Early in December (09) I traveled to the Dominican Republic to visit coffee farmers whose coffee we roast, to get to know their cooperatives and learn about coffee from the Dominican Republic.
The trip was part of USAID's 'farmer to farmer' program, though in this case 'roaster to farmer' is more appropriate.
Also on the trip were other roaster members of Cooperative Coffees, Craig Hall from Equator Coffee in Ottawa, Ontario and Dan Bailey and Jeremey Claeys from Amavida Coffee in Seaside, Florida.
We were hosted in the Dominican Republic by FEDECARES (Feceracion de Caficultores de la Region Sur [Federation of coffee growers in the southern region]) which is an 'umbrella cooperative'  that facilitates export and quality control of coffee and development of the grower cooperatives.  FEDECARES was represented by the energetic and able Marie Isabel who has been working in coffee and fair trade in the Dominican Republic for years and knows the regions and farmers very well.

We visited two grower cooperatives in the southern region of the country: Coopeativa Las Tres Hermanas (The Three Sisters Cooperative) and Polo.
First up was Cooperativa Las Tres Hermanas in the border town of Pedernales.

MEMBERS - 226 total / 176 active
LOCATION - Pedernales (southern coast, very close to Haiti).
ELEVATION - 670 - 1100m
ESTABLISHED - 1978
COOPERATED - 2006
VARIETIES - typica, catura
DIVERSIFICATION - Citrus, Coffee (domestic), Avacado, Banana, Worm compost.
FLO CERT - 2003
ORG CERT - 1997
JOINED FEDECARES - 2003
TYPICAL FARM SIZE - 3-5 hectares (25% smaller - 10% larger)

Our first stop in Pedernales was the Las Tres Hermanas cooperative offices and dry mill.  The dry mill is where the last few steps of the process of preparing and exporting coffee take place.
Here the coffee is dried on patios, graded for size and sorted for export.  Here we met the leadership of the cooperative and got a tour of the facility.

All fair trade coffee comes from grower cooperatives.  When everything is working right, the coop provides a place where growers where can work together, share common resources, and by exporting their coffee get a better price than they would receive locally.  There are many steps involved in getting coffee from tree to export and many ways to impact the flavor of the coffee.  When things go well coops provide better coffee to the consumer and better prices for the growers.  This of course doesn't always happen, but in addition to helping growers access foreign markets, coops have secondary benefits like turning waste products into a resource for the growers and community at large. Here we see the worm composting facility at Las Tres Hermanas.

  They combine animal waste with plant litter and coffee cherry pulp to make beautiful compost.  The compost is used in the nursery to grow new coffee trees, used by coop members to feed their coffee trees, and the surplus is sold locally. 
On our second day we went up the road a piece to see their wet mill and see some coffee trees.
The wet mill is situated up the road from the dry mill.  About 90% of coop members have access to it.  Here freshly picked coffee cherries are run through a mill that squishes the seed (coffee bean) out of the fruit.  The coffee beans wind up in a concrete tank where they soak in water for about 12 hours.  The pulp is collected and taken to the worm compost facility.
After the coffee is rinsed of all remaining pulp, it is taken down the mountain to the dry mill.
After the dry mill we visited the community of Aguas Negras.  This is pretty much the end of the road meaning that all coffee brought here from higher up on the mountain travels by Mule (sorry we didn't get any mule pictures). 

The next day we went to the Barahona region to visit the Polo Grower Cooperative.

MEMBERS - 300
LOCATION - Polo
ELEVATION - 900 - 1601m
ESTABLISHED - 1993
VARIETIES - typica, catura
DIVERSIFICATION - Banana, Citrus, Coffee (domestic), Avacado, Banana, Macadamia, Honey
FLO CERT - 2005
ORG CERT - 2000
JOINED FEDECARES - 2003
TYPICAL FARM SIZE - 2-5 hectares (overall range 5-700 Tarea (.6 acre – 43 hectares)

As with Las Tres Hermanas our visit started at their dry mill
Here we had a quick meeting with coop leadership and then visited their wet mill.
After the wet mill, we visited one of the oldest and best kept coffee parcelas I have ever seen.
It isn't unusual to find a 30 year old patch of coffee trees, but to find one well cared for for those 30 years is less usual and memorable to say the least.

With the end of our visit to the Polo Growers Cooperative and the end of our time visiting coffee growers, the urban part of our trip began.  We drove back to Santo Domingo to visit the CODOCAFE (Consejo Dominicano del Cafe [Dominican Coffee Council]) national cupping lab and for meetings with FEDECARES and CODOCAFE.  The national cupping lab gives growers feedback on quality and is where pre-export evaluation and scoring of coffee happens.  The lab is an important part of keeping Dominican coffee tasting the best it can, helping growers maintain their export markets.  Feedback from this lab allows for improvement of a cooperatives coffee, the lab can identify areas for improvement in growing or handling the coffee based on how the coffee tastes.  The lab is beautiful and the cupping team is awesome.
We cupped with the CODOCAFE team and tasted some Just Coffee FEDECARES dark roast along side some of the sample roasted coffees from Polo and Las Tres Hermanas.
Just Coffee's FEDECARES coffee isn't the darkest coffee we roast but it was VERY dark compared to the standard roast used for cupping coffee and the lab team found the coffee too dark for their liking. 

To get a better look at the trip click here.