Mamoral coffee brew

Together they continued his wife’s family’s legacy and formed their coffee business Appolonia’s Select.

Mamoral, a place few know about it, is tucked away about a half hour’s drive from Chaguanas and is rich in so many things we take for granted. Sunshine, lush (underdeveloped) vegetation, history, culture and coffee. Stollmeyer, who is a marine biologist by profession, learnt all there is to know about coffee from Appolonia’s father, Ephraim Marchan and coffee mentor Floyd Homer of Caf? Vega, Couva. The elder Marchan who still tends to his coffee trees, was taught by his father John who was known as the king of Mamoral coffee passed away in 2008 Appolonia who is the namesake of the business is quiet, yet strong and articulate and somehow finds the time to manage the household, read to her kids and tend to her coffee business as well as her delicious provision pie trade which is made to order and sold at Starlite Pharmacy, Maraval. Stollmeyer is passionate about his coffee and eager to learn.

Stollmeyer describes himself as a “son of the soil – Trinidadian”.

He studied and lived in the US and on the sea and he longed to return home. For him, it has been a long journey from addiction and depression to recovery which has led him to understanding his role in managing his small coffee business.

The beans are sourced from the Madamus mountains in the Northern Range and other virgin forests in Trinidad.

“I want to remind people about the value of our island’s coffee.

When I got linked to an estate owner in Madamus, I saw that these grandfather trees have gone to sleep because of the existing labour problem. They have not been cultivated since the 1940s-50s in the height of Trinidad’s agricultural economy when the labour was living on the land,” Stollmeyer says.

Coffee is the second most valuable traded commodity after petroleum, according to Global Exchange (an international human rights organisation dedicated to promoting social, economic and environmental justice around the world). Stollmeyer says that his goal is to bring a low valued coffee bean into a high valued product.

The beans are either picked green or ripened (red berries) and the location, height, type of soil as well as when it is picked determines the quality and taste of the coffee. The drying, shelling, cleaning, roasting, grounding and bagging the coffee, is a very labour intensive job. He and his wife produce about 25 bags a week, using only is a mechanical grinder/ huller. Stollmeyer fetches $150 for a large bag.

Stollmeyer explained that coffee is so intimate with the soil where the beans are created and that when you drink coffee from other parts of the world where it is mass produced, you are getting impurities and other bi-products of that place.

“You may be getting the energy from that place which is not exactly what you need. Our coffee is taking nutrients from our Trinidadian trees – our sun, water, air, soil to make our bean, perfectly suited to our environment for our Trinbagonian people. It is a strong, stable energy – not overanxious, just right to elevate your entire being and vibration. It is the strength of the mountain coming to you,” he says after taking a sip.

Research suggests that coffee is rich in anti-oxidants and minerals which can reduce type II diabetes, cirrhosis of the liver, depression and some cancers. Stollmeyer says whereas the focus has always been on oil and gas in TT , cultivating coffee is a way to generate employment; help from the ground up the people who need jobs to find jobs, get youths off the streets and make them more productive and helpful to themselves and the land. “It is isn’t about the commercial/marketing aspect or just making money, but keeping the energy cycle going and waking up the sleeping giant - the TT coffee industry,” he says.

He explained that his coffee is the cleanest energy on the island, processed by trees organically, free from chemicals - not industrial estate plantation managed coffee.

“There is a stigma attached to agriculture – the perception of working on the land is exploitative just by its nature because that’s all we’ve known. But our land is more than that. It has lots of unlimited growing potential. The older folks in these rural villages are fading out and the youths don’t have the motivation to work the land. But what our country needs are people who would enjoy working the land and may not even realise it because they haven’t had the opportunity.

People who can bring the energy out of the land in a way that is almost therapeutic, in a way that is not labour exploitative, not hugely commercial or industrial and not chemically driven,” he says.

Stollmeyer says there are thousands of trees in the forest that need protection and live side by side with the coffee, however the estate and landowners are not physically able to work their own land. “Amazing, delicious, exotic fruits like breadfruit, sapodilla, mamey sapote, five fingers, rambutan, balata, some of which I am now getting to taste for the first time are rotting and dropping to the ground year after year that could [have] been made into jello, ice cream and wine,” he noted.

He says that part of the philosophy of Appolonia’s Select coffee is not commercial, but to discover avenues that are already existing to bring coffee to a customer who really needs it. “Why export and sell out our resources and our energy? We need to be self-sufficient and self-sustainable. Keep our local energy local. Buy local, eat local.

Produce sustainably and consume effectively. Self-sufficiency will then increase on every level of the island since export equates to costs associated with packaging, shipping, energy, which gives way to a carbon footprint, trade laws, joining the global economy. We don’t need to import and export. We are sitting on a goal mine!” Appolonia Select coffee can be found every Sunday at the Santa Cruz Green market. If anyone will like to join the coffee industry or has trees/estates that need rejuvenating contact: 788-8820 or 487- 8017.

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