Sometimes in my origin travels I have encountered examples of gender discrimination so random and unjustified as to leave me speechless. The husband who told his wife she wasn’t intelligent enough to learn how to drive and so kept her a virtual prisoner on their remote coffee farm. And there strapped large sacks of heavy coffee cherry to her back, making her carry them up steep mountain roads as his personal pack mule. Really??? How many women have I seen at origin who barely schooled to 4th grade?
If I favour women coffee farmers who produce high-quality coffee, it’s simply to give them a chance to even the playing field a bit. And bring you, coffee lovers, a taste of something all the sweeter for the meaning it might have in an origin country somewhere.
Our Honduras washed Arabica serves the triple whammy purpose of 1) having delicious, chocolatey notes; 2) being produced by a women’s cooperative whose objective is to create equal opportunities for its members and 3) those women being Lenca, an indigenous population. Oh, and to top it all off, the coffee is organic.
In their words: “we seek a sustainable process that gives hope, employment and income to Lenca peasant women.”