
{"id":2173,"date":"2008-03-27T06:26:07","date_gmt":"2008-03-27T14:26:07","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.carrborocitizen.com\/main\/2008\/03\/27\/local-coffee-shop-has-eyes-everywhere\/"},"modified":"2008-03-27T06:26:07","modified_gmt":"2008-03-27T14:26:07","slug":"local-coffee-shop-has-eyes-everywhere","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.ibiblio.org\/carrborocitizen\/main\/2008\/03\/27\/local-coffee-shop-has-eyes-everywhere\/","title":{"rendered":"Local coffee shop has eyes everywhere"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><em><strong>By Katie Spencer<\/strong><br \/>\nCarrboro Commons Writer<\/em><\/p>\n<p>In the green mountains of Honduras, Chapel Hill resident Hunter Barbee found the familiar logo of his favorite coffee shop. And it wasn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t Starbucks. It was Carrboro\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s own Open Eye Cafe.<\/p>\n<p>Barbee, 22, was touring a coffee farm in the small highland village of Copan with a group that spent the week building houses with Habitat for Humanity.<\/p>\n<p>\u00e2\u20ac\u0153I just walked in, and the first thing I saw was an Open Eye sticker on the office window,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d Barbee said. \u00e2\u20ac\u0153I did a double-take.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d<\/p>\n<p><!--more-->Excited, Barbee had trouble communicating the coincidence to manager Guillermo Calderon.<\/p>\n<p>\u00e2\u20ac\u0153I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122m sure he actually understood what I was saying, but I just explained myself over and over,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d he said.<\/p>\n<p>Luckily, Barbee didn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t need words. He bears the Open Eye logo on his person: a small tattoo on his wrist that gets him a free cup of joe in exchange for a little advertising. The image broke the language barrier.<\/p>\n<p>\u00e2\u20ac\u0153I ran around showing the tattoo on my arm and pointing to the picture,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d he said.<\/p>\n<p>Calderon, 35, has known Open Eye co-owner Scott Conary since August, when Conary traveled to Honduras to share his knowledge of quality coffee roasting.<\/p>\n<p>\u00e2\u20ac\u0153It surprised him to find an espresso machine in the middle of coffee farmland,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d Calderon said in an email.<\/p>\n<p>At home in Carrboro, Conary is involved in as much of the process as possible, from roasting at Carrboro Coffee Co., which he co-owns, to retail at Open Eye and Caffe Driade. But the climate required for growing coffee limits his participation: You can\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t grow coffee in Carrboro. This fact connects Conary to places like Copan.<\/p>\n<p>\u00e2\u20ac\u0153I go to countries and try to build relationships with farmers and get direct trade,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d Copan said.<\/p>\n<p>Making coffee is an intricate process of planting; waiting; picking; processing; roasting; cupping, or tasting; and, finally, selling.<\/p>\n<p>\u00e2\u20ac\u0153Literally hundreds of hands are touching that coffee before it gets to the customer,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d Conary said.<\/p>\n<p>The importance of each step creates interdependency between Conary and growers like Calderon. A slipup anywhere along the line could ruin three to five years of work, he said.<\/p>\n<p>\u00e2\u20ac\u0153It\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s called \u00e2\u20ac\u02dcseed to cup,\u00e2\u20ac\u2122\u00e2\u20ac\u009d Conary said. \u00e2\u20ac\u0153We\u00e2\u20ac\u2122re honoring the chain.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d<\/p>\n<p>Conary\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s interest in coffee links him to places across the world. It has taken him all over Central and South America. Last year he went to Tokyo to judge the World Barista Championship. This year he will go to Copenhagen, Denmark.<\/p>\n<p>\u00e2\u20ac\u0153Coffee is cool. It takes you around,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d he said.<\/p>\n<p>The main focus of Conary\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s trip to Honduras was to share expertise in quality roasting. Historically, Honduran coffee growers sell what they can and roast what is left, which is usually of poor quality, Conary said.<\/p>\n<p>\u00e2\u20ac\u0153The goal was to equate quality with the work and the price,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d he said. He said he hopes to encourage a taste for good java in a country covered in coffee plants.<\/p>\n<p>Calderon\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s farm, Finca Santa Isabel, is in the mountains of western Honduras.<\/p>\n<p>\u00e2\u20ac\u0153It was beautiful, as is much of Honduras,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d Barbee said.<\/p>\n<p>Calderon oversees the operations of the whole farm, from coffee to poultry to honey, with a focus on environmentally sound practices.<\/p>\n<p>\u00e2\u20ac\u0153The farm is a beautiful example of what you can do with ecotourism,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d Conary said.<\/p>\n<p>Calderon said that growing and processing coffee covers a wide range of disciplines, from agriculture to chemistry to art. \u00e2\u20ac\u0153Our clients\u00e2\u20ac\u2122 job is to have a passion,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d he said. \u00e2\u20ac\u0153[Conary] is a person who has a passion for the art of coffee.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d<\/p>\n<p>Although Conary was at Finca Santa Isabel for only a couple of days, he and Calderon connected.<\/p>\n<p>\u00e2\u20ac\u0153We got along famously. I consider him a good friend,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d Conary said.<\/p>\n<p>Barbee said Calderon was excited about Barbee\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s connection to Carrboro.<\/p>\n<p>\u00e2\u20ac\u0153I think he expected me to know Scott personally,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d Barbee said.<\/p>\n<p><em>Katie Spencer is a UNC-CH student writing for the Carrboro Commons, the bi-weekly online lab newspaper for Carrboro produced by Jock Lauterer\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s Community Journalism class.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>By Katie Spencer Carrboro Commons Writer In the green mountains of Honduras, Chapel Hill resident Hunter Barbee found the familiar logo of his favorite coffee shop. And it wasn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t Starbucks. It was Carrboro\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s own Open Eye Cafe. Barbee, 22, was touring a coffee farm in the small highland village of Copan with a group that&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":12,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[25],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2173","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-land-and-table"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ibiblio.org\/carrborocitizen\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2173","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ibiblio.org\/carrborocitizen\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ibiblio.org\/carrborocitizen\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ibiblio.org\/carrborocitizen\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/12"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ibiblio.org\/carrborocitizen\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2173"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.ibiblio.org\/carrborocitizen\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2173\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ibiblio.org\/carrborocitizen\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2173"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ibiblio.org\/carrborocitizen\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2173"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ibiblio.org\/carrborocitizen\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2173"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}