Farmers from a lush valley located between two Guatemalan volcanoes have made extra cash for years by pretending their coffee is from Antigua, a neighboring region famous for its chocolaty tasting beans. Anacafe, Guatemala’s grower association, is battling impostors, using satellite mapping, soil analysis and weather records to produce a “coffee atlas.” The atlas will define eight distinct coffee regions. Modeled on “appellations” used to distinguish fine wines, it would register each region to satisfy a gourmet market that wants to know exactly where and how coffee is grown. Read more at Reuters Canada.
Dynamotive, a small Canadian company, has been thinking about bits of plant waste and come up with a solution: bio-oil. It has begun operations at West Lorne in Ontario, converting waste from a woodflooring company into a liquid fuel that runs a 2.5 megawatt power plant, supplying the town with electricity. But what does this have to do with coffee? Anything based on cellulose will do to create fuel, including coffee grounds, the object of talks with another large company. Read more at Times Online.
Posted by beanybabe at 12:40 AM PST
