Today was day 2 of 2 with Starbucks and their colleagues from Cafcom. This morning we visited a dry mill that processes coffee from the parchment phase through to when it's ready to be roasted. The general process of milling coffee is as follows:

1. Coffee cherries are picked
2. The red cherries are passed through a wet mill, where the outer coating is removed and discarded
3. The inner bean and a thin covering of "parchment" or pergamino are fermented for 18-24 hours
4. When ready, the coffee is spread out to dry on a concrete patio
5. Once the coffee is dry (5-10 days depending on weather), it is taken to a dry mill where the parchment covering is removed, the beans are sorted, and bagged for shipment to roasters in the consuming countries

As part of our tour, we got a little more information on Starbucks' CAFE practices program. This program is Starbucks' way of trying to ensure stability and sustainability in the supply chain, and involves the provision of educational and healthcare programs, minimum payments per pound of coffee to producers, and other socially responsible actions. Although we greeted the efficacy of the program with a healthy skepticism, we came away with the general conclusion that given that Starbucks is a corporation, it's surprising that they are even doing this much, and that they certainly can't be expected to do more unless it's somehow in their interest (as much as we'd like to see otherwise, for farmer welfare, etc).

After the CAFE practices presentation, we got a tour of the mill, where we saw more bags of coffee than we could have imagined! They used forklifts to pile it high to the 75 meter ceiling, which made the amount of coffee they were dealing with totally mindboggling. Our tour culminated in another cupping ceremony, where we had a chance to sniff and taste coffees from a variety of different quality levels. At the end of the morning, as we left, we received another gift pound of coffee. I think the group average for pounds of coffee acquired while on this trip is hovering around 5 lbs per person at this point...

In the afternoon, over lunch, we met with Probigua's founder Rigoberto Zamora. Probigua is a dual purpose school: it teaches Spanish to tourists, and uses the proceeds to fund library construction and school fees for poorer Guatemalans. Rigoberto is the son of coffee farmers, but when he was young he got the opportunity to study for longer than the normal few years, and decided to start the school and library project to help others like himself.

Dinner tonight was on our own, so people split off into somewhat smaller groups, with some pursuing fine food, others live music, and others a quiet evening to themselves.