Replies to This Discussion

Permalink Reply by Alun Evans on October 21, 2008 at 12:16am

Good question Pablo, and one I still struggle to find an answer for when I have visitors. Generally first time visitors to an origin country come with a lot of preconceived ideas of what they are going to find. For me often the expectation of rice fields, fertile planes, smokey mountain peaks, coffee "plantations", terrocatta roofed villages... is blown away the minute visitors land at Jakarta airport. Jakarta is one of the worlds more polluted, traffic snarled metropolisis. So, I have in the past arranged creative ways to avoid people seeing this. Does it work? Yes and no... sometimes the visitors are disappointed NOT to see the slums, traffic, pollution of Jakarta. Nice Hotels? Same... booking people into the Hyatt to find tehy actually want to sleep in Losmen (small guest houses with rooms the size of a shoe box with no air con!!).

One thing for sure though is most people visiting origin want an honest representation of the coffee systems there. Spending too much time travelling, not enough time at growers places is a big issue. For Indonesia for example visits are best to just 1 or maybe 2 out of 10 possible origins. Given 6 weeks you could visit all, but a 6-10 day visit does not allow that.

• ▶ Reply

▶ Reply to Discussion