Posts Tagged: coffee

Summer farm fun

This time of year, most farmers don't get much sleep. Tomatoes, pears and peaches often ripen in the Sacramento Valley faster than the harvest crews can pick them, even working 12-hour days. But this is also the season that some farmers are happy to show off their farms to visitors, inviting guests to enjoy the delightful flavors and beauty of the harvest in a pause from the bustle. UC Cooperative Extension hosts an online agritourism directory and calendar, www.calagtour.org, to help Californians find farms and ranches to visit. Here are a few upcoming opportunities for summer fun on California farms, pulled from the calendar:

• 

  The farmers of Five Foot Farm.
  Plumas County Farm Crawl - Up the Feather River Canyon, on the eastern side of the Sierras, are the beautiful communities of Quincy and Indian Falls. Small-scale growers, members of Plumas Grown, offer tours and fresh snacks from their fields from 8 a.m. to 12 p.m. on Saturday August 6, 2016. Each farm will offer tours on the half hour (8:30, 9:30, 10;30 and 11:30). Participating farms include a school garden project, Five Foot Farm, Shoofly Farm and Sundberg Growers. Strawberries, tomatoes, garlic, carrots, huge heads of lettuce, hoop houses, and intense cultivation on small plots will be featured. Bring the kiddos, friends and family (no dogs please). All of these operations use sustainable growing practices and are happy to chat with you about why they love to grow good food. Admission by donation, no pre-registration required. Learn more: (707) 217-6415 or www.plumasgrown.com/

• Good Humus Peach Party (Yolo County) - Every year on the first Saturday in August, Jeff and Annie Main, owners of 20-acre Good Humus Produce, hold a celebration to give thanks for the year's fruit harvest. They invite you all to come out, see the farm, have a refreshment and enjoy all that Good Humus has to offer. This is a pot luck party; guests are asked to bring a dish to share and their own plates, silverware and cups. No cost, but donations are welcomed. The Mains will provide peach pies, peach ice cream, peach salsa, peach pizzas, and more. You are invited to come early and be part of the experience of making all the peachy fun food. Other activities include a treasure hunt, farm tours, stock tank dipping, music and neighborly chat. Saturday August 6, 1 p.m. - 11 p.m. Learn more

• Tomato Sauce Party at Eatwell Farm (Solano County) - It's time to join in on the tradition. Let's get canning!
  
  Tomato season is in full swing on the farm, and the plants are bursting with ripe and juicy tomatoes ready for picking. Join us as we harvest the bounty of the farm, toss it in a pot, and create delicious tomato sauce to savor the rest of the year. The produce is free, so bring as many jars as you can process over the two day event. The ticket price covers the cost of hosting the event and paying staff. Cost: adults $20, Children $5. August 6 - 7, 2016  Learn more and buy tickets here

• Grape Days of Summer (Placer County) - Celebrate PlacerGROWN — local wine, local food, local agriculture. Take a self-guided tour of up to 20 wineries, taste foothill wines and enjoy a unique and educational experience at each stop on the Placer County Wine Trail. Saturday & Sunday, August 6 & 7, 11 a.m. to 5 p.m. WHERE: Placer County Wine Trail - Auburn, Lincoln, Loomis, Meadow Vista, Newcastle & Rocklin. Activities: Learn About Wine & Wine Making • Live Music at Some Locations • Food at Every Winery • Barrel Tastings • Vineyard Tours • Vertical Tastings • . . . and more! Tickets: Weekend Pass - $45.00,  Sunday Only - $25.00/person, Designated Driver - $10.00/person  website, more info

• Wine and Produce Passport Weekend (Sacramento River Delta) - Just minutes from Sacramento and Elk Grove, along scenic CA Hwy 160, Delta Farm and Winery Trail members will open their farms and wineries to the public. Farms are open from 9:00 a.m. to 5:00 p.m. and wineries from 11:00 a.m. to 5:00 p.m.  During Passport Weekend, enjoy farm tours, local wine tastings, farm equipment
  
  displays, and contests. Fresh produce - including tomatoes, pears, melons, squash, stone fruits, sweet corn, zucchini, beans, eggs, and organic produce - will be readily available at many of the farms. Saturday and Sunday August 13 and 14. Tickets: adults $25 in advance, $35 week of purchase and are valid for both days. Kids under 21 are free. Tickets are available for purchase online at www.deltapassport2016.eventbrite.com. Each visitor over 21 will receive a wine glass at their first winery stop. sacriverdeltagrown.org/

• Good Land Organics Coffee Tour (Santa Barbara County) - The tour will be lead by Good Land Organics owner and grower, Jay Ruskey. You will be welcomed with fresh coffee, freshly made juice and seasonal fruit.  Jay will give an overview of the coffee research collaboration that has been conducted with the assistance of the University of California Small Farm Program.  He will then lead you on a moderate level hike where Ruskey will explain the dynamics of new crop adaptation and integration of organic tree fruit agriculture. The walk will
  

  Coffee trees at the Good Land Organics farm.
  take you through the eclectic mix of exotic fruit varieties that grow on the farm. Each person will have an opportunity to taste a fresh picked coffee berry and discover the original flavors of the coffee bean, while discussing coffee cultivation and post harvest processing. On your return hike, there will be time for open discussion and for any further questions.  At noon you have the option to enjoy your picnic lunch at our pond. August 13, 2016, 10:00 a.m. - 1:00 p.m. Cost: $50 per person. website, reservations

Learn about more farms, ranches and adventurous fun at www.calagtour.org.

Is there a potato in my coffee?

One reason for the successful economic miracle occurring in Rwanda today is its thriving specialty coffee industry that, along with tea, accounts for a large percentage of the country’s exports. Despite this success, however, coffee from Rwanda and neighboring Burundi is plagued by a condition called potato taste defect (PTD) in which a few coffee beans impart an odor and flavor reminiscent of rotten potatoes.

So pernicious is PTD that its occurrence can downgrade the value of the entire crop by a fourth or a third. Worse yet, PTD is only apparent after processing, roasting, grinding and brewing, and can occur long after the coffee has been shipped abroad.

Thought to be caused by chemicals produced by microbes that gain access to the coffee cherries by way of a stink bug called antestia, PTD has gained the attention of an international effort, called the potato taste project, that for two years has sought the cause and cure for the defect

Two undergraduate students at the University of California, Riverside, have played key roles in the potato taste project.

“Lauren Wong and Tony Truong made a key breakthrough discovery that led to our asking one of UC Riverside’s plant pathologists, James Borneman, to do a microbiome of coffee beans in Rwanda,” says Thomas Miller, a professor of entomology at UCR and one of the members of the international team working to mitigate the potential impact of the defect on Rwanda’s specialty coffee industry.

Wong and Truong focused on the microbial difference between the defective coffee beans and the beans that passed the stringent criteria that allows them to be deemed specialty coffee. Wong swiped good and bad raw coffee beans onto culture plates and found a dramatic difference: the good beans produced clean fungal colonies while the bad beans yielded mixed cultures of bacteria and fungi.

“We juxtaposed beans that had passed the stringent criteria against numerous batches of beans that had potato taste defect,” says Wong, who graduated in spring 2013 with a bachelor’s degree in biological sciences and is currently working in Miller’s lab. “When we roasted the beans, we found that all the potato taste defect microbes were killed.”

Truong examined whether the potato taste defect microbes can be manipulated to affect coffee taste.

“My experiment is a stepping stone to finding a solution for potato taste defect,” says Truong, who will graduate with a bachelor’s degree in biochemistry in 2015. “Are bacterial/fungal infections the source of the problem? Can the affected coffee beans be treated to remove the effects of potato taste defect? These are some of the questions I am exploring.”

Neither Wong nor Truong have traveled to Rwanda yet, but are in close communication with researchers there. With its high altitude and volcanic soil, Rwanda is an ideal place to grow specialty coffee. To tackle the antestia-potato taste challenge, Miller and the rest of the international team traveled to Rwanda in early 2012 to join coffee researchers at the National University of Rwanda (NUR).

Then, Miller stayed in Rwanda for two weeks that comprised meetings, workshops and numerous field trips. He has been in nearly daily email contact with Rwanda since.

“That visit helped us all get a better understanding of potato taste and its causes,” he says. “We gathered coffee bean samples for analysis in the United States and began collaborating with Rwandan scientists. We also assisted Rwanda in reaching out and making contact with people willing to help solve the potato taste defect problem.”

The culmination of the first two years of the PTD project will be a coffee summit on 1-2 April 2014 at NUR. The meeting is being organized by NUR and the Global Knowledge Initiative, a Washington DC, non-profit organization dedicated to finding solutions to problems in developing countries.

More information about PTD can be found at www.coffee.ucr.edu.

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