The Costa Rican coffee from CoopePalmares is a fully pulped natural sun dried coffee. The project to produce an African natural style coffee involved 12 growing districts, approximately 20 coffee growing families per district. Additionally 20 international coffee roasters were invited to Costa Rica to witness the process, cup the coffees, and critique the results.

Fazenda Aurea is located in a region called Serra do Salitre, a high plain in Cerrado Miniero, in the state of Minas Gerais. Minas Gerais is in the west of the southeastern subdivision of Brazil, the second most populous of the 26 states of Brazil, and fourth largest by area in the federation. This is no Micro Lot, it's a big farm that produces a lot of this coffee.

Peru is a land of contrast: high mountains, dense jungles, and barren deserts all within close proximity. Peruvian territory was home to the Norte Chico civilization, one of the oldest in the world, and to the Inca Empire, the largest state in Pre-Columbian America. Northern Peru is primo coffee growing country, the weather is characterized by high temperatures all year long and heavy rains from October through March.

Peruvian Organic coffees are revered for their delicate acidity and sweet round cup. The finest organically grown coffees are exquisite, especially those from small farms and co-ops. 2009 Peruvian harvest is just beginning to land in the states, and I've passed up some first crop offerings while waiting for the more mature mid-harvest green. This is by far the best to date.

Today I have the pleasure of introducing an outstanding, high-grown (1,500 meters plus) certified organic, Fair Trade coffee from the UDEPOM Co-op. Unión de Ejidos Profesor Otilio Montaño, Mexico (UDEPOM) Co-op is a collective of 608 individual family farmers, each tending a small coffee farm of between 1 – 10 hectares (2 – 20 acres) of ridiculously steep rainforest in the mountains of Chiapas, Mexico’s southernmost State which shares a border with Guatemala.

Chiapas is a region that has traditionally suffered from poor infrastructure, unemployment, high illiteracy rates, and low life expectancy. Local coffee farmers from diverse ethnic groups formed UDEPOM to combat these problems by seeking stable, fair prices for their coffee by directly accessing the US market. The co-op pioneered organic agriculture in the area, and the indigenous Mayan co-op members use traditional knowledge as the basis for their organic farming methods.

In the very north of Toraja are the highest growing areas, where coffees are brought by the farmers down to the local markets of Sapan and Minanga to sell to collectors for the larger mills. A lot of the cup quality of Sulawesi coffees is the result of the post-harvest process, the wet-hull method, called "Giling Basah".

Sumatran coffees are processed in a unique way. From the point the coffee is picked and the cherry skin pulped off, the process follows the way it is done for most washed coffees produced around the world. As with these other washed coffees, fermentation is complete when the mucilage or fruit surrounding the parchment (or pergamino) has dissolved and the fruit-free parchment rinsed off. At this point, the bean within the parchment still has very high moisture content.

In almost all washed coffee origins throughout the world, before the parchment is hulled, it is dried, either in the sun or in machine dryers, until the moisture content is down to around 15-13% at this point the coffee is ready to ship, store and roast.

So herein lies the difference; in most places, the bean is dried in the parchment and the parchment or pergamino is milled off the beans when they are dry… not in Sumatra.

New Guinea is Earth's second-largest island. It lies just north of Australia and is divided down the center between the country of Papua New Guinea (on the east) and Indonesia's Irian Jaya province (on the west. Richly endowed with natural resources, Papua New Guinea has one of the most rugged and spectacular topographies on earth; Mountain peaks close to 4,000 meters (12,000 ft), active volcanoes, frequent earthquakes and annual rainfall exceeding six feet. Much of the seedstock on Papua New Guinea is planted from the Jamaican Blue Mountain var. typica arabica, and with the Arushi typica varietal from Tanzania. Some are more modern hybrids or the Indian "Kent" varietal. The majority of quality coffee grown in Papua New Guinea comes from larger estates, such as the Kimel Plantation, located in the famous Highlands region.