Finca Rosenheim

Coffee trees are as confused about the weather as we farmers are.
What used to be a predictable harvest season is now all over the place — cherries ripen later, flowering starts earlier, and everything stretches longer and costs more.
This year’s harvest is tiny mainly because last year’s rains hit right during flowering. And now, with super El Niño on us, things feel even more uncertain.
Agriculture has always been high‑risk… but the future looks even riskier. Farmers carry the weight, yet receive so little of the profit.
Let’s hope we — and our coffee trees — can adapt.

Romane shows how we measure yield on our coffee trees to compare the productivity of different varieties.
Yield is one of the key factors when deciding which varieties to plant or replace in a plot. It becomes even more important in years when coffee prices are strong and producers need to focus on volume.

An example of what kind of work we have been doing while we wait for the coffee cherries to reach perfect ripeness.
Here we shift our focus to the other activity on the farm: reforestation. Given the inherent risks in coffee cultivation, diversifying into tree planting is a good idea for long-term stability.

Red cherries are finally back!
We had to stop for a bit and let the trees catch up, but now we can harvest the best quality possible.

It’s the dry season… so naturally it’s raining like crazy.
And the little coffee cherries that finally ripened are dropping to the floor en masse right now.
At this point, I just laugh.
*tweather

The flow of cherries harvested every day is finally steady enough that we could fill the big drum dryer today. ...finally!

Romane invites us to consider plant physiology from a practical perspective: understanding how a tree grows, adapts to the soil, and the various factors that influence our yield is essential for us as coffee producers.
She’s also looking at the coffee’s taste when we sample it, and how are the different varieties perceived in the market. Each detail translates into real-world utility and helps us to make the best decision when planting new varieties.

Romane is spending four months with us in the farm as part of her agronomy studies in France. She is helping us evaluate different coffee varieties that we have growing in an experimental plot where five different coffee varieties were planted two years ago for testing. Now that they’re ready for harvest, it’s time to compare their productivity, rust resistance, and cup quality. Some may become the new workhorse of the farm; others could shine as future micro-lots.

This year, the coffee just isn’t ripening—maybe it’s the weather. As producers, we’re as puzzled as the coffee trees themselves. It is what it is.

New coffee huller on the farm!
We finally got a new coffee huller for our sample quality control on the farm.
For years we used an old machine that worked well, just slowly. Last year I upgraded… and let’s just say it was not the best decision. It broke halfway through harvest.
Now we’ve got a solid machine from Industria Metalica Sara SRL and it’s working perfectly. Small upgrade, big difference.