Experiencing Coffee Locally Cultivated in Ventura County

In this episode of Farm Talk, Paul is on location with Lisa Tate, founder of the California Coffee Collective at Rancho Faso outside of Santa Paula, California. Not only is California Coffee Collective one of the first of five farms to grow coffee in California, their crop just went into commercial production last year! Lisa may be new to growing a coffee crop, but her family have been farmers since the 1800’s. In just under 30 minutes, Lisa discusses how an expertise in growing avocados led to a giant revelation. Listeners will also discover how an all women crew and volunteers do all of the harvesting - and the tricks they have up their sleeve. One method Lisa devised is painting the women’s nails the exact color of a ripened coffee cherry. The harvesters then only picked perfectly ripened coffee cherries which is a critically important part of the process. You’ll have to listen to the full episode to find out what happens to the leaves from the coffee bush! Lisa and the Coffee Collective have proven coffee can be grown right here in Ventura County, but is the cuppa joe any good? (Spoiler - it’s really great.)