Talk about East Timor hidden world beautiful coffee beans.

There is really such a peach source in the world, with first-class coffee beans on the trees, top salt in the lakes and excellent honey in the nests. It is blessed that all of them can be sold for a lot of money, and the land and rivers are not polluted. But here is extremely poor and backward, other countries do not seem to have much interest in this Taoyuan, perhaps do not figure out how to climb mountains and wade away resources at a low cost, or the forests and lakes here are not big enough to make a fortune.

As a result, a war photographer who was bound to this place 20 years ago has been running for this pure land with his photos and legs, racing against the clock year after year, before the consortium takes a fancy to it, making the residents become owners of natural resources and hold the rights of sellers.

This Taoyuan is East Timor.

East Timor has an excellent variety of coffee and enjoys a high reputation, accounting for 80% of the country's total exports; and because of poverty and backwardness and primitive technology, most farms do not introduce chemical pesticides, making East Timor the world's largest producer of organic coffee. In spite of this, local residents have not benefited from the godsend beans, and the average annual income is less than US $500 (about HK $3900).

The remote decentralization of foreign investment in the farm is prohibitive.

People in the East live in poverty not because farmers are squeezed by plutocrats. The truth is that areas rich in high-quality coffee beans are remote, the journey from urban areas to these mountainous areas is dangerous, and coffee plantations are mostly run in the form of small farms, and the distribution of farms is not concentrated. Foreign institutions are deterred.

Foreign capital cannot enter, and it is difficult for local coffee beans to rush out of the country. on the one hand, there is no basic road connection in the mountains, and on the other hand, farmers do not have the basic tools to properly dispose of the harvested coffee beans. The coffee beans harvested are excellent in variety but uneven in size, rough and dilapidated in appearance, and can not be sold at a good price at all. Daniel Groshong, founder of the charity Hummingfish, says that coffee beans sold by farmers now sell for about US $2 (about HK $15) per kilogram, but in fact, the quality of the coffee beans is worth about US $4 to US $5. With a little quality control and packaging, Dan says, it can be sold for US $10 abroad.

The New York Times captures the good side of East Timor

Dan, a photojournalist for the New York Times, moved to Hong Kong from the United States in 1996. Two years later, he formed a bond with East Timor and was sent to East Timor, which was still part of Indonesia at that time, to cover the referendum on independence. He published the first photo book for East Timor, promoted tourism for East Timor, and last year went to remote mountains to find coffee farms in an attempt to save Dongguo beans.

I don't know if Dan knows the saying, "if I don't go to hell, who will go to hell?" but with this mentality, he probably drove alone from the capital Dili to the central mountain Laclubar. Although the drive is only five hours, the mountain road is rugged, he said. either the car is wider than the road on the edge of the cliff, falling into the mountain at any time, or the water level of the river is high, ​​ and windows are high when wading, and the car is always on fire. The mountain is long and the water is far away. When we get to the top of the mountain, we finally find a village full of coffee trees.

There are not enough human tools to harvest the fruits in the mountains.

When it comes to the harvest season, the trees all over the village are covered with red coffee fruit, so why can't the villagers live a better life? The village chief complained because there were so many fruits that they could not be fully harvested. The manpower needed to harvest is so great that even if the people of the whole village go to the trees to pick the fruit, they will not be able to wash, remove the flesh and dry the fruit before it goes bad, and they will see the endless fruit rot. What they lack is manpower and tools, and the technology to make coffee beans sell for money. They have tried to send some of the fruit to the big coffee companies outside the district, but this method is subject to the weather, and when it rains, the road is slippery and the road is slippery and there is no way to get back.

Conceiving Packaging and promoting Coffee Bean Price

After Dan returned to Hong Kong, he received assistance from Colour Brown Coffee Shop, held lectures and raised money. He spent tens of thousands of yuan to buy simple tools such as shellers and drying racks, and shipped them to Laclubar for harvest experiments. As long as the time for making beans can be shortened and the nuts dried into beans as soon as possible, coffee beans will no longer be subject to time restrictions when they are shipped to other areas, and the money sold can also be doubled.

After increasing the efficiency of harvesting, Dan is now thinking of slightly polishing and packaging coffee beans to establish a coffee brand that belongs to the region. Market sales skills can help coffee beans double and double their prices. Villages in Laclubar district have heard that there is a way out for coffee. If they see the dawn, they have signed agreements with Dan. Up to now, there are 23 villages that are willing to jointly develop unique brands in the district. East Timorese farmers have seen a broad road that has never been seen before, and those of us in Hong Kong have also seen that in the near future, we can taste the first-class new star of East Timorese coffee brand anytime and anywhere: Maubere Mountain Coffee.

Hummingfish is a natural value-added

Hummingfish Foundation was founded by Dan in 2010 with the purpose of "adding value to nature". Its purpose is to help undeveloped and backward areas to build brands and promote their existing natural resources on the premise of ecological protection, so as to help the community to be self-sufficient. Laclubar, East Timor, is one of the main areas where Hummingfish provides assistance, along with Chinese mainland, Haiti and Cambodia.

Ice drop drink is the sweetest.

East Timor has 3/4 of the land for hills, coffee-rich mountains, high altitude, long sunshine, fully meet the conditions for growing coffee trees, coupled with the use of organic cultivation, so the excellent quality of East Timor coffee, coffee lovers are flocking to, of which the Laclubar area is the world-famous Arabica coffee (Arabica coffee). Colour Brown coffee shop teaches the way, where coffee can be brewed by hand (such as siphon pot), which has sweet aroma and taste lubrication; ice drop method can bring out the rich and round sweetness of East Timorese coffee.

East Timor the youngest in Asia

East Timor, the youngest country in Asia, was colonized by Portugal in the 16th century, annexed by neighboring Indonesia in 1975 and became independent in 1999 in a referendum under the supervision of the United Nations. In the early days of independence, civil strife continued, and the political situation began to stabilize in recent years.