Getting Passionate About Coffee

Javier out with the coffee plants

"I have measured my life out in coffee spoons."

~ T.S. Eliot

I had no clue so much went into making a cup of coffee until my visit to Juayua in western El Salvador last month. It was my second visit to Hotel Anahuac but on this visit, I took a tour of a coffee farm after witnessing what was going on in the hotel between resident coffee roasters, Markus (IG @the_flyingbean) and Javier (IG @javi_magnap). Meeting those guys and getting educated on the "cold brew" process got me really interested in what they were into. 

Javier teaching about roasting coffee

I've had a semi-interest in several beverages that began when I worked at a Budweiser distribution company in Tennessee. I visited a Budweiser brewing plant in St. Louis and the immensity of the place was quite overwhelming. Later on in college, I did case studies in business classes on more beers and wines. I was far more attracted to the wines and the time and craftsmanship that went into it. These are centuries old practices that have been cultivated and improved upon over thousands of years. 

These guys in Juayua got me thinking about coffee differently. Its not just a job to Javier, a local of Juayua. Its a passion. To the surprise of his family, he gave up his work in pharmaceuticals to pursue his love as a coffee roaster. Markus, an Austrian is not even 25 yet, but has been traveling around the world pursuing his passion in coffee becoming an expert in the field as, opposed to simply an aficionado. I could identify and relate to this passion because I share the same thing with photography. Passion breeds respect, regardless of the chosen field. Javier and Markus take the growing and roasting of coffee into an art form no different than my own work.

"When life gives you lemons, trade them for coffee beans!"

Markus lectures on Chemex brewing

I was forced to look at my own relationship with coffee. Both my grandmother and her sister would give me coffee in the mornings starting maybe when I was between 5 and 7. It was either Folgers, Maxwell House, or Sanka instant. Either way, it was sweet with a ample serving of Carnation condensed milk. We got it served in cups with saucers. They taught me to drink it by pouring from the cup into the saucer and sipping it. That cooled it down much more quickly.

So I've always had my coffee sweet with cream. If there was no sugar, I wasn't drinking it. The only exception to this was during some days during my military career where we were so cold, to get anything hot in our bodies was much welcomed and we were grateful for it. Not so with anytime other than that. Markus' passion made me rethink that notion as he, still being a young man, preferred his coffee black and maybe warm, as opposed to pipping hot. He explained that this allowed him to better appreciate the flavors of whatever coffee he was tasting.

Markus demonstrates techniques of Chemex brewing

And, of courser there are several different ways of brewing coffee. I first found out about a french press from Art Model, Melissa (miss her btw). During one of our shooting breaks she offered coffee and she familiarized me with the french press for the first time. Javier introduced me to the Chemex and the V60. Markus taught me about cold brew that can take up to 12 hours! And until now, I never really knew what espresso was. These guys ensured the water was a specific temperature, used a timer, and used circular pours to ensure even extraction of flavor. I'm telling you. It reminded me of being in the darkroom. Only instead of manipulating light over silver halide grains on photo paper to make images, these guys were manipulating water over coffee grains to get complex flavors. 

Javier took us to the farm where he works and roasted some new coffee for us and let us compare that taste with coffee that was a few days older. My taste buds are not so trained to detect the minute subtitles from such a comparison. Javier roasted the coffee beans according to a specific roasting profile that he designed depending on which ever type of coffee bean he was roasting. Watching masters at work is always fascinating whether you are roasting coffee or laying brick. 

Picking out inferior beans

I won't make it back down there before the coffee season ends. When the rain starts, the coffee season stops. But I'll be back down there to see Javier again and get some more insight into his passion. In the meantime, I'm going to continue my own exploration in coffee. I think its going to be the French Press for me. Check my Instagram, @PhotoAnthems for a few vids!

Midway Through...

Art Model, Covenant, El Salvador, Unedited, iPhone 6 Plus, Copyright 2015 Terrell Neasley

"Sometimes all you can do is all you can do."

~ Art Model, Covenant

Present location? El Salvador. Or more precisely, I'm at La Tortuga Verde in El Cuco, El Salvador. I've got another couple days here and then it's off to Nicaragua, or more precisely, La Tortuga Booluda in Leon, Nicaragua. [Actually, by the time of posting, I'm already in Leon.]

So we are probably mid-way through on this adventure. The mist that has been hindering some of my projects here has caught up with me in El Sal and after two months of travel, the rainy season is about to get under way here. I seriously want to challenge myself to improvise and return stateside with work that rivals my initial vision. I can't say I'm there just yet though I have accumulate a bunch of marvelous shots...just not the shots that I feel rival my initial vision. So, I'm working on that.

Last week, we held up at a really nice spot in Juayua (pronounced "WHY-YOU-AH) called Hotel Anahuac. Well, while shooting Art Model, Covenant in some waterfalls there, I took a nasty slip and cut my right hand wide open just below the first knuckle of my thumb. Of seven waterfalls we were to visit, this incident happens just after the second one. That just about ended my shooting until I got the bleeding under control and kept my thumb compressed against my hand til the last waterfall, where I risked burning off a few more shots. Apparently, the thumb is quite an essential digit when it comes to holding things. I count myself fortunate that I didn't drop my camera in the water, but I still got some shots.

Doc stitched me up!

Thanks Doc!

So after 2 more hours of hiking, I made it back and went to see a doctor at the local public health clinic. Doc had me sewn up in no time and they didn't charge a thing. I got stitches, waited a week and then took my knife and some scissors and took them out. Now I just gotta take care not to open the blasted thing up again. Its not easy NOT using your thumb...especially on your dominant hand. Keeping it clean and infection free has been the utmost priority. I wash it every day because this spot is right on a Pacific coast beach. Sand can be a pain in the butt in a wound and is notorious for carrying infection when trapped under a bandage and left unchecked. So between the regular cleaning and my antibiotic, I think I'm doing well.

Art Model, Covenant, Unedited, Copyright 2015 Terrell Neasley

I've still been shooting Art Model, Covenant on a regular basis. This being her first time out of country, she's thrilled at the thought of being naked in a foreign land and doesn't a problem shooting anywhere I get a hankering to point my camera. This is an excellent proposition because not everywhere I need to shoot is private. We've had the occasional spectator of course, but we've also had tour guests and guides privy to our endeavors. Covenant has a nice way of letting them know what we're doing and so far nobody has objected to a woman coming up and asking if its okay if she has her boobs out or takes off her clothes.

So like I said, here for a few more days and then we'll ferry around to Nica. Ferry? Yes, ferry. Its 6 to 7 hours by bus at a cost of about $45. Its Two and a HALF hours by boat for $75. I'm doing the boat for $30 more bucks. Actually, we do have to take another bus after that for about an hour to Leon, but I can handle that. [It was 2 and a half hours to Leon and there was no bus at the port, so we ended up taking a shuttle who had recently dropped off a group for $40. He wanted $60.] Three days in Leon, and then we're off on a flight back to the Caribbean coast of Nica to Big Corn Island and then a half hour boat ride to Little Corn for a week's stay at Farm Peace and Love. Hippy? Well, more like Hippy-sounding. Far as I know, we'll be by ourselves on the Northeast corner of the island in a little cottage. By mid-May, we have no clue.

Art Model, Covenant, El Salvador Unedited,
Copyright 2015 Terrell Neasley

There are currently no exact plans, reservations, deadlines, or anything beyond mid-May. I know we want to make our way down back to my old stopping grounds in San Juan del Sur. If you recall, I almost got myself killed there a year ago scouting a coastline of cliffs and let the tide get high on me before I could make it all the way back. But there are some other stops I'd like to make as well. I didn't get to make it to Granada or Isla de Ometepe in the South, nor Esteli or Somoto Canyon in the North. So the precarious situation I find myself in now is to decide how long I want to spend in Nicaragua.

With funds getting tight, the temptation is to spend these last two months in Nica, rather than head on down to Costa Rica and Panama where things are more expensive. Money definitely goes further in Nica. In addition to that, its usually cheaper to fly out of Managua, Nicaragua, than from either of the airports in Costa Rica or Panama. So the thought is to come back and finish CR and Panama later this year, and THEN proceed on further South into Columbia and down western South America to Argentina.

Art Model, Covenant,  Belize Unedited, Copyright 2015 Terrell Neasley

Another option is to take a break from Latin America and visit Southeast Asia. I really have no idea. All I know is that I suck at video. Like that transition? That was another one of my objectives here...get used to and do better video. I do learn from my mistakes though. Recently, I tried shooting with a more narrow the field of view. After an hour and a half of footage, I think I got my subject in the frame maybe 40% of the time. That's working with the GoPro. The Sony mirrorless don't have that issue since I can see what I'm shooting on the back of the LCD screen. I can even use the wireless feature on my Sony Action Cam to see my perspective on my iPhone. I guess I should have picked up the LCD back for the GoPro, but those things use up battery even faster than it already does. So yeah...more work to be done there. No worries. Not giving up.

BTW, its been almost 2 weeks since the cut on my hand. All's well and healing just fine. No more bandages, but still sensitive. I should be good to go in the next week or so. Next stop...Little Corn Island and Farm Peace and Love!