Cool beans

Workers speed drying of the late harvest coffee beans in the open sun at Doka Estate, part of the Santa Eduviges farms in Costa Rica. See much more in the archive.

Found in this Sunday's New York Times business section are the "cherries" from the last half of my week down in Costa Rica back in February and a small photo essay on Starbucks Coffee and their farmer education program. Despite being pretty exhausted from the hike, Andy Martin (the writer) and I had a really great time with the Starbucks folks as we saw just a tiny corner of their operation in central Costa Rica and the way that they teach sustainable methods and quality control to help farmers around the world not only produce better beans but also become able to earn a much higher premium for their efforts and families.

No matter what you think about Starbucks as a company you have to be impressed by the lengths they go around the world to source their product. They look at the whole thing a bit like I try to with my freelance work -- I don't want a single job from someone, I want to build relationships that can deepen and strengthen over time. The same is true with their relationships with farmers (which in many of these places is really just huge extended families who have worked the same ground for generations), some of which are 20+ years old.

Photographically speaking we were off in our timing down in Costa Rica and had missed the first big harvest of the year; so many of the images I wanted just didn't exist. Instead I did portraits and details and tried to make something interesting, while also trying just to soak up the environment while simultaneously not getting attacked by bugs. Big ups to Sbux rockstar Scott McMartin (seen below) who was fun to hang out (bullshit) with during the trip.

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