“Better than a thousand days of diligent study is one day with a great teacher.“
-Japanese Proverb
The world is full of people who know more than you, and if you're willing to listen, you can save yourself a lot of time. When you hear of anyone doing anything for the first time, there is almost always another person, usually older, who was generous enough to guide them. I can honestly say that for every project, product, and adventure I've undertaken, it’s these human beings, these teachers who have always presented themselves. And I've always made sure to treasure them.
It was 2014, I had just returned from my first journey to Yemen where I had surveyed over two dozen coffee regions and begun the hard work of identifying supply chain challenges that were—at the time—causing Yemeni coffee quality to be wildly inconsistent. My friend and mentor, Willem Boot, invited me to Boot Coffee Campus, his world-renowned coffee educational center, to give a presentation to a group of coffee quality grading students he was training. He had also invited some Bay Area coffee buyers and one very special guest.
Towards the end of my presentation, a thin, unassuming man in a black ball cap and t-shirt, stood up, took to the front of the class, and began to say to me and everyone listening that the work I was doing was amazing, important and that we all should "commend Mokhtar on what he’s doing, given the incredible obstacles in front of him." The class clapped, and I continued with my presentation.
Afterward, I approached the man to introduce myself formally. His name was Wilford Lamastus, a Panamanian coffee farmer. Incredibly, I had just had one of his coffees at Verve Coffee Roasters and told him how great I thought it was. It was an incredible moment for me because up until that point I had never met a farmer whose coffee I had tasted. I was in awe. And what I would soon find out, was that the man I was speaking with wasn't just a Panamanian coffee farmer, he was the Panamanian coffee farmer.
We quickly became friends and I looked to him as a mentor. As the years went by, we would meet at coffee events around the world, and I became close with his entire family, his wife Velia, and his children, Wilford Jr and Nicole, who are around my age.
The Lamastus family's story is an incredible one, as is the story of Panama's coffee industry, Wilford’s own personal story, and how the three are interwoven. It's a long and harrowing narrative which I hope to cover in a future blog entry. For now, suffice it to say that often when my road has gotten tough and the challenges I've faced seem insurmountable, I've thought of Wilford and all that he overcame in order to become easily one of the greatest coffee producers in history. He's won Best of Panama two years in a row from 2018-2019 and currently holds the highest ever recorded price for an auction coffee at $6,034.00/lb which was achieved just a few months ago in September.
I took the plunge of acquiring my own coffee farm in Yemen, which I’ve named Al-Khanshali I. Being in complete control for the first time, I jumped head first into experimentation with processing. My team and I experimented with as many processing techniques as we could—traditional rooftop, raised drying beds, slow dried naturals, dry anaerobic process, wet anaerobic process, wet anaerobic process with wild yeast, anaerobic in steel tanks, anaerobic in plastic tanks, carbonic maceration with CO2, the list goes on.
Each of these techniques, I learned by messaging and exchanging with fellow producers who I've befriended over the years. Among them, of course, was Wilford, who not only gave me detailed instructions over text but an entire document with photos and descriptions for each step in his process.
The results from these experiments were varied. Some coffees came out great, and others were terrible. But, one was truly exceptional. With unbelievable sweetness and unmistakable notes of cherry, banana, and sugar cane, this was easily our top lot; Al-Khanshali I, Lot 1.
When we viewed the details of the lot following our blind tastings it was quickly revealed that this lot was processed using the ASD (anaerobic slow-dried) method from none other than Wilford Lamastus. This is the same process that he used in the coffee lot, that just a week prior to our cupping, had smashed the world record at auction selling for more than $6,000 per pound.
The world is full of people who know more than you and if you're willing to listen, you can save yourself a lot of time, and maybe, together, accomplish something really awesome and delicious.
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