Daughter headed to Peru & Brazil for honeymoon...what beans should she bring home?

[Mr.Peaberry]

Daughter headed to Peru & Brazil for honeymoon...what beans should she bring home?

Of course roasters can offer the best advice on what beans to buy while travelling. My daughter just announced a change in her travel plans for her honeymoon in October. Instead of Thailand & Southeast Asia, she will be headed to Peru & Brazil. While I love her dearly, I must insist that she return home with some good coffee, or not come home. :decaf:

What are some good estate coffees that she might be able to obtain while there? Is there a chance of her being able to return home (ie get through customs) with green coffee? Any advice on smuggling beans into the US would be helpful... :lol::lol:

 

[ensoluna]

if she is going Peru & Brazil for honeymoon, probably she will not be visiting coffee farms?
because as you know, in those two countries, coffee farms are WAY WAY out of the honeymoon locations.

She can buy coffees (roasted coffees) from everywhere, however, they will not be good at all. about 1000% worse than what you buy from local roasters, freshly roasted.
Even if she visit a farm to buy roasted beans, IT WILL NOT BE FRESH. probably those beans were roasted few month back.
and of course, those farms will not roasted small q'ty just for her.

and as for green beans, there is a chance that it will get confisticated by customs, when she is taking some big bags, and specially for honeymoon.
also, when she buys green beans (the only way she can buy green beans are from farmers directly, hardly no one sells green beans unless you buy huge q'ty), probably she will not know which is good green bean or bad green bean. you need to be experienced coffee guy to know this.

SO, IF YOUR INTENTION WAS TO GET SOME FRESH BEANS FOR PERSONAL CONSUMPTION, it is better to get the fresh roasted beans from local roasters or some forum member on-line business. There are quite a few great on-line roasters in our forum and even for me (I own coffee farms and exporting company in Guatemala), I always buy from forum member's website. Until now, I have never got disappointed.

if you want, I can pm some of the forum member websites to buy from.
thanks
alex from Ensoluna

 

[PinkRose]

I think you should forget the whole idea and just let her enjoy her honeymoon without having to fret about finding (and smuggling) coffee beans for her Dear ole Dad.

 

[Mr.Peaberry]

I suppose you're right PinkRose...I'll sulk around a bit, just for show, but ultimately, if it's as much of a bother as ensoluna suggests...and he should know...then, of course she just needs to go and have the best possible honeymoon EVER! Coffee...and this is really hard for me to say...can wait. UGH...there I said it!

 

[peterjschmidt]

Why not just buy Peru and Brazil beans online?

 

[Mr.Peaberry]

It's not so much driven by the desire to have Brazil or Peru coffee, but rather to have her bring coffee as a souvenir rather than a t-shirt. I was kind of hoping she would be able to visit an estate, kinda like going to Hawaii and taking a tour of one of the plantations there. Based on ensoluna's reply, that is likely not easy to do in Brazil or Peru. My preference is Sumatra, Sulawesi, east African coffees, and Central American coffees. Not hearing that too much comes out of either Brazil or Peru that compares well to these.