Seed to Cup Barista Challenge day 2

On day 2 we had the kind of alarm clock that might shock some people and was definitely a first for most if not all of us. We were woken by the sound of a very loud screaming pig, very loud, we wondered why the pig might be making such a noise and I jokingly said "that's our dinner". Little did we realize that my joke wasn't a joke, we realized this when we walked past these men working on the pig, notice one of the men's daughters standing close by watching, this young girl standing so close was clearly a perfectly normal thing to do.

After breakfast we were given that day's challenge which was to build one of these coffee drying beds, we were given the wood, a saw, hammer and nails and simply told to copy these ones. It was a lot of hard work but very fun, our team really worked together as a team on this challenge and it was great to be given a task that is very real to the work the people here have to do.

Later on that day before dinner Dionesio (the farm owner and my now close friend) picked up the dead pigs head and showed me how to pick it up and then motioned for me to have a go, I am not one to shy from a challenge. Notice the young man in the bottom right hand corner of the photo, he is clearly not phased that a strange man is holding a dead pigs head above him.

As you can see the children on the farm were absolutely gorgeous, one thing I realized after a few days on the farm was that despite the fact that there were constantly about 10 very young children around we did not hear a baby/child crying once.

Seed to Cup barista Challenge day 1

Youv'e got to be impressed with a guy who can talk 10 of the best baristas in the world to fly from their relative comfort in the cafe, espresso bar, roastery world to a place called Tarapoto in Peru. And get picked up by some strangers in 4wd's and be taken a 3- 4 hour drive up into the Peruvian jungle to live in a semi inclosed barn type structure on a farm called "Finca La Encanada" and be given coffee farming tasks to experience what it is like for coffee producers!

One of the locals (guess which one?)

Two such baristas Harrison (a great barista who works in Lima) and FabriZio (Mexican Barista Champion and a World Barista Championship finalist) waiting in Tarapoto to be whisked off to the jungle.

And so we take our hats off to David Griswold and the team at Sustainable Harvest because they did just that. And I was humbled and fortunate to be invited, and now as I sit at Santiago Airport in Chile on a layover waiting for my last long flight home to Sydney reflecting on 2 weeks that has changed our lives forever and a bunch of baristas that once new each other's name and profile and all the crew who came along to make it happen are now all friends for life. And the strangers who picked us up are now as close as family.

At occasional road blocs while the car was stopped locals camped where they new cars had to stop with the hope of selling something.

On day one our task was to pick coffee, after picking for 2 hours the 10 of us amassed enough coffee to end up with probably about 1 - 2 kg of roasted coffee.

Soren Stiller Markussen Danish Barista Champion and World Barista Championship finalist picking on day 1.

Here is a short clip of the drive to Fina La Encanada.