I just wanted to take a moment to field a question I’ve gotten from a few folks about the BBotE I do made with beans from Puerto Rico. So the quick blurbs are:
GOOD NEWS: I laid in a decent supply of the beans from my roaster of choice in Puerto Rico so I have a supply to work with for a while yet. Order away.
BAD NEWS: As the astute observer might have noticed, Puerto Rico is a bit fucked up right now. That’s a technical term from the emergency response community. There’s some priorities to get up and running again, like basic utilities, to make it a functioning 21st century territory once more. “Processing coffee” is quite a long way down the disaster recovery list.
Per my folks there, they actually were able to get most of the coffee crop in before Irma & Maria tore through the place. They were running a bit early, so it isn’t as a large a crop as one might hope, but some is better than none. Despite being fairly close to San Juan, the roastery & warehouses survived so that’s good news too. In the near term, what is utterly fucked is the transportation network to get anything off the island. At the moment, the San Juan Airport’s USPS terminal isn’t running at all, with the expectation to open again for mail flights to the mainland next week. Again, an astute observer may have noticed that modern international airports need electricity to run. Especially, their radar systems.
What I am a little worried about is that the lack of power may wipe out unroasted beans in the warehouse that isn’t climate controlled anymore. For the longer term, the real question is how much damage did the hurricanes due to coffee farms themselves. That’ll take a little longer to answer, but it looks like the windward ridges of Yunque National Forest may have taken the brunt, rather than the leeward coffee farms. We’ll have to see.
WHAT DOES THIS MEAN TO YOU, THE BBOTE CUSTOMER: Hopefully, you won’t see any interruption in Puerto Rico Yaucono BBotE availability on my website. If I run out, I run out and it will stop being a selection you can make for a bit. I placed a respectably sized order with my folks down there with the note “I don’t expect to see this any time soon. Take care of what you need to.” When more shows up to me, it will be a joyous day.
As a personal note, if you’re thinking of grabbing a bottle of BBotE, take a moment and find a hurricane relief charity to give that money to instead. While I do like money, I’ll still be here and know how to make BBotE next month. Our fellow citizens (if you’re an American that is) in Puerto Rico need that help right now. Between Molly Crabapple, Test Subject Nimby, and everyone that insisted on trying their “official and only real/correct family coquito” recipe on this Floridian kid, I have a real soft spot for Puerto Rico. Thank you.