By JAMES KILA
DECEMBER 3 is International Day for People Living with Disabilities.
The theme for last year event was “Decent work for people with disabilities”.
The theme was ideal for Conchitta Basse, a partially blind lass from Yassa village on Manam Island, Madang province.
Despite her vision-impaired state, Ms Basse is able to use her taste buds superbly in her work as a liquorer or coffee taster with Monpi Coffee Exports in Goroka, Eastern Highlands
Conchitta completed grade 8 in 2005 at Faniufa Sacred Heart primary school with help from Callan Services, a special education organization that helps children with disabilities.
Ms Basse was recruited right after school for employment with Monpi Coffee Exports.
She has since found a niche within the company as a coffee liqourer, a technical term for tasting coffee.
Ms Basse recently took part at a coffee-liquoring training conducted by the Coffee Industry Corporation’s post-harvest section.
She scored good marks and according to workshop facilitator Susan Oksap.
“I was amazed at how that rather blind young woman can distinguish the different taste in the cups sampled,” Ms Oksap said.
Ms Basse says she owes a lot to the general manager of Monpi Coffee Exports, Brendan Ellis, and staff of the company.
“I would like to acknowledge my boss Brendan for providing me the opportunity to reveal and display my abilities, some of which I didn’t know I possessed,” she said.
“Due to my poor eyesight it was quite a challenge for me but I’ve managed through with great support from Brendan.”
Ms Basse’s work as a liquorer is to taste coffee every day to determine if it is acceptable in terms of type and standard.
Her job is quite demanding because a quality coffee is impossible without liquoring expertise.
Moreover, it is only a coffee’s cup taste that can reveal its true value.
According to the Coffee Exporters Guide, a publication by the International Trade Centre, coffee tasting is a highly subjective matter and different tasters and liquorers have different opinions on the quality appeal of a particular cup of liquor.
Some of the samples of coffee cup tasted by Ms Basse have already gone to international coffee buyers overseas and fetched the country foreign exchange through exports.
Many people can acquire the liquoring technique, but often, it takes years of on-the-job training in the liquoring rooms of coffee exporters, importers and roasters.
The liquorer’s first objective is to determine if a coffee is acceptable in terms of the quality and standard.
When it comes to better coffees, it is not only acceptability but also marketability, that counts.
The liquorer must be able to assess not only a coffee’s marketabilility and potential usage but also its price range.
Ms Basse said she learned new things at the workshop.
She said although she was a newcomer to coffee tasting, she had master the skills after one year, mainly due to the support of Mr Ellis and her colleagues Susan Siwi and Heisi Henao.
 

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