Tea House
Beyond Organic FarmingAn Analog Forest Coffee Garden
The International Analog Forestry Network was established in 1996 as a response to the need to maintain an exchange of knowledge, experience and up-to-date information between groups interested in learning, promoting and applying an Analog Forestry system in their own area.
Many Yoga, Massage and Music Studios have been jumping in, using their arts to promote both the health benefits and to do our part to help restore ecosystems environmental stability and biodiversity. Why? Because people eat and drink every day; with a right focus on human needs, healing with whole foods, and grass root sourcing direct from farmers people can make a big difference to themselves and the planet. The research, design and application of the Analog Forestry Farming Systems is not a mission for them to take on alone. We the people can awaken to the foods, create new food sourcing options through food co-ops and assist in promoting and educating by hosting tasting events that share blending and cooking skills. Your events can help people look a little deeper into the world around them, their health and the interconnection that makes the world so beautiful.
DR. RANIL SENANAYAKE is s world renowned Systems Ecologist, has worked on global and local environmental issues for more than 30 years. Founder of the Analog Forestry silvicultural system, which is being successfully implemented in many countries around the world, to restore degraded lands and bring back biodiversity. His work in the field draws in more and more farms, each expand the catalog of foods that Bioverde is working so hard to bring into view.
This week, we would like to introduce Coffee. What? Yes, here at the Tea house we support everything done artfully, and many of us are occasional coffee drinkers.
http://srilankacoffee.com/f-g-programme.html
Sri Lanka has been identified as one of the 18 bio diversity hotspsots of the world.
However if farmers do not receive a fair price for their commodities then they are forced to find work in the cities or use unsustainable agricultural practices which deplete the land and its biodiversity.
The good people at Hansa Coffee are helping repair this damage by supporting farmers who practice analog forestry.
At present it is estimated that there are over 3000 farmers praticing analog forestry in Sri Lanka. We at Bioverde are here to support those who pay our farmers more for the higher quality beans that go into your cup! Join us, and Hansa Coffee. Make us your coffee of choice!
Sri Lanka has been identified as one of the 18 bio diversity hotspsots of the world.
However if farmers do not receive a fair price for their commodities then they are forced to find work in the cities or use unsustainable agricultural practices which deplete the land and its biodiversity.
Hansa Coffee is helping repair environmental damage by supporting farmers who practice analog forestry.
At present it is estimated that there are over 3000 farmers praticing analog forestry in Sri Lanka. If that many Yoga and tea friends in America grabbed their tea cups and coffee mugs and jump in, we would be not only healthy Americans but a healthier planet with abundance to invest in more and more communites. You can be the 100th Monkey! Its time to get down to serious business with this.
You can use your choice in food sourcing to:
Bioverde Coffee
Analog Forested Coffee
Going Organic – Home Gardening
The Rain Forest Rescue Network has set up a page about home gardening. They have presented a detailed ‘How To’ guide to get you growing in no time!
To read in full visit: http://www.rainforestrescueinternational.org/rri/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=76&Itemid=83
Here are some delightful home recipes that make great use of all your hard work:
Elawalu kiri hodhi (vegetable curry)
This is a basic white curry recipe. It’s great for vegetables like beans, pumpkin, okra, potatoes and zucchini.
Serves 4
- 3 cups thin coconut milk
- 1 medium onion, thinly sliced
- 2 fresh green chillies seeded and split
- Half a teaspoon ground turmeric
- 2 cloves of garlic, finely sliced
- ½ finely grated fresh ginger
- A cinnamon stick
- 4 pieces of dried daun pandan
- 1 stalk of lemongrass
- 8 curry leaves
- 1 ½ lb of vegetables, slices
- 1 cup of thick coconut milk
- Salt to taste
Put all the ingredients except the sliced vegetables, salt and thick coconut milk, in a large saucepan and simmer gently, uncovered for approximately 10mins. Add the sliced vegetables and salt and cook gently until the vegetables are tender. Add thick coconut milk and simmer about 5mins longer. Serve with rice and other curries.
Pipinja sambol: (cucumber sambol)
- 2 small green cucumbers
- 2 teaspoons of salt
- ½ cup thick coconut milk
- 1freshed chilli, seeded and sliced
- 1 fresh green chilli, seeded and sliced
- 1 small onion, cut thinly
- 2 tablespoons of lemon juice
Peel the cucumbers and slice very thinly. Put in a bowl, sprinkle with salt and let stand for at least 30mins. Press out all the liquid and rinse with cold water. Drain well. Mix with remaining ingredients and serve as an accompaniment to a curry meal.
Watakka curry (yellow pumpkin curry)
Serves 6
- 1lb of pumpkin
- 1 small onion, finely chopped
- 2 cloves of garlic, finely chopped
- 3 fresh green chillies, seeded and chopped
- 8-10 curry leaves
- ½ teaspoon of fenugreek seeds
- ½ teaspoon of ground turmeric
- 2 teaspoons pounded Maldive fish
- 1 ½ cups of thin coconut milk
- 1 teaspoon of salt
- ½ cup of thick coconut milk
- 1 teaspoon of black mustard seeds
Peel the pumpkin and cut into large chunks. Put it into a pan with all the ingredients except the thick coconut milk and mustard seeds. Bring slowly to simmering point and cook gently, uncovered until the pumpkin is almost tender. Meanwhile, grind the mustard seeds in a mortar and pestle and mix with the thick coconut milk. Add to the simmering pot and cook for five minutes longer on a very gentle heat.
Mallung (shredded green leaves with coconut)
Serves 6
- 2 cups of finely shredded green leaves
- 1 medium onion, finely chopped
- 2 green chillies, seeded and chopped
- ½ teaspoon ground turmeric
- 2 teaspoons pounded Maldive fish
- 2 tablespoons of lemon juice
- 1 teaspoon of salt
- 2-3 tablespoons of freshly grated or desiccated coconut.
Put the leaves into a saucepan with all other ingredients except coconut. Add a sprinkling of water and stir well, cover and cook over medium heat for about 6 minutes. Uncover, add coconut and toss over a low heat until the coconut absorbs all the liquid. Remove from heat, and serve hot or cold with rice.
Badhapu wambatu sambol (fried eggplant sambol)
- 2 eggplants
- 2 teaspoons of salt
- 2 teaspoons of ground turmeric oil for frying
- 3 fresh green chillies
- 2 small onions
- Lemon juice
- 3 tablespoons of thick coconut milk.
Slice the eggplant thinly, rub with salt and turmeric, put in a bowl and leave for at least one hour. Drain off the liquid and dry the eggplant on paper towels. Fry the eggplant in hot oil and drain again on absorbent paper. Mix with seeded and chopped chillies, finely sliced onion, lemon juice to taste and 3 tablespoons of thick coconut milk.
Not that I’m a control freak, but it’s a great feeling to have complete control over your food. You look over its journey from plot (or in my case pot) to plate and can rest assured it’s seen no nasty chemicals along the way. So off you go… experiment with your cooking and enjoy your food; you’ve worked hard for it after all.
This article was researched and written by RRI volunteer Lydia Downs.
Bioverde will be expanding our product listings
Forest Garden Products
Forest Garden Products are collected exclusively from these forests and are grown by farmers whose practices have been certified to contribute to agricultural sustainability, biodiversity conservation and environmental stability. In addition as Forest Garden Products (FGP’s), have to comply with the standards of Organic Produce, where the food is of high nutritional value, is low in chemical residues and unadulterated by synthetic chemical additives.
Thus, the consumer of FGPS not only purchase the finest, cleanest and freshest herbs and spices on the market; but also contribute to a change in the lifestyles of tropical subsistence farmers and help reverse the trends in tropical rainforest habitat destruction.
The International Standard Setting Body:
To ensure that the promise of Analog Forestry is kept, the standards that define the producer, processor and shipper of Forest Garden Products is maintained by the International Analog Forestry Network www.analogforestrynetwork.org Headquartered in Costa Rica.
F.G.P. – Inspection and Certification (Pvt) Ltd.
The FGP inspection system began in Sri Lanka 1987 as a method of evaluating the effectiveness of the Analog Forestry that was being set up in Sri Lanka. Over, twenty years of operation it has developed an impressive history and understanding of the factors involved in the restoration of Ecosystems and methods of monitoring. Today, it has become an international force.
FGP inspection service certifies beyond organic. In compliance with all environmental and social concerns of our customers in addition to its organic origin. The standards set for social, biodiversity, landscape and carbon criteria, ensure that our producers are responsible and effective in restoring their ecosystems.
Standards addressed:
Clean, Organic Production
Increasing Farm Sustainability
Ensuring social equity
Building Back Biodiversity
Reducing the Carbon Footprint
Working in this manner, the FGP certification service provides a fast, economic and efficient service to producers, exporters, importers and processors worldwide.
The FGP-IC has also developed a robust inspection and measuring system to certify the baseload of carbon in any given ecosystem, based on the standards laid down by the IAFN.
Bioverde is working to introduce the farmers and increase the amount of forest garden foods available to you.
Learn more about our standards and sourcing by visiting….
http://conservecarbon.org/conservation-carbon/analog-forestry/
Zapotec
http://bioverde.net/
The symbol tells the story of the zapotec people in the valley of Oaxaca…..
Have you heard of The Zapotecs (Zoogocho Zapotec :Didxažoŋ)? They are an indigenous people of Mexico. Their population is concentrated in the southern state of Oaxaca, and Zapotec communities exist in neighboring states as well. They say present-day population is estimated at approximately 800,000 to 1,000,000 persons, many of whom are monolingual in one of the native Zapotec languages. In pre-Columbian times the Zapotec civilization was one of the highly developed cultures of Mesoamerica, which among other things included a system of writing (creation through speech). Many people of Zapotec ancestry have emigrated to the United States over several decades, and they maintain their own social organizations in Los Angeles and Central Valley areas of California.
We can find four basic groups of Zapotecs: the istmeños, who live in the southern Isthmus of Tehuantepec (Visit Wiki) the serranos, who live in the northern mountains of the Sierra Madre de Oaxaca. We can also see her story of the southern Zapotecs, who live in the southern mountains of the Sierra Sur and the Central Valley Zapotecs, who live in and locations of the Valley of Oaxaca.
Look for the sacred art on Bioverde Business cards in the near future. We have some ideas for
Zapotec
how to place it around the edges, honoring the ancient peoples.
Introducing WeForest
About WeForest
Online Discussions: http://www.facebook.com/WeForest?sk=wall#!/WeForest?sk=app_2373072738
Have you ever noticed the dense clouds over a rainforest?
Clouds are formed by water vapor condensing around microscopic nuclei.
In all areas, plants increase the water vapor content of the air significantly and 48% of all terrestrial evapo-transpiration comes from forests.
Plants and leaf surface are naturally colonized by micro-organisms or bacteria,
also called epiphytes, whose surface properties give them the possibility to interact with atmospheric water, helping it to condense (form clouds) and to freeze (form rain). These micro-organisms get into the atmosphere through turbulent movements linked to sensible heat flux. The scientific research of these processes is ongoing and very promising for our climate issues: some of the leaders in the field have joined the WeForest advisory board.
1 Clouds have a high albedo effect, reflecting the incident solar radiation back into space. The more low altitude clouds are created through this natural system, the faster we can cool our planet.
It has been estimated that adding 20 million km2 of forest, can create an extra 2% cloud coverage over the entire planet, countering current global warming. So how can we maintain this cloud based heat shield?
Did you know that trees contribute to releasing microscopic nuclei, needed for cloud formation?
Vanilla Bean – beyond organic
Organic Handicrafted Vanilla
By Milo Bekins Faries, Londres, Costa Rica
Grown using environmentally responsible analog forestry techniques.
Organically grown without using any comercial fertilizers, pesticides
or fungicides.
Harvested and processed by hand using traditional techniques for maximum flavor.
Hand rolled by size, min. of 15cm to 24cm+
aged 4 months. Splits for extract.
Vanilla, an important and popular flavoring material and spice, is the fully grown fruit of the orchid Vanilla fragrans (syn. V. planifolia) harvested before it is fully ripe, after which it is fermented and cured, these are usually referred to as vanilla beans. The beans and the vanilla extract are used extensively to flavor ice-cream, >chocolate, beverages, perfumery and to a small extent medicine. The fragrance and flavor of vanilla beans are due to numerous aromatic compounds produced during the curing operation, among which Vanillin is the most abundant. The flavor of vanillas from different parts of the world varies due to climate, soil, extent of pollenization, and most important being ripeness at harvesting and method of curing. Vanillin can now be produced synthetically, and is much cheaper than natural vanilla flavor. Nevertheless, the flavor of vanilla beans from V. planifolia is far superior to that of synthetic vanillin due to the presence of other flavor compounds in the natural product.
As a lowland orchid vine found primarily in the forests of Mexico and Central America with a variety in northern Colombia and Ecuador. It has been grown for more than 1000 years in Mexico by the Aztecs and other nations. There is only one pollinator, the stingless Meliponia bee, only endemic to Mex. and Central Am. the aborigines knew the secret of hand pollinization, thus the secret of not stressing out the plant by over-pollinating it. Many Western/modern day vanilla growers have lost their production in vanilla due to the greed factor. Cured vanilla beans were considered among the rarer tributes paid to the Aztec emperor by his subject tribes. This lasted until the Spanish conquest and subsequent monopoly which lasted until the 19th century.
Today, using Analog Forestry (AF) techniques, we mimick the original forest in ecological function and architectonic structure; we can restore the forest biodiversity with exotics such as vanilla IF, and only IF they are analogous to the original ecosystems. In Costa Rica there are only 3 micro-climates that are specific enough to meet the requirements of rainfall, altitude, forest cover, and flowering period to be determined by the amount of dry season rainfall. In these areas, Vanilla has been grown for over 30 years by only a few growers who have developed the growing and curing methods, based on the techniques of ancient indigenous growers, Using AF in a strictly forest design pattern, the cured organic bean is put through a process of sweating for 22 hours with sunning of 2 hours everyday for 3 weeks, after which
the drying process is continued in the hot air dryer until a bean humidity of 18%, which is ready for the consumer only after 4 more months of ageing. Each curer has his/her secret which if properly cured the vanilla bean will increase the content of Vanillin, but the
knowledgeable buyer will know immediately if it is of good quality by her/his olfactory senses.
The “good old boy” conventional vanilla buyers and their companies do
not care for these ancient techniques, because time is money for them.
For example, they buy average to low quality beans, mix them and
percolate with alcohol to make vanilla extract in only one week. The traditional maceration, on the other hand, with alcohol takes over 3
months (up to a year is best) to produce aged vanilla extract. This can be done at home with a good vodka and cured quality beans placed
in a warm place and shaken daily. Vanilla sugar used by our grandmothers can be made by chopping up 3 beans in one cm. pieces and placing in your sugar bowl. Keeping the beans covered continually with
sugar will “sweeten” the sugar with vanilla aroma for years on end.
Introducing Tibetan Tea Family
Sustainable Dharma
At the heart of the work that Joru Foundation does is the belief that all people have something to offer the world. The problem is that many people face hardships and do not have access to the resources they need in order to realize their potential. We believe that education is the most crucial tool that one must be equipped with in order to be able to thrive and accomplish their goals. Our work focuses on a school in the Golok region called Sengdruk Taktse School.
Share your love and bookmark their homepage for future visits!
http://jorufoundation.org/about
Bioverde has declared our Interdependence!
What is Interdependence?
When given only the dual option between dependence and independence, humans spirit naturally strives toward the most ennobled condition (independence) and shuns that which diminishes the sense of self (dependence).Interdependence is a fairly new word, yet it is the word that defines the reality of our world – all life is interdependent. Interdependence provides a third option to define ourselves by, that if chosen, can further evolve our race by allowing us to leap over the barriers of dualistic limitations, thus bringing us closer to our shared goal of excellence and value fulfillment as a species. Recognition of our Interdependence with each other and all life is the first step toward creating a sustainable world and future for our children.
Interdependent = Sustainable
Sustainability = Interdependence
We do not have to say it from scratch, there is so much that people have put into place for us all to grab onto, so we have turned toward the members of the Interdependent Project to express a few things that will help bring out methods and approaches into view for you.
Along with Robin Marche at http://www.seedsofsustainability.org/about-us/ We too believe, simply, “in leaving a better planet for our children, and we could think of no better way to do this than time-relevant information to help everyone see/think and rethink their reality, from the individual to the collective and back to the individual.”
And like seeds of sustainability, we too are in the business of information, products and services that contribute to a solution-oriented approach to the challenges we face at this point in history. Are ready to hear about small and large solutions to world problems?
Visit the forums and join the networks.
Learn more about people in action and support their solutions.
For social networking and workshops in the United States, find out more and interact with other groups like you by visiting: http://interdependentproject.ning.com/forum/topics/what-is-interdependence
If you are a farm and part of the global community, become a member of the analog forestry network. http://www.analogforestrynetwork.org/en/membership.html
Big news! Sri Lankan true cinnamon beneficial health-wise
Big news! Sri Lankan true cinnamon is very beneficial health-wise, and we grow it! Whereas the common or cassia cinnamon is slightly toxic, ours is beyond organic. The public does not know this about cassia, so help spread the word and let people know that the analog forestry network has the true cinnamon. We can help you know what true cinnamon is good for and how to use it. Please check out the differences in cinnamon on the internet and then let’s talk.
We recently had a tea tasting and facials day at the healing space in Arizona and cinnamon was a main ingredient! One part of the facial treatment was just a cinnamon paste we made which doesn’t burn but does stimulate the skin, into an enjoyable fresh pink!
Drinking pure cinnamon as a tea will take any tea session to the next level and is always a good start or ending tea in our sessions.
For those that enjoy making their own blends, chai is a great one to work the cinnamon into.
This is not a corporate marketing thing, we are just low budget whole foodies that want to dedicate our arts and practices to the solutions presented by sustaiable farmers and learning how to make these home crafted product alternatives is just part of the job. The other half is sourcing!
Our cinnamon comes in as tightly-rolled quills which are very delicate. Some say they feel like parchment paper, which you can break apart with your fingertips. We love it also because it doesn’t break your coffee grinder! People who grind cassia go through a ginder a month.
This is the preferred cinnamon in Europe, India and Costa rica. And you know its called for in pickling, spiced pears or peaches, and in the brewing of hot cocoa. For those into super foods, don’t brag that you are all of that and turn around only to use cassia. Get with the program people, and all you Boulder Colorado and So Cal sun warriors, yeah this shout out goes to you too!
Regional Update – Arizona “Seva heart” garden project
The Seva Heart garden project brought together the supporting healers that make up the collective behind the space and the general community in a day of gardening.
This gave people a chance to meet the practicioners while getting to know the space and all it has to offer. The interactions over dirt allowed people to introduce their healing arts as well as answer questions about diet, food and even extended efforts to be part of the global sustainability movement via the analog forestry network.
While sourcing dirt for the project, the space members were able to introduce hydroponic stores to the
seed starter grow pots available via BioVerde which sources them from the rain forest rescue network. This network also supplies the tea which is shared freely at Seva space during tastings, meet ups and before or after body work sessions.
