Coffee sales and other products
Coffee | Honey
| Butterflies | Herbal Medicine
The Cafe San Ramón story
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| Ecotourists can pick coffee and learn about the coffeee production process while visiting San Ramon. |
We were able to offer four ecotours to Counter Culture Coffee in 2001-2, trips that allowed their coffee buyers to observe the serious approach to organic, shade grown coffee production characteristic of small farmers in San Ramón. Then, lo and behold, Counter Culture Coffee (CCC) asked us whether we would allow them to take over our coffee business and grow it to many times our volume. Our dream come true! Since then, CCC has developed a line of fair trade certified coffees of which Nicaraguan Organic/Café San Ramón is one. (The fair trade purchase price for certified organic green beans, currently $1.41 per pound, guarantees a decent standard of living to the farmer.)
Café San Ramón is now sold under CCC's Sanctuary label at many stores including The Southern Season, One World Market, Weaver Street Market (located in the Research Triangle area of North Carolina), and many Wholefood stores in the eastern United States. This web page has a full list of coffee shops and stores selling Café San Ramón. You can help increase sales by asking for it wherever fine coffee is sold or served. Also we hope you will want to participate in Counter Culture Coffee's "fundraiser program" for organizations and individuals wishing to sell coffee to both raise money and promote social justice and environmental conservation.
For more info contact orders@counterculturecoffee.com; 919 361-5282; P.O. Box 12291, Durham, NC 27709-229
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Cafe San Ramón is:
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People who drink Cafe San Ramón say: "I only drink San Ramón coffee--nothing else is as good. It's also certified organic and shade grown. I know I am contributing to maintaining a healthy environment for song birds who migrate south." -- Elizabeth Gibbs, Manager, Durham Farmers' Market "Coffee is extremely important to both of us. We have tried everything on the local market and Cafe San Ramón is far and away the best coffee I have ever tasted." -- Anne Sanford, Real Estate Broker |
Purchasing Cafe San Ramón:
To order Cafe San Ramón by mail, for your retail store or coffee shop, or to sign up for the "fundraiser program" contact: orders@counterculturecoffee.com, or Counter Culture Coffee, P.O. Box 12291, Durham, NC 27709-2291; or 4911 S. Alston Ave., Durham, NC 27713.
If you want to purchase Cafe San Ramón in person by the pound or cup, here is where you can go (the locations listed in italics indicate that San Ramón Coffee is available brewed):
| Weaver Street Market (Carrboro, Chapel Hill) | Greenlife Grocery (Chattanooga, TN; Asheville, NC) |
| Coastal Community Market (Beaufort, NC) | Liquid Highway (Greenville, SC) |
| Earth Fare (all 12) | Global Village Coffee (Raleigh) |
| Helios Coffee (Raleigh) | Blue Horse Coffee (Pittsburgh, PA) |
| Izzy's Coffee Den (Asheville, NC) | Whole Foods Markets from PA to FL |
| Muddy Waters Coffeehouse (Elizabeth City, NC) | Zola (Ann Arbor, MI) |
| Therapy (Charlotte, NC) | A Southern Season (Chapel Hill, NC) |
| Home Economist Markets (Charlotte, NC; Davidson, NC) | Greenleaf Cafe (Greensboro, NC) |
| Foster's Market (Durham, NC) | Grove Corner Market (Asheville, NC) |
| Cup a Joe (Cedar Falls, IA) | Summit Coffee (Davidson, NC) |
| Daily Grind Cafe (Chapel Hill, NC) | Nofo at the Pig (Raleigh) |
| Nofo at the Forum (Wilmington, NC) | Nofo on Liz (Charlotte, NC) |
| Crossroads Coffeehouse (Boone, NC) | Spring Garden Bakery (Greensboro, NC) |
| Rosewood Market (Columbia, SC) | Java Passage (Charlotte) |
| Top Shelf (Washington, DC) | Fireside Coffee (Cary) |
| Gilbert Branch Food Co-op (Asheville, NC) | Various Wild Bird Centers |
| Well-Bred Bakery (Weaverville, NC) | Muddy Waters Coffeehouse (Charleston, SC) |
| Bohemia (West Jefferson, NC) | Greenstar Co-op (Ithaca, NY) |
| Trout Lily Natural Foods Market (Fairview, NC) | One World Market (Durham) |
| The Sensuous Bean (NY, NY) | Daily Grocery Co-op (Athens, GA) |
| My Organic Market (Rockville, MD; Alexandria, VA, College Park, MD) |
Counter Culture Coffee now offers decaf Cafe
San Ramón!
Naturally CO2 decaffeinated, organic, shade-grown and fair-traded
"This is a very special decaf. For years, our relationship with the people and the coffees of San Ramon, Nicaragua has been growing, and one of our goals this year was to decaffeinate a batch of this wonderful coffee. This is our first Fair Trade Certified decaf, and all the wonderful things we say about the caffeinated version can be said about the decaf as well. This is a great opportunity to taste what a very special washed central tastes like before and after CO2 decaffeination. Exciting!"
Honey
Tropical wildflower honey and bee pollen are produced by a cooperative whose office, classroom and plant, is the only factory of any kind in San Ramón. The facility was financed by Italians in the 1980s in support of the Sandinista Revolution. The cooperative, CODAPI, supplies honey for the Nicaraguan market as well as for export. The exquisite taste comes from the unprocessed state of the honey made by africanized bees from a wide variety of flowering trees and wild flowers. Sister Communities of San Ramón, Nicaragua lugs home gallons of honey in our suitcases to sell while the supply lasts at our monthly coffee sales.
More about honey
The use of honey by man is as old as history. Early man harvested honey from wild hives in trees and caves. Once humans had access to earthen jar storage devices, they would store honey. Edible honey has been discovered in 2500 year old earthen storage jars in Egypt.
Bees begin to make honey by gathering the sweet liquid nectar from flowers. The bees mix the nectar with enzymes and deposit it in comb cells made from wax inside the hive. They then evaporate as much water as possible from the nectar to thicken and preserve the honey. Once the water content is below approximately 20%, the bees seal the honey inside the comb cells with a wax top to the cell. The lower the water content in honey the longer the shelf life. Honey with low water content which is sealed in an airtight container has a virtually endless shelf life.
Commercially produced honey is heated and pressure filtered to remove all pollen and wax particles. The honey is then heated again to pasteurize it and thereby prevent spoilage even at higher water content levels. Although this pasteurization process allows for easily flowing liquid honey with a long shelf life and a clear and consistent appearance, there are drawbacks to this type of processing. Heating causes a loss of some of the nutritive value of honey. If you have ever tasted freshly extracted, unprocessed honey, you know that it has the subtle flavors and aromas of the flowers from which the nectar was harvested. That fragrance is lost in commercially processed honeys. Unprocessed honeys are more likely to crystallize than commercially processed honeys. Crystal formation is encouraged by the small pollen particles often found in raw honey. Also, raw, natural honeys are usually harvested only after more than 20% of the water content has been removed from the honey. This provides that the honey will not spoil even though it was not pasteurized, but makes it much more likely that the honey will crystallize.
While many people prefer liquid honey, others prefer crystallized honey because it spreads more easily with a knife and is less messy than liquid honey. Many commercial honey packers are now producing spun (crystallized) honey by introducing small particles in the honey around which crystals can form. Crystallized honey is not of lower quality than liquid honey. In fact, crystallized honey is more viscous and less likely to spoil than liquid honey. If you would like to liquify honey, the best way is to boil a pot of water, let it cool for 10 minutes and then put the jar of honey in the hot water until the water cools.
Butterflies
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In January 1999 a delegation from Durham, including an entomologist, John Wallace, and two of his students visited Esperanza Verde to train several farmers in butterfly pupa propagation and to build a 600 square foot netted butterfly pavilion. At the end of the delegation one of the farmers was hired to raise butterfly pupa for export. In April 1999 Peter Knudsen, a butterfly expert from Raleigh, NC visited the farm for one week to carry out more training. Much to everyone's surprise the farm was able to successfully raise several varieties of butterflies, secure transportation and permission for export and to begin shipping pupa to the Museum of Life and Science in Durham in only three months.
Butterflies are raised by capturing only a dozen wild butterflies and keeping them in the pavilion where their host plants for egg laying are cultivated. The pavilion is closely supervised and after the eggs are laid they are removed to screened cages to protect them from parasites and predators. After the eggs hatch into caterpillars, they are fed their host plant's leaves until they pupate. This requires the growing of a large garden of appropriate plants for caterpillar food. Once a month the pupa are collected for export. Visitors to Finca Esperanza Verde may assist in the care of butterfly eggs and caterpillars and the work of gathering their daily diet of leaves as well as preparing pupa for export. |
In
the fall of 1996 a delegation from San Ramón attended a presentation
on raising butterflies at the Museum of Life and Science. The enthusiasm
generated by the workshop led to the start of a butterfly farm at
Finca Esperanza Verde (Green Hope Farm).
Butterflies,
tropical and North American song birds which winter in Nicaragua,
and other wildlife cannot survive without the extensive tropical
forests found in San Ramón and throughout Central America.
An important goal of the butterfly project and Finca Esperanza Verde
is to find economic activities that enable small farmers to earn
a living on their land while being stewards of the forests, animals
and their habitats.Herbal medicine
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When you are next in San Ramón, be sure to visit the Farmácia de Medicinas Naturales next to the Casa del Niño, a grass roots community development organization whose dedication to serving the community has impressed us from our first visit to San Ramón in 1993.
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Two
San Ramón women were able to take an advanced course of study
in herbal medicine in August through a $600 grant from Sister Communities of San Ramón, Nicaragua. The Christian Promotional Center
for Peace and Life, a.k.a. Casa del Niño, recipient of the
grant, has for many years promoted the use of herbal medicine in
San Ramón where standard medications are unaffordable for
most people. Margarita Sanchez, director of the program, and Martha
Figueroa, pharmacy sales person, took workshops on interpreting
the quality of herbs by color, moisture and smell, consistency of
measurement of herbs, fungal infections, manufacture of shampoo
for hair loss and cough medicine with honey. They also took a class
on herbal drug interactions and studied which herbal medicines are
contraindicated for certain health conditions.
Sister Communities of San Ramón, Nicaragua
1320 Shepherd Street, Durham, NC 27707
Tel 919-489-1656, Email: info@san-ramon.org