Dean Cycon

An eye-opener.

This book was informative, but a slow read. Some chapters were fascinating and grabbed me from the start, some were overly political and lost me completely. I've been picking this up and putting it down again for several months so it's quite a relief to reach the end. On the other hand, I have full respect for the work of Dean Cycon, founder of Dean's Beans. He has travelled to the source of his supplies and treats his farmers with compassion and dignity.

The chapters each refer to one visit, one area of the world, dating between 1997 and 2007. I had no idea there were so many coffee producing areas. Dean's main message to the farmers is to work together to cut out the money grabbing middle-man and, via co-operatives, to produce Free Trade coffee of uniform quality. To this end he supports them by providing fairly inexpensive equipment that facilitates the process of hulling the beans and returns a percentage of the profits directly to the farmers for improvements within the area. This may be schooling, social improvements, wells etc.

Some parts are quite distressing, such as the Death Train, which refers to a freight train that runs from the border of Guatemala and Mexico, right up to the US border. It is swarming with desperate people who are unable to feed their families due to the poor prices they earn for their coffee. These people travel in all weathers, squeezed betwen carriages or sitting on cargo. Meanwhile others use violence and extortion to steal what little these poor people may be carrying. And there's no guarentee of work when they arrive. Many fall from the train and are injured on the line, losing limbs or even their lives.

Fortunately other chapters are upbeat, such as Dean's visit to Papua New Guinea. These people are self sufficient in food production and coffee is just a part of their produce. They greeted Dean with song and dance, many of them plastered with mud of various colours.

I certainly learned a lot and am now better informed about the source of the coffee I drink.
3 stars for the book itself but 5 stars for the great work that Dean Cycon is doing around the world.… (altro)