You already know coffee and chocolate are a perfect match. Now, how about fruit? Sure, fruits are great flavours for either of these bean-y treats (passionfruit chocolate, anyone? ?) – but fresh fruit is probably more likely to be a coffee alternative. But have you ever thought about what fruits coffee could go with? [inlinetweet prefix=”” tweeter=”” suffix=””]In Peru and Guatemala, fruits from the coffee system can be 10% of the value of the entire farm.[/inlinetweet] And we could all use some extra income on the side.
A coffee ‘system’?
First of all, what do we mean by ‘coffee system’? You may be having visions of an Aeropress or one of Miele’s epic integrated machines. But that’s not quite what we’re getting at here. And obviously we’re also not talking about your normal coffee substitute, like green tea.
We’re talking about everything related to coffee farms: soils, bees (to pollinate the plants), coffee plants themselves, and other nearby plants. Sometimes these nearby plants are shade trees that can improve coffee quality. And other times they produce fruit of their own, which farmers can either eat or sell – giving them an alternative to relying on coffee income alone. (After all, you can’t live on coffee… right?)
Fresh fruit is an average of 10% (and as much of 40%!) of the value of coffee farms in Peru and Guatemala.
That’s exactly what happens in Peru and Guatemala.
Eat your fruit
So probably nobody is going to be excited about getting durians off a tree. Luckily, in Peru and Guatemala the fruits are way more appealing.
In Peru, coffee farmers grow a lot of bananas, plantains, avocadoes, and citrus fruits. In Guatemala, they also produce mangoes, plums, persimmons, and pacayas (not to be confused with papayas).
And what happens next? Well, Guatemalan farmers sell more of their fruits. And Peruvian farmers eat more (meaning they should have to buy less food). Either way, between the two countries, fresh fruits provide an average of 10% of the total value of the coffee system. But sometimes that can go as high as 40%! And they can also create extra income when coffee incomes are low.
So not only can shade in a coffee system improve coffee quality, but it can also produce yummy fruits for people to eat. Which means that technically, those fruits are an alternative to coffee – just not the one you’re thinking of.