Up and Running

Here in Nepal, we are mid-way through the rainy season. But this year is different.

The opinion here at Black Kite Coffee (Varsha, Jug, Roshni and Salome) is that, in the past, it would typically rain solidly for a whole month. Rice fields would be flooded, allowing water to flow down terraces towards river tributaries through an intricate system of inlets and outlets. 

This year, like the previous few years, has seen ongoing changes to the Asian Monsoon; very wet days early and late in the season, with a much drier, hotter period of low daily rainfall in between. The worry is that extremely heavy October rains will cause landslides and general disruption during Dashain, the festival season that would traditionally have been celebrated after rice was harvested, threshed and stored.

A little surprisingly, Black Kite has seen an up-tick in business during this time; July has proved to be one of our best months of the year so far, despite the fact that many westerners have left for the summer and Lakeside tourists are much thinner on the ground. We take things month by month, and are mindful that God is with us during the good and the bad.

Jug (Varsha’s husband) has been working extremely hard to set up our new machinery whilst keeping the cafe going. His motivation may be coming from the fact that he and Varsha are now expecting their first child early next year! Regardless, we are extremely thankful that the business has been doing well for the whole of this year so far.

This month’s photos include our main barista Salome passing on some of her knowledge to our trainee barista Roshni, together with Jug using the new machinery to de-hull and grade some of the 500kg of parchment coffee we currently have in stock.

Next time….the search for a second trainee barista