Of Coffee and Tamales

Last weekend I had the chance to visit San Cristobal´s "coffee museum." It´s actually more of a cafe that also offers a couple of rooms with old photos of coffee plantations and lots of written descriptions. Chiapas and Oaxaca are two of the biggest coffee growing regions in Mexico. Unlike the Guatemalans, the Mexicans have caught onto the fact that coffee tastes great. In Guatemala, the drink of choice is instant Nescafe. (Yuck!) I think this is based on the fact that for centuries coffee was grown strictly for export. In Mexico, this has changed (somewhat) although Nescafe is still to be found everywhere.
The coffee plant can grow up to 4 to 6 meters high. It usually produces best when in shade. The plant can live for about 50 years and begins producing coffee beans within a few years. The harvesting of coffee beans is incredibly labor-intensive, which explains why it´s grown in Mexico, Central America, Africa and southeast Asia.
The Germans arrived in Mexico at the end of the 19th century, and immediately saw the opportunity for growing coffee. Coffee is native to Africa. The animals would chew on the bean and get an early morning pick-me-up.
Throughout the first half of the 20th century, the labor conditions on the coffee plantations were absolutely horrendous. The managers of the coffee plantations would go to the pueblos up in the mountains where the indigenous lived. They would put a pile of coins on a card table and give advance money to those who climbed into the truck to head downhill to the coffee plantations. Coffee grows best in Mexico between about 2000 feet and 4000 feet. Most of the indigenous live well above 4000 feet. They described traveling to the coffee plantations as the "descent into hell." The temperatures rose dramatically, as well as the humidity. The workers were housed in barracks and worked 13 hour days. If a worker got caught slacking off, they would tie a "cepo" around his waist. This was a set of chains tied to a medium-sized log behind him. The bosses then sent him back to work, where he had to drag the log behind him all day long.
By the 1950´s, even the Mexican government, never known then or now to have any particular concern for the lower classes, appropriated the coffee plantations and sent the German owners packing. Small plots of land were subsequently sold to Mexican coffee farmers.
Today, 90% of the coffee "plantations" are on plots of land less than 10 acres in size. Frequently, the coffee bean production is a family operation. The question nowadays is whether or not these kind of coffee farms are going to survive.
Starbucks is following the example of McDonalds which followed the example of John Rockefeller, etc. That is, to buy up every possible link in the chain of operations. For example, today McDonalds owns the farmland in Idaho, owns the workers who harvest the potatoes, owns the processing plants, owns the trucks that transport the potatoes, and owns the plants that cook and freeze the potatoes for further transportation to your local friendly McDonald´s outlet. Starbucks is doing the same thing. They´ve bought property in Costa Rica, etc., etc.
The response of the small coffee farmers in Mexico and elsewhere is to encourage consumers to buy coffee for a "fair trade" (comercio justo) price. This helps assure that the workers on the coffee farm will earn a livable wage. Regrettably, the big coffee producers are buying up land in Brazil and Vietnam. The coffee in the supermarkets probably comes from those two countries.
On a lighter note, the senora of my house told me a great story, and an insight into the history of San Cristobal. The occasion was last Saturday night. As is the custom among many people in San Cristobal, Saturday night is tamale night. However, most people don´t make their own tamales. It takes simply too much time and is too much work. Instead, they buy their tamales from a local lady who they think makes great tamales. The senora of my house is no exception. She presented us with two types of tamales, both yummy. One was wrapped in corn husks and the other in banana leaves. The banana one was quite sweet and very moist. It even had raisins in it. (Are you taking notes, Bruce?)
The senora told us that, in the old days, tamale-making women would hang out a red light near the front door of their houses on Saturday night to let everyone in the neighborhood know that they had made a large batch of tamales for sale.
Regrettably, in the ´70´s and ´80´s, along came the gringo tourists. Due to cultural conditioning, and despite the fact that they were indeed looking for a hot tamale, they attached a different significance to the red lights. I suspect this must have resulted in some very interesting conversations at the front doors of tamale houses. Nowadays the red lights have been replaced by removable signs saying "Tamales Tonight." Alas, such is the price of globalization!
Hasta luego!