Programming Encuentros Cafeteros 2023

There are only a few weeks left until our corporate event ‘Encuentros Cafeteros’, as we have been telling you, will take place at the Hotel Rey Don Jaime in Castelldefels on the 19th and 20th of October.

For these days we have prepared a panel of speakers, activities and tastings that we would like to tell you about today.

We will start on Thursday with a welcome coffee, the delivery of accreditations and the beginning of the talks.

The panels will begin with presentations by the Mare Terras Coffee team. Rafael Moral CEO of Mare Terras Coffee will welcome the attendees and will be followed by Timur Dudkin our R&D director to talk about the ‘Development Model of Mare Terras Coffee’, in this presentation he will tell us what we have developed these years ago, where we are now and what are our objectives.

This year’s Coffee Encounters are based on the origin Colombia, since in this country we started our Development Model project, so linking with what Timur will tell us in the previous talk, we will give way to the block of presentations from Colombia. The first will be given by Luis Mauricio Rivera, Manager of the Coocentral Cooperative of Colombia. Luis Mauricio will tell us how Coocentral has gone from being a Cooperative with a production of green coffee that was mainly used for domestic consumption to being dedicated to exports.

The talks will continue with Andrés Salaverria from Jasal, Andrés is a coffee producer from El Salvador and coffee growing is a family tradition. After spending a few years in Europe, Raisins started working in the family business. Today we have been working with Andrés for more than 10 years. In his talk he will tell us aboutthe project we have developed and how we have managed to increase the volume growth in the production of coffees developedthrough cutting-edge Processes, as is the case of our coffee from the Terras Dossokam Range.

We will continue with the block on Colombia, we will have the opportunity to listen to Hertson Bernal, a small producer of Colombian specialty coffees from the coffee region of Huila. Hertson is one of the Producers with whom we have been working for many years.nitiated the Mare Terras project in Colombia, He is the Producer of our Propus lots, a clear example of how coffee growing is advancing and developing for small producers, in his talk. Progress in traditional coffee growing by a small ProducerHe will tell us about his experience and how his work has changed in recent years.

To conclude the Colombia block, we will prepare a cupping of Natural coffees for all attendees, where we will taste coffees with Winey, Exotic and Fruity profiles with very present tropical notes.

After a break for lunch, we will continue with Daniel Robles from Descamex -Mexico- who will speak to us about the impact that the process of decaffeinating coffees has on the environment and how this process is developed in Organic and specialty coffees.

The rest of the afternoon, the block of talks and presentations will focus on Africa.

Rosabella Langlat, owner of the Cheespsangor Farm will tell us about her experience, how she decided to bet on coffee growing in her life and the impact it has on the coffee growing region of Kericho.

Rosabella together with Kirubel Fikresilassie of Daye Bensa, Ethiopia and Emmanuel Rutsatira of Baho Coffee, Rwanda, will share a panel discussion with the theme ‘Cultivation of specialty coffees in Africa’, where those attending Coffee Encounters will be able to ask them questions about the topic and they will give us their points of view.

To end the first day, we will have an interactive cupping of coffees from Africa and Central America, an alternative format to a conventional coffee cupping, a very interesting way of cupping!

On Friday, October 20, we will continue with the lectures and activities, starting the presentations with our partner in RWANDA, Emmanuel Rutsatira from Baho Coffee who will talk to us about the Breast Cancer Prevention Project. We initiated this project in different Baho Coffee Washed stations, promoting training for early detection of breast cancer in women who work in the stations.

Kirubel Fikresulassie will continue to talk to us about social projects and the importance of education in coffee communities and how through coffee in Ethiopia Daye Bensa creates initiatives and projects.

After a coffee break we will resume the lectures with Lais Flaheiros, she is a Trader at Cocapil and Director of International Relations of the IWCA of Brazil, Lais will talk about the development of yeasts for coffee fermentations.

The next talk will be given by Mariano Ventura and Enrique Salazar of Bicafé Guatemala and Honduras, in their presentation they will show us different points in the production of green coffee and the differences in two neighboring countries, a very interesting talk to learn more about these two origins.

We will end the Coffee Encounters with Martha Albir, from Cafetos de Segovia, Martha and Ana Albir are the third generation of Coffee Producers in Nicaragua.
We have been working and developing microlots since 2019 with them and their team, they are responsible for our batches named after the star Fawaris.
Martha will talk about the coffee community and generational change in Nicaraguan coffee growing families.

We will finish the talks and we will have a break to give way to the Cata 2023 Open, on Friday afternoon we will have the first round in which will be the semifinalists who will compete on Saturday morning, which will take place the grand final where there will be € 11,000 in prizes!

Don’t miss this event, it’s unique!