Cycling around the island and reading the coffee map of Taiwan

Teenage Bike's Coffee Journey

Each pack of half-pound Huanan Guo coffee with children's paintings on it is priced at 500 yuan per pack, which is more expensive than imported coffee, but it represents the love of the children to do their best to help the disaster-stricken households in Morakot.

Outside the Yunlin County Children's Film Festival in 2013, children in South China concentrated their attention on watching the hot water in the siphon pot blend with coffee powder, then poured it into a tasting cup, and offered it to visitors with both hands. The guest shakes the coffee in the cup slightly and sips lightly. The rich coffee aroma and light fruity sour taste enter the throat happily along the nose and taste buds.

"Uncle, is it good? If it tastes good, you can take a whole pack of happiness with you. It's only five hundred yuan a pack, which is cheaper than supermarkets, and the quality is better. Drinking coffee can also do charity, killing two birds with one stone!" "The children's cries sound childish, but they are confident.

Sandimen coffee beans waiting for buyers

In this charity sale, students from Yunlin Gukeng Huanan Elementary School assisted small farmers in the Lily Tribe Park in Changzhi, Pingtung to sell Sandimen coffee beans. Seeing the child's sincere eyes, the adults present responded without hesitation. Each pack of half-pound Huanan Guo coffee with children's paintings on it is priced at 500 yuan per pack, which is more expensive than imported coffee, but it represents the love of the children to do their best to help the disaster-stricken households in Morakot.

How did this coffee relationship between Yunlin Gukeng Remote Elementary School and Pingtung Morakot disaster-stricken households come about?

On November 30 last year, Liu Weiting, a reporter from the independent media Morakot News, reported "Changzhi Lily Tribe's Sandimen Coffee Beans Waiting for Buyers." . This caught the attention of Chen Qingzhen, the principal of South China Elementary School, known for his coffee-based teaching. Chen Qingzhen conveyed the news to Xu Yihong, the parent of a student who specializes in marketing coffee from small farmers in Taiwan, and invited friends to Pingtung to learn about it. Xu Yihong, who is a small farmer of Gukeng coffee, has created his own brand "Dajianshan Yunlin Gukeng Coffee" for nearly ten years. During this trip, Xu Yihong not only purchased green coffee beans from tribal residents, but also provided residents with coffee planting, preservation, brewing and other services. It is a proposal to run a personal art coffee shop, hoping that residents will be able to self-produce and sell themselves one day and make their own characteristics.

Huanan Elementary School smells like coffee
Back in time six years ago, Chen Qingzhen went to Huanan Elementary School to take over as the acting principal, and found that Huanan Village "has no coffee business district, only old farmers who can't sell coffee; most of them are landslides, elderly people living alone, declining birthrate and single-parent disadvantaged families." Residents planted oranges, hemp bamboo and other crops, and switched to coffee after the September 21 earthquake. Due to the lack of production and sales channels and unstable income, the population moved out, and the South China elementary school was even facing the crisis of closing the school.

In order to reverse the situation, Chen Qingzhen led teachers to plan coffee experience and teaching courses according to the level of low, middle and high grades by exploring the development of the Gukeng coffee industry and the ecological environment, and led the transformation of South China elementary schools into characteristic primary schools.

Children in the first and second grades teach outdoors to visit coffee gardens, learn how to harvest coffee beans from coffee farmers, and understand the ecology and environment of coffee trees; in the third and fourth grades, arrange children to be small reporters and personally interview coffee in the neighborhood Farmers and dealers, interviewing farmers about the difficulties they face in sales; in the fifth and sixth grades, in addition to learning to roast coffee beans, the children also formulate action strategies based on the production and marketing problems discovered in the interviews, helping small coffee farmers to brand marketing, or roasting by themselves Coffee bean sale.

Cycling around the island and reading the coffee map of Taiwan

After the baptism of this series of courses, these children not only visited the local coffee elders and small farmers in Gukeng, but also embarked on a coffee tour of teenagers, visiting coffee producing areas in Taiwan by cycling around the island.

Growing up in Gukeng, Xu Yihong couldn’t let go of the coffee feelings in his hometown. In 2004, he returned to his hometown to set up a company and transformed into a professional coffee farmer. The eldest son, who is in the fourth grade of elementary school, is transferred to Huanan Elementary School. Xu Yihong believes that this way of day education is the best way to apply knowledge. When the children arranged to cycle around the island to visit the coffee producing areas, Xu Yihong was the best person to consult. He introduced small coffee farmers he knew well to the children, and assisted the children in the production of the "Taiwan Coffee Map" documentary.

Develop children's problem-solving skills

Now Xu Yihong regularly purchases green coffee beans from the German tribe in Sandimen. He can receive two tons of coffee beans a year, with an average of 420 yuan per kilogram. The pound needs to be sold for more than 1,000 yuan to be sufficient. Looking at the price of 500 yuan for half a pound in Huanan Elementary School, Xu Yihong said that it is really cheap.

The principal Chen Qingzhen said that the focus of the charity sale of Taiwan coffee is not to make a profit, but to let the children develop the ability to independently discover and solve problems through the process of the charity sale, which is the significance of education.

★Sandimen Xiaonong coffee sold by Nanguo Xiaoyi still has a lot of stocks. Those who are interested can contact Huanan Elementary School, No. 28, Huanan Village, Gukeng Township, Yunlin County. Tel (05) 5901529, or contact the principal Chen Qingzhen 0935107609.

Reprinted from: udn United News Network/United Evening News/Wang Wenhao 2013/01/18