What is an SCA Premier Training Campus?

In short, an SCA member company or organization that has met all the requirements set forth by the SCA, and is thus certified to impart SCA-approved coffee education.

Campuses are located all over the world, with more being added to the list of campuses each year. In Germany, we are proud to be the first added to the list! As a campus, we strive to offer a unique experience when it comes to coffee education —all while showcasing commitment to standards of the educational experience.

As part of the certification process, we had Owen Thom visit our training facilities who shared his feedback with us:

keyboard_arrow_right"The classroom makes a very unique set up but one that is perfect and something that can be taken advantage of. Students have the chance to relax, as well and learn in a surround of peace, comfort and atmosphere."

keyboard_arrow_right"Overall List and Beisler have a great premise for green and sensory [Premium Training Center] status and meet all the necessary standards to have this."

If you would like to know more about Premier Training Campuses, you can check out the SCA website for more info on it.

Why did we decide to become certified?
At List + Beisler we believe in fostering high coffee quality standards both within and outside. What that means is an explicit commitment to quality standards within the company, all whilst taking an outward and active approach to coffee education and its promotion. We want to equip ourselves so that we can empower others.

We do not play the part: we are serious about coffee and becoming certified was our way of materialising and publicly acknowledging our commitment to high coffee quality standards and education.

Back in February 2018, we visited the Sidamo coffee producing region together with our Ethiopian Partners, Moplaco. During this trip, besides visiting producers, we were introduced to one of the projects that Moplaco has developed in this region in collaboration with the local community: The Sergera Elementary School.

This school was built over 8 years ago and its intention was to create an environment that would encourage children to attend classes. Year by year, attendance has improved and now about 2000 children attend the school. Since its early beginnings, the school has significantly improved but as the people at Moplaco put it, "it is an ongoing feat".

The school operates on two shifts, morning and afternoon, in which 1000 children attend at a time. Currently, it has 10 classrooms of which only 2 have concrete floor, the remaining have a sandy dirt floor covered by wood straps. This type of flooring, although cheap is the perfect environment for fleas to nest, which represents a problem to already overcrowded classrooms.

At List + Beisler, we believe in fostering sustainable communities within the coffee industry. On this occasion, we have decided to collaborate with Moplaco and the Community of Sergera to help renovate further classrooms, improve the floors and walls as well as provide them with furniture, with the aim of creating a safer and healthier environment for the children; a space where they can learn and work in better conditions.

The project will span from March 2018 until December 2018 and during this time, we are tasked with managing the overall project design. Moplaco will collaborate as manager of the overall project while the community of Sergera will be involved as workers.

We believe that bettering the overall existing infrastructure will give children the opportunity to learn in proper conditions.

Stay tuned for updates on the project.

In Feb 2019 we hosted Germany's very first Q-Arabica Course and Exam at our SCA-Training Campus in Berlin. Twelve participants from all over Europe practiced and got tested in 19 different disciplines in order to receive the most respected certification in coffee sensory: the Q-Grader.
Since there was such great demand we are already planning another Q-course in the second half of 2019. Please get in touch with us in case of interest.

Tanzania, August 2019

Right on time for the first days of harvest, we went to the north of Tanzania to have a look at what to expect from the upcoming crop. This was also our first visit to the Edelweiss farm – plenty of things to be excited about!

Check out the route on this map.

Machare Estate, Kilimanjaro. Starting off in the Kilimanjaro region, we were welcomed with unusual sunshine for these times. Machare Estate allows you to have a cup of coffee with a direct view onto Kilimanjaro. The farm is surrounded by two rivers and nestled on the lush slopes of the Kilimanjaro Mountain. Bente, the owner of Machare, aims to cultivate 100 % organically certified coffee in a few years. She has quite some talent to teach herself things that go beyond her in-depth knowledge of coffee: an irrigation system that supplies the whole plantation with only one pump and a Tanzanian-tailored organic fertilizer are only two of the projects she successfully executed in the past years. Imagine a farm that has experimented with so many best practices from all over the world, that it is considered state-of-the-art coffee processing in East Africa. This results not only in a unique set-up involving much of the surrounding communities but also in a high-quality cup that constantly convinces with beautiful aromas and high complexity. Machare's coffees are full of tomato, bergamot and berries that play with smooth citric acidity. We have had these coffees for several years now and can only support her engagement that reflects these colorful aromas in one cup.

During our visit in August, parts of the Machare Estate had ripened much earlier than in previous years. Picking in lower altitudes had already begun. Not only on Machare, but also on the many surrounding smallholder farms, people had started to pick the first ripe cherries. Samples should come to our lab in November, first coffees should reach our warehouse in Germany by March.

Last year, we entered a joint project to strengthen Machare's surrounding communities. To us, a strong coffee community with established infrastructure enables synergies as well as stable supply from the region. The goal of the project was to imrpove coffee processing for Machare's neighboring Central Pulping Units (CPU's). These CPU's are owned and operated by the surrounding smallholder farmers to depulp, ferment, wash and dry the parchment of many in one facility. Together with Bente, we decided to supply the CPU's with shade nets and plastic canvas to support their drying processes on African drying beds. Originally, shade nets were used in olive processing, covering the olives and drying them in a more gentile way. Farmers at the Kilimanjaro already dry their parchment in the shade of many trees. Nevertheless, these nets still come in handy. Drying the parchment involves regular turning to ensure constant quality. Placing the parchment on nets rather than directly on wire has several advantages:

keyboard_arrow_rightThe wire is hard to replace or repair as the material is rising in price

keyboard_arrow_rightHandling becomes easier, no beans are missed out on or fall through the wire, parchment can be poured all at once

keyboard_arrow_rightAlready tucked in nets, parchment can be quickly wrapped in canvas in order to protect from rain and humidity at night

The CPU's range in size: the biggest one in the area gathers 74 farmers while others collect the cherries of 10 farmers only. A total of 158 shade nets and 100 plastic canvas were given to 13 CPU's neighboring Machare. Using the shade nets means another step to professionalization and towards a more consistent quality. Easing the work of coffee farmers supports keeping the farm job attractive for generations to follow. Ensuring a stable coffee infrastructure usually creates greater coffees for roasters and coffee lovers. Thank you Bente for your support!

Smallholder cooperatives, Kilimanjaro. Our second visit took us a bit east of the Kili to the producers of our regional coffees "Kulala Kifaru", "Lulu Kaskazini" and "Mamsera Amcos". While the first two coffees represent a mix from several cooperatives, Mamsera Amcos coffee stems from a single-cooperative.
Seven members of the UTZ-certified Mamsera Amcos welcomed us at their headquarters and warehouse. Their modern organization is led by a female manager and supported by a retired accountant of the Tanzanian Coffee Board. In total 2,000 members bring their parchment to the cooperative to be weighed and sold. A similar set-up was found at another cooperative called Mamba South Cooperative. We got to speak to several farmers and members of the cooperatives. All of them named similar challenges they are currently facing: costs for fertilizers, aging trees and especially the youth leaving to the cities.

To tackle these challenges, the cooperatives have come up with practical solutions: regular trainings teach the farmers how to produce their own fertilizers as done at the farm of Christian Arestides Massae (see picture). In cooperation with an NGO, they are also setting up a nursery to slowly replace some of the 100-year-old trees by fresh and more productive ones. In addition, the farmers exchange their experiences in pruning with "promoter farmers" within the cooperatives. Convincing the youth to follow in coffee growing remains the most challenging problem though. By employing young people, the cooperatives try to create a bridge between the generations. They also award the best 45 farmers as an incentive for good quality and prestige. Yet, according to them, the average age of a coffee farmer in the Kili area currently lies above 60. Next to climate change, we also consider this as one the critical points for future coffee production. The cooperatives have done a great job in this area and we hope to have a continuous coffee flow in the future, too!

By buying these coffees, you certainly contribute to supporting the smallholder farmers from these cooperatives, too. Coffees from this area tend to be slightly floral and come with an intense citric acidity. We expect the first samples from this area in November and are excited to see what this year's production will bring!

Edelweiss Estate, Ngorongoro Crater. Heading west from Moshi, our next destination led us to the Arusha Coffee Mill. This dry mill is owned by the Edelweiss Estate and mills the parchment of 4-5 neighboring farms next to their own. We got to cup the first Edelweiss lots from lower altitudes. Neel Vohora, the third generation owner of the farm, loves to experiment with different processing styles. This upcoming crop there will be refreshing samples of carbonic maceration, anaerobic fermentation and honey coffees to be checked out. First samples should reach us in the second half of September, with shipments reaching us in Jan/Feb.

The Edelweiss Estate consists of two neighboring farms: Edelweiss and Helgoland/Ascona. The funky German names are a heritage from German settlement in the early 20th century. Both farms are adjacent to the Ngorongoro Conservation Area with an abundance of wildlife such as elephants, buffalos, lions, the endangered black rhinos and zebras. This wildlife is both a blessing and a curse. On the one hand, this land remains a diversified part of its natural surroundings. On the other hand, the coffee trees have undergone a quite stringent rejuvenation program over the past ten years, production is said to reach a new peak this year. Yet, buffalos and elephants in particular cut back yields by destroying not only a few trees but sometimes also complete hillsides. Young buffalos that grow horns, are suffering from itching, so they rub their horns on coffee trees. Elephants dig huge holes with their tusks to lick minerals out of the soils. Both farms already dedicate 30% of their area to a natural buffer zone for wildlife protection. It remains tricky though to balance the needs of farmers and wildlife in such proximity. Nevertheless, Neel is positive to find a solution that works for both.

Until then, we keep our fingers crossed that buffalos and elephants are not too keen on the fine cherries Edelweiss has been producing and will leave more of that juicy and complex coffee for us. Stay tuned for some unique rhubarb in your cup!

Sustainability is inseparably linked to our company's DNA. List + Beisler has been promoting and supporting sustainability projects in coffee-growing regions for a very long time.

We mainly focus on coffee-related trainings for coffee farmers. Our primary topics of training include best practices for farm health, harvesting, processing, and caring for coffee quality during production. The main objective of the projects is to improve the farmers' quality and productivity through enhancements of their agronomy and production skills, or "software," such as better pruning techniques and composting methods.

The limitation we regularly face is the existing infrastructure, or the "hardware" – the coffee trees themselves. We typically find randomly mixed varieties that have been planted conveniently, but not strategically optimized for providing the farmer higher quality, more productivity, and efficiency.

This must change if we hope to improve an existing farm's chances of not only having a sustainable business model but especially in our pursuits for improvements. This caused us to begin looking for ways to transform the farm design with those farmers who wish to see these improvements made. After an extensive search, we were able to find an organization specifically addressing these needs utilizing a scientific, progressive, non-GMO approach and potential solutions.

We are very happy to announce our partnership with World Coffee Research (WCR).

We had the great opportunity to meet Vern Long, the new CEO of WCR in Berlin during the WOC. She attended our company's get-together, and with refreshing drinks in our hands, we explored collaborating.

This is what we learned about the WCR: they are a collaborative, not-for-profit research organization, formed by the global coffee industry in 2012. Using advances in agricultural science, it is possible to improve coffee yields, quality, climate resilience, and farmer livelihoods. WCR focuses exactly on this work: they use advanced and applied research in coffee genetics (no GMO!) and agronomy to create new coffee varieties and imagine new agronomic approaches. Adding these new varieties to the farm increases biodiversity at farm level.

Improved and focused diversity does a couple of things:

1) With more biodiversity, a farm is able to weather the storm of new pests as well as a changing climate.

2) With focused variety planting, a farm can plant the "correct" varieties for their specific geography and climatic conditions. This allows a coffee tree to be put into an environment that fits its needs. A happy tree is a healthy tree, and healthy trees produce more and better coffee.

The WCR has an excellent network of leading scientists and institutions in coffee-producing countries around the world. Together, they develop solutions that are quickly implementable and flow straight to innovative and quality-focused coffee farmers.

Not only are we partnering with WCR, but we are inviting you to partner as well!
How can you participate? How does it work?

keyboard_arrow_rightRoasters agree to donate USD 0,01— USD 0,10 per pound (EUR 0,02 – EUR 0,20 per kilo) of coffee purchased through List + Beisler.

keyboard_arrow_rightList + Beisler matches the donation of the roaster with USD 0,005 per pound (EUR 0,01 per kilo) of the coffee purchased through us.

keyboard_arrow_rightList + Beisler keeps track of coffee sales to roasters, adding however many cents per pound/kilo the roaster has indicated to the coffee purchased. The contribution is included as a cost of doing business on the roaster's invoice, similar to docking costs, brokerage fees, or warehousing costs.

keyboard_arrow_rightList + Beisler collects the funds and disperses them to WCR four times a year.

keyboard_arrow_rightOnce set up with List + Beisler, there is no work for you.

You can find more info on worldcoffeeresearch.org or contact us at any time!

June 14, 2021

Dear coffee friends, 

Last week we started transferring our coffees to our new warehouse partner, Vollers Hamburg. We are glad to see improvements when moving to Vollers: the dead-line for next day deliveries extends by 1 hour.
Schwarzes' outbound capacities remain limited. So herewith, the move continues throughout this and next week.

All coffees already stored at Vollers will be consequently released from Vollers. However, please keep in mind that not all coffees have changed location yet. We aim to have all coffees moved by the beginning of July.

Feel free to get in touch with us in case of any question. We will assist to find the best possible solution as usual.

See below for the exclusive L+B pick-up lane at the new warehouse. We look forward to receiving you and your logistics partners at Vollers Hamburg.

New Address:
Vollers Hamburg GmbH
Rossweg 20
20457 Hamburg
Germany

 All the best from Hamburg,

Team List + Beisler