Beth Ann Caspersen Cupping
Beth Ann Caspersen, a certified Q instructor and quality control manager for Equal Exchange, recently led the on-the-ground training and organization efforts for the Saveur du Kivu, the first international cupping competition held in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC).
With international judges from Cooperative Coffees, InterAmerican Importers, Counter Culture, Kickapoo Coffee, Blue Bottle, Peace Coffee, Twin, Thread Coffee, Heine Brothers, Amavida Coffee and Tea, and Higher Grounds Trading Co. in a matter of a few action-packed days, every bit of Caspersen’s coffee and leadership experience was tested as she mobilized volunteers arriving from more than eight organizations.
STiR: Let’s start at the beginning: What was your response when Richard Hide, senior African coffee marketing manager at Twin, approached you about it in March?
I said, “If we can do it at a really high level, then I would be interested in doing that. But I need to see pictures of the labs, I need to understand what’s happening.”
Judges for the Saveur du Kivu cupping in June. The Democratic Republic of Congo's first professional cupping competition.
STiR: Let’s skip ahead to when you got to Bukavu to prepare for the competition. Did the lab meet your expectations?
When I arrived at the lab, it was a white building with electrical wire hanging out of the ceiling, people were painting the walls, and there was dust and it was just an absolute shell of a lab. There was no equipment, there was no running water, and the contractor who was supposed to have been done a while before, weeks ago, was busy working on making sure the electricity was being installed.
STiR: Those do not sound like ideal conditions and at that point, there was not much time to prepare, correct? How did you deal with that?
All of the things that we take for granted in a lab, I had to do that in my four days.
We went and we found butcher paper, a marker, and I got all of the people, the contractor, the electrician, the people from the International Coffee Organization of Congo, everybody in one room and said, “Okay, we need to draw out what we have.”
So we started drawing up all the electrical requirements on the butcher paper and said, “Okay, we need outlets here, we need outlets there. When can we get the electricity installed? And on top of that, can we please have generators? Okay, great. How many generators do we need and how many machines overall?” It was something I had never, ever done before, ever, and this was on day one.
[That first day], there we are on a double-barreled Joper and we’re roasting by flashlight and head lamp and trying to figure out the best roast profile for all of these wonderful coffees that we don’t want to under roast or over roast, and we need them to be perfect because the following Tuesday there were 10 international jurors coming and we were going to have a coffee cupping competition.
By the time we finished up the roast and got to the actual competition day, I had three perfectly organized tables ready to go. It was so gratifying!
STiR: Once you got to the competition day, did everything do smoothly?
We had the coffee samples ground out. The whole team did everything they were supposed to do. And then—Boom!—the electricity doesn’t work, and then—Boom!—the generator doesn’t actually support the amount of water we need to boil.
STiR: You were not alone in working through issues. You had helpers from On the Ground, the Eastern Congo Initiative, Catholic Relief Services, OSC (the national Congolese coffee organization), UGEAFI, SOPADCI, Muungano, and from other experienced cuppers like Caleb Nichols, buyer for Kickapoo Coffee Roasters and Dan Bailey, owner of Amavida Coffee and Tea to name just two. What was it like working with all those volunteers?
[Volunteers from the coffee cooperatives] really listened and they really did an awesome job. We wanted them to see the back of the house, how a real competition would work. [Though] they didn’t participate in the cuppings themselves, now they know how to execute, and for me that is a really powerful tool that we were able to leave behind.
[Buyers spent] their own time, their own money to come to this competition. They got there and they got to see 90 plus coffees, and were excited about them.
STiR: Africa was an interest of yours early on. Would you share a bit more about that?
I was fascinated with Africa from the time I was in sixth grade.
I wanted to go somewhere there were African studies. [There] really were not a lot of universities that had African studies, but at Wheaton they had an African American study minor.
STiR: You studied anthropology there. How did you move from that to becoming a Quality Manager in Coffee?
I was an apprentice. I learned how to cup and grade coffee from someone else, which is what we used to do in the old days before there were these awesome classes by the Specialty Coffee Association of America (SCAA) and barista camps.
STiR: You have been involved in many projects involving coffee and women in Africa. Serving on the organizing committee for Java Jog for a Cause is one. Would you share another example from earlier in your career?
In 2010, I was with all of these women in Uganda and I saw them building fires in the corner of their houses and breathing in the smoke. I thought, “This isn’t right. People shouldn’t be inhaling the smoke and burning fires in the corners of their houses to cook a meal for what could be five or 15 people.”
So I did a fundraiser to raise money to build energy-efficient stoves, which basically looked like adobe and they had two places for pots, but the idea is that it vents smoke out of the house or out of the cooking area, and it’s more energy-efficient because they use half the amount of firewood--they’re saving money, they’re saving their lungs, and it actually cooks faster, [which means] less time in the kitchen [and more time] to do other things. We built 50 of stoves in the first part of the project and after raising money for more stoves, we will complete 75 more at the end of August. What is really exciting to me is that more than 15 people in 3 different communities have been trained to construct the stoves and now they have the power and ability to build the stoves themselves.
STiR: Why do you get involved in projects like these?
My goal is peace. If we can somehow get to a more peaceful place, it has to start with a discussion, it has to start with talking about it, and so coffee has really been part of that, a really strong part of that which is exciting.
STiR: What do you want to do next in your career?
It’s my dream to teach the very first Q class in DRC.