- November 7, 2024
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The majority of coffee producers in the world live at the poverty line or below, harvesting their coffee once a year, yet they are also mastering techniques to create unique flavors, according to the owners of Palma Coffee Co.
The story behind a cup of coffee may be far-reaching, but the shop’s owners Manuel Montenegro and his wife Amanda Govic are eager to share it with customers whenever the opportunity arises.
The couple visit producers around the world, sourcing single-origin coffee from those they deem to offer a high-quality product and show a responsibility to the environment.
Yet their journey, which has taken them to about 45 countries together, didn’t start with coffee.
Amanda, who grew up in Sarasota, had been traveling the world from a young age, with her mother urging her family to see the world.
Manuel, who grew up in Colombia, had traveled rarely before meeting Amanda.
When the two met at a 2009 event with the Sarasota group Capoeira Volta Ao Mundo, which practices a Brazilian martial art, in Atlanta, they had an instant connection.
“Capoeira is a great filter of people, because it’s a very particular person that likes that kind of stuff,” Manuel said. “We love culture. We love music. Just a lot of the bright things in life.”
Starting in 2014, they would find "excuses" to travel for Manuel’s business, NOVO Aero Components, which he started in 2013.
The travel bug begins, Amanda said, with countries like France and Spain, but then progresses to those that are more challenging.
“It goes deep,” Amanda said. “You start going to Colombia. You go deeper. You go to Peru, you go to Brazil, you go to Morocco, South Africa, Indonesia. My list just doesn’t stop. There’s no place that I don’t want to go unless it’s just too unsafe.”
They said although travel is considered expensive, they could afford their lifestyle by cutting expenses from other areas of daily life.
“We've never really stayed at luxury places unless it was a crazy occasion. Even then we felt a little uncomfortable," Amanda said.
Manuel said his favorite area is Southeast Asia as well as areas like Morocco, that "are just so different."
“(Southeast Asia) is so different," he said. "Actually, it reminds me a little bit of Colombia and Latin America, just the struggle, the will for people to succeed, where there's not luxury and comfort, but you have to make do.”
Amanda said her favorite has to be Colombia.
“I'm Colombian and I just feel so at home there, maybe understanding a part of myself that was lost, and I just love being so close to so many other cultures as well, and the pre-history of those cultures, like my indigenous side.”
Yet after COVID-19 devastated the aviation industry, the couple decided to make a change and settle down.
It happened some time after Manuel took an online course from a technical center in Colombia, not initially realizing it was intended for coffee producers.
With the knowledge he had gained, they started the business in 2020 and opened the shop in 2022.
“As you get older, your feet grow more roots, I think,” Amanda said. “When we were in our 20s, we had itchy feet. We just couldn't stay still.”
They were encouraged to continue when they spoke to someone else with whom they shared more than one interest in common: Carl Bringenberg, now their coffee roaster, who is based in St. Louis.
“Because he was from our group in Capoeira, because we knew him years, he was completely trustworthy,” Manuel said. “There was nothing else. So the fact that he was answering every question I had, and he was as passionate about coffee as we were, then we decided that this would be something to try.”
The first coffee farm they visited was in Guatemala, although they hadn’t planned the experience. It happened when Manuel approached a coffee shop and began asking questions.
“I think most people are so afraid of rejection," Amanda said. "It just hinders them from even taking the first step… and for him – I don't know, he just doesn't have at all, so he just goes for it."
Next, they were off to visit a coffee producer's home, headed up a mountain in his Ford Tacoma.
While meeting his family, they were able to see his extensive process: planting, tending, picking, drying, processing, milling and roasting the coffee, using organic, homemade pesticides.
“It’s just every step of the way," Amanda said. "It was the first time I had ever experienced that, and it left an impact on me for sure."
Despite that they now spend more time in Sarasota than they once did, they hope that their travel experiences are represented in the coffee shop interior, an airy space decorated with plants.
Amanda notes that it feels like someplace from another country, but that one can't be quite sure where.
“None of this would exist if I hadn't been inspired by something that I've seen or felt at another place in the world,” she said.
In the beginning, opening the shop involved extensive work.
However, the couple said as they move forward, they are hoping for a point where the shop can operate independently through its other dedicated staff.
At the same time, they still travel, with a new purpose.
Their goal is to establish a personal relationship with every producer from which their coffee is sourced, visiting each one over a period of two to three days, although sometimes they source coffee from producers they find through existing connections.
Manuel said the small size of these coffee operations makes the producers free to focus on quality, but that notes that methods of production, in general, are growing in complexity, as visitors to the shop will be able to taste.
He said producers are adopting curriculums for creating specialty coffee, which is soaring in popularity, increasing the value of their crops by two to three times.
They may process their coffee beans through co-fermentations, whether that be a lactic fermentation involving milk, or others involving components like fruit juice.
He said more and more flavor compounds, created through the interactions of microorganisms during fermentation, are being discovered in coffee.
"The newest frontier right now is culturing, which is borderline infusing coffee, but not really," he said.
This process involves introducing specific microbes in order to bring out compounds, which he said can resemble flavors from suntan lotion to coconut.
The shop's signature drink is its Pink Bourbon, which uses a bean from Colombia that undergoes an anaerobic fermentation with the coffee bean inside the coffee cherry, and a second after it is removed.
The shop's website describes it as "sweet and vibrant with a mouthful of red berries, starfruit, and a hint of bittersweet cacao."
“When people try that coffee, the most common thing that comes out of their mouths is that is probably the best coffee I've ever had," Amanda said. "This is the best cup of coffee I've had in a really long time, or I've never tried anything like this, and it's incredible."
Their journey in sourcing coffee continues in five weeks with a trip to Uruguay.
“We're going to hit the whole South America, all of Central America, at some point," Manuel said. "We're Hispanic, we speak the language. People are warm. Most cultures are very welcoming, more welcoming that you can even imagine."
Although they still want to travel widely, however, traveling is different for them now, than it was in the past.
“For a while when we were traveling, we were just traveling to check the boxes and see the things that everybody needs to see,” Manuel said. “But now we just want fulfillment. We just want to travel deeply and with a purpose.”
