses his natural sugar.
Natural pest control saves coffee berry
There is good news for coffee lovers and growers worldwide: A predator for the devastating coffee berry borer has just been discovered in Africa. Looking at coffee berries in Western Kenya, Dr. Juliana Jaramillo from the International Centre of Insect Physiology and Ecology in Kenya, Dr. Eric Chapman from the University of Kentucky, and colleagues have identified a previously unknown predatory thrips* - Karnyothrips flavipes - which feeds on the eggs and larvae of the coffee berry borer Hypothenemus hampei. According to the authors, this discovery could have important implications for the management of the coffee berry borer throughout the world. Their study, the first to quantitatively prove predation on the coffee berry borer, is published online in Springer's journal Naturwissenschaften - The Science of Nature. Previous studies were based on mere observations, for example of ants preying on the coffee berry borer.
The coffee berry borer H. hampei is the most widespread coffee pest in coffee producing countries. Yearly coffee losses are estimated at US $500 million, affecting the income of more than 20 million rural households in the tropics. The female coffee borer drills galleries into the coffee berries where she deposits her eggs. The larvae then feed on the coffee berries. Because the pest's lifecycle occurs mainly inside the coffee berry, H. hampei is very difficult to control, particularly in countries which pride themselves on their organic coffee production.
During routine dissections of coffee berries in Western Kenya, Dr. Jaramillo observed, for the first time, adult thrips K. flavipes feeding on eggs of the coffee berry borer. Further observations in the laboratory showed that K. flavipes adults also prey on the larvae of H. hampei. She found that K. flavipes enters the coffee berry through the tiny hole bored by H. hampei and also deposits its eggs inside the berries. Newly hatched thrips then continue to develop inside the berries.
The authors used molecular techniques to detect the presence of small amounts of prey DNA in the digestive tracts of the predators by analyzing their gut contents. Nearly 18,000 H. hampei-infested coffee berries from 100-150 trees were collected in the Kisii area of Western Kenya between January and September 2008. In total, over 3,000 K. flavipes emerged from the borer-infested berries and pest DNA was detected in 8.3 percent of DNA extractions of the predator. The highest percentage of positive results occurred in April, when 47 percent emerging K. flavipes tested positive for H. hampei DNA.
These findings confirm for the first time the presence of a coffee berry borer predator in Africa, based on molecular gut content analysis. The authors believe that K. flavipes has the potential to have a significant impact on H. hampei populations in other coffee growing regions. Controlling this pest could potentially help stabilise coffee harvest and market value.
They conclude: "Our findings provide coffee growers and coffee scientists with new insights into a biological control agent that could be conserved and augmented in coffee growing regions where it occurs. This predator could make a significant contribution to integrated pest management of H. hampei."
There is good news for coffee lovers and growers worldwide: A predator for the devastating coffee berry borer has just been discovered in Africa. Looking at coffee berries in Western Kenya, Dr. Juliana Jaramillo from the International Centre of Insect Physiology and Ecology in Kenya, Dr. Eric Chapman from the University of Kentucky, and colleagues have identified a previously unknown predatory thrips* - Karnyothrips flavipes - which feeds on the eggs and larvae of the coffee berry borer Hypothenemus hampei. According to the authors, this discovery could have important implications for the management of the coffee berry borer throughout the world. Their study, the first to quantitatively prove predation on the coffee berry borer, is published online in Springer's journal Naturwissenschaften - The Science of Nature. Previous studies were based on mere observations, for example of ants preying on the coffee berry borer. 
