Bridge City Coffee Origin Trip
I have fallen in love with coffee over the years. I’ve drunk it daily since I was in college, but like many others my taste and appreciation evolved. At the beginning of my freelancing career, I began to become more interested in specialty coffee and its craft. I’ve been fortunate to develop friendships with exceptional coffee professionals – Greg Ward of Bridge City Coffee being one of them – and have been privileged to work on multiple coffee centered projects, but I had never been to origin. When Electric Soul extended the invitation to join their team documenting Bridge City’s sourcing trip to Honduras, I couldn’t say yes fast enough.
I joined the team as a camera operator along with Micah Taylor (Director), Taylor Cash (Photographer), and Alyssa Riddell (Drone Operator).
Relational Sourcing
I was excited to participate in this project for many reasons, but one of them was Bridge City’s emphasis on relational sourcing. Their partnership with Catracha Coffee – a coffee exporter in Honduras – ensured that our involvement would truly benefit the local producers that we would be meeting and filming and not just Bridge City at the end of the supply chain. (You can read more about this relationship and sourcing model on Bridge City’s website).
Santa Elena
After a few flights and a mountainous van ride, we arrived at our home base for the next four days – Catracha Coffee. We met Jason Griest and Scott Byington, two coffee legends who have worked with Catracha for years, Niki Lewis, Chief Sustainability Officer at Bext360, Evan Iluzada, Roaster at Bridge City Coffee, and Lowell & Mayra Powell (Catracha Coffee) who hosted and facilitated the whole trip.
Day 1 - GLADIS
The main purpose of this trip for Bridge City was for them to meet producers and take steps towards developing a long term sourcing partnership. The first farm we visited was Gladis GarcÍa’s, where we documented as Greg and Gladis met for the first time. Lowell translated as she gave a tour of her farm and shared some of her story with Greg.
Gladis’s farm had a view that looked out across the mountainous terrain. As I stood there taking everything in, it was amazing to visualize a part of the coffee process I had never witnessed in person before. A portion of her farm was located on an incline, and after carrying camera equipment up and down I theorized how complicated harvesting on the slope could be. This perspective has only added to my appreciation for the beverage I consume daily.
When we made it back to the house later that day, the final traveler in our group had arrived. Jason Petty (Propaganda) and his company Terraform had partnered with Bridge City for their next coffee release and he was meeting up to participate in the relational sourcing experience.
Day 2 - Salvador
We started off our second day in the country by visiting a school right down the road where Propaganda held an impromptu concert in the courtyard. From there we traveled to another coffee farm owned by Salvador Ventura. Salvador’s farm was located on the side of a mountain in an environment even steeper than we had seen at Gladis’s. We hiked halfway up the mountain – filming as Propaganda and Greg conversed with Salvador through Lowell.
We ended the day filming at a depulping station nearby – seeing firsthand how Bext360 was involved with supply chain transparency. In short, Bext360 uses blockchain technology and producer participation to document compensation across the coffee supply chain and ensure that the process truly is transparent.
Day 3 - Cupping
We spent our third day almost exclusively at Catracha. Lowell orchestrated a cupping that included coffee from Gladis and Salvador’s farms as well as farms that Jason G. and Scott had partnerships with. The cupping was meant to be the final step in Bridge City’s sourcing selection, but instead of choosing just one farm, they decided to move forward in partnering with both Gladis and Salvador.
After the cupping, Micah, Alyssa, and I spent the afternoon conducting interviews – capturing the what’s and why’s behind the trip.
Day 4 - Golden Hour
On our final day before traveling home, we recorded the last few remaining interviews before capturing footage of the town during golden hour. There are murals painted all across the town – many of them facilitated by Catracha – and walking the streets as the sun set was an amazing way to spend our final evening.
Final thoughts
This project marked another milestone for me as I traveled to Central America for the first time for work. Seeing firsthand the amount of effort that goes into a single cup of coffee has forever impacted my perspective, and I’m so thankful that I was able to participate in a project like this.
Months after our trip and the harvested coffee has finally arrived! Drinking these coffees was a surreal experience – remembering walking the farms and meeting the farmers of the coffee that was in my cup made me appreciate everything so much more. If you want to support Gladis and Salvador, you can purchase a bag of Honduras Gladis or Terraform the City 2.0 and get a taste of Santa Elena, Honduras.
