Aekvatorkaffe in english. Coffee roastery and mobile coffeebar
Background
Since 2012 , Aekvatorkaffe , a danish based company , has been brewing and selling quality specialty coffees from different parts of world. We started with a mobile coffeebar , a VW T4 california coach , and made exceptional coffees for festivals and markets. In 2013 we bought our first coffee roasting machine , a Genio , a quality roasting machine, made in South Africa First the roastery was located in the small town of Flemming , and in 2015 we moved our facility to the cosy town of Vejle in the centre of Jytland.
Our mobile coffeebar on an event in Ringkøbing
Quality coffee from Ecuador
In 2013 we started importing directly from our coffeefarm , El Quinde , in Ecuador, where my brother , Michiel , is growing coffee since 2008. He grows arabica coffee , varieties like Caturra , red and yellow and Tipica . Where there first was grassland with cows , he started digging 40 km of terraces and planting trees to restore the original forest, in the spirit of Commonland . Later he came up with the idea of planting coffee trees in the new shade. Coffee is originally an understory bush from rainforest anyway, so it was a good combination. Today there are more than 25.000 coffee plants in the El Quinde farm and forest reserve.
Now, after nearly a decade of coffee growing and land restoring many hummingbirds and other species have returned, enjoying the space.
In the Tandayapa Valley, where the farm is located, which is a one hour drive from Ecuador´s capital, Quito, there are several other coffee farms which are working with the same kind of concept.
You can read more about them at :
Brian from Cloudcoffees wrote this great i article in the online blog perfect dialy grind .
After the harvest , usually from june til august , the coffee is shipped to the USA and Danmark. In Danmark it is being roasted and sold in our shop and on many farmer markets throughout the year. We have also coffees from other parts of the world like, Peru , Ethiopia , Tanzania, Papua New Guinea and Honduras. Coffee for filtercoffee , french press or Espresso. It can be ordered in our WordPress webshop or if you come from outside Danmark by sending a mail to : info@aekvatorkaffe.dk
You can also visit the roastery in Vejle and have a talk with us (call before) . And you can buy our coffee in the shop on the same adress : Nørregade 63
Most popular:
We work on constant developing the quality i Ecuador and Denmark.
We grow coffee, we roast coffee , we brew coffee
Quality Coffee from Ecuador as espresso
Festivals and events
In Danmark we offer freshly roasted coffees at your doorstep served from our VW California Coach from 1977 . We brew high quality coffee as espresso, capuccino, latte or cortado. If you are more into tea, than we have different kinds of organic tea and we make different hot chocolate drinks from Whittard .
Cheers
You can hire our coffee bus for your party, marriage , school or business event so we can serve you the best coffee, tea or hot chocolate for your guests .
Where
We are located in the centre of Jylland, but we can be hired all across the country.
We have our roastery and shop in the centre of Vejle. See more her
Just call or mail us for a cost-estimate.
Coffee Events
We also organize coffee arrangements for your party or business, where we can do some coffee tasting (cupping) together with the participants. You will become acquainted with the widely different flavours, and we will tell something about coffee’s history and its oddities.
Please Call us at + 45 – 26 50 92 38
or mail to : info@aekvatorkaffe.dk
CVR Nr: 34393699
you can find us here.
Why we grow coffee in Ecuador.
The Tandayapa Valley
As part of a local initiative to restore the natural landscape, three farms started with the idea of using coffee to recreate a vegetation cover where until then only cows grazed the land. Now, twenty years later a natural forest is growing there with coffee trees in the understory.
The first farm, Tandayapa Gardens (28 ha.; 1700 meters above sea level), was set up to convert the previously existing grazing land into a natural forest. Coffee cultivation has been a means to an end.
Doña Rosa from the neighboring farm told me: “ Coffee doesn’t grow here!, it is too wet and too cold. The slopes are too steep and the soil is too sandy. Nobody ever cultivated coffee here!”
She was right to a certain degree. While it is certainly not the most easy place to grow coffee, it does however produce the best tasting coffee, using the same criteria she mentioned.
Our coffefarm in Ecuador when it was bought in 1998
The difference however is to first create a habitat where coffee does grow. One has to design the space that the coffee tree favors. The coffee production itself in turn helps to justify the investment of doing so, and to additionally plant other trees that do not necessarily produce an income.
At another farm in the valley, Reserva el Quinde (430 ha.; 1700 – 2100 meters above sea), is where the majority of the mountainous landscape is reserved for the conservation of a primary/virgin subtropical highland forest, and the protection of all the species of flora and fauna in it. It is a relic of pristine forest that escaped the wave of deforestation that has gone on for the last 60 years in the region. However, one section of the farm had been deliberately burned down thirty years ago in order to plant Eucalyptus trees. Crazy, I know! But, times were different back then.
This gave me the idea to transform this Eucalyptus forest back again into a natural forest using coffee. In this case the objective wasn’t only to justify the expense of doing so, but furthermore it is meant to create an income that can help to protect the ecological reserve in the long term, financially and legally.
our coffeefarm in 2014 , well established with trees and coffee plants under
The third farm in the valley, Tambo Tanda (aprox. 200 ha.), has recently started planting a first 2000 trees of a local Alder tree species. In two years’ time we will plant coffee there too, at an attitude of 2000 meters above sea level. In a second stage, when the coffee trees are two years old, we will plant more of the local indigenous trees there too intermingled with the coffee. Furthermore, about half of this farm is a conservation area that borders the already existing natural reserve of ‘el Quinde’ (see above).
One of the most important wild life species in this region is the Spectacled bear. This is a species that needs a lot of space to roam around while migrating from reserve to reserve. By restoring the land to its original state of biodiversity, not only the bear but many other species will be able to come back to the region. The aim is to invite other farmers to join the effort of creating this growing area of Ecological Corridor. At an international level this area is part of a Biological region which is shared between Colombia and Ecuador and is part of the Ecological corridor called ‘Choco-Andes’.
However, what has to be mentioned is that it is not merely about the conservation of biodiversity, or the conservation of watershed areas. It is about the management of a healthy environment where humans and nature can coexist. The best way to describe this is to call it ‘Land-management’. And an important part of that is the ‘Land-winning’ initiative, namely to win back the land that was lost to deforestation and ecological degradation.
The local action plan will help to win back most of the vitality of the land with the helping hand of people that take back that responsibility. As part of that mindset the economic activities are allowed to take place, because they help to recuperate and sustain the living system, if properly managed!
Many farm owners in the region have done this voluntarily to a certain degree. A part of the farm has been set aside to conserve and protect local indigenous species of flora and fauna, and to conserve the water resource for household use. However, local practices of land use have so far not helped to connect these areas into a network of living land. The farmer doesn’t know how to combine modern agriculture with natural land management practices that allow for the ecological regeneration to take place. Our society doesn’t know how to, because the theory of economics does not coincide with the practice of applying economics to land management while not destroying nature.
Text by ; Michiel Verkade
Thoughts about Coffee:
Highland Coffee and Ecological Considerations
Highland Coffee is not just about Coffee cultivation. One can not separate agriculture, not even agro-forestry, from ecological or social aspects, amongst others. Especially in this region, where flora and fauna are present in great abundance; the area is considered to be number eight on the list of ecological hotspots in the world. Coffee is one of the few alternatives that can be combined with nature conservation. It is considered a way to restore the biodiversity of badly managed and degraded land, forming a buffer-zone around the isolated private and public natural reserves. The subtropical highland forests represent a healthy and rich habitat, not only for mammals and plants, but also for the increasing local human population. The highlands produce a high quality of Coffee found only in a few places worldwide. Furthermore, a recent study performed by Nestlé determined the region to be most suitable to produce the best specialty Coffee in the world. The health of the environment is reflected in the health and quality of the Coffee product.
Overall, it needs to be stressed that in order to be able to produce this high quality product, one needs to act with care and in a sustainable way, which can only be guaranteed by managing the area in an integral manner, where all aspects of life are perfectly integrated, like social, ecological, productive and economic activities.
Therfore the choice of ecological sustainability, goes hand in hand with the productive sustainability. The economics of a Coffee culture also values the ecological dimension, directly through methods of green fertilizing, but also indirectly by guaranteeing that care is taken to not adversely affect the natural environment. It is obvious that this will have a negative effect on the quantity of the harvest, because of the maintenance of shade trees and other native tree and plant species as part of the Coffee culture. On the other hand, this will greatly increase the quality (organic certification, taste and aroma) of the product, and can compensate to a great extent the economic sacrifice that was made in favor of a healthy environment.
Secondary products in a highland shade organic Coffee plantation are forest-related products and, several fruits for local consumption .Moreover payments are made by external parties as a compensation for the carbon offsetting in the coffee trees and natural forest that surrounds the plantation.
It is time for both the coffee grower and the coffee consumer to become ecologically responsible.
Michiel Verkade
Jacob and Michiel Verkade
