Oenophiles have long enjoyed visiting their favorite wine-growing regions. Now, coffee drinkers are getting into the act. Coffee tourism is growing, with java lovers traveling to coffee-growing regions to learn about the places where the bean of their favorite brew is grown. Crimson Cup Coffee & Tea, a Bexley coffee-roasting and distribution company, has been cultivating personal relationships with small Central American coffee growers since 2011. This year, the company has also been arranging trips to the region for area college students and for owners of independent coffeehouses who want to learn about and support sustainable coffee cultivation. Crimson Cup buyers make several trips each year to purchase coffee directly from small-plot growers in Honduras, Costa Rica and Guatemala, said Greg Ubert, the company’s president. Last month, a group of Ohio State University agricultural students and Zia Ahmed, the director of the university’s student life and dining services, accompanied Ubert to meet with Honduran farmers in the village of El Socorro. The trip offered “a 360-degree perspective on how coffee affects lives,” Ahmed said. The visitors and farmers discussed growing and processing methods that improve quality and will allow Crimson Cup to pay more for the beans than farmers can get on the commodity market, Ubert said. “We’re trying to help the community help itself.” The Bexley company has also donated books, desks and a playground fence for the village’s one-room elementary school. Everyone in the village of about 350 people depends on the coffee crop, Ubert said. “We asked the kids at the elementary school, ‘How many of you are involved with farming coffee?' “They all raised their hands. “We asked, ‘How many of you drink coffee?’ “All of them, from kindergarten to sixth grade, raised their hands.” Currently, few students leave El Socorro to go to high school. One who did, David Lopez, later got a job at a coffee mill, learned processes that were new to El Socorro farmers, then returned home and started his own farm and mill. Now, with help from Crimson Cup, he is teaching other farmers the better methods. With a bit of help and support for sustainable small-farm growers, Lopez’s story can become typical, Ubert said. On another recent trip, Ohio coffeehouse owners from 5 Bean Coffee in Reynoldsburg, Sheri’s Coffee House in Norwalk, Coffee Amici in Findlay and Court Street Coffee in Athens accompanied a host from Crimson Cup to visit small growers in Costa Rica. The coffeehouse owners “seemed to be energized and touched” by visiting the farms, Ubert said. “It opened my eyes to a whole new world,” said Sheri Thomas, owner of Sheri’s Coffee House. “To see the attention to detail and the pride that actually goes into growing that bean was amazing,” Thomas said. It’s easy to think that ‘Coffee is coffee,’ but it isn’t,” Thomas said. “There’s a lot that goes into that cup of coffee we’re serving.” And a lot can come out of it, too, Ubert said.Coffee tourists — and even coffee drinkers — “can make a difference with simple choices like ‘Which coffee am I going to drink?’ ” he said. Crimson Cup roasts coffee for a network of independent coffeehouses, grocers, restaurants and food-service operations in 28 states and has a coffee shop at 4541 N. High St. in the Clintonville neighborhood. Source: dispatch.com/content/stories/travel/2013/06/02/1-coffee-tours-help-educate-bean-buyers-consumers.html