Guatemala

ABOUT THE REGION

Huehuetenango is located in Western Guatemala bordering Mexico. It is extremely diverse and known for producing some of the best coffees in Latin America due to its climate, altitude, water sources, and traditional varieties. A range of offerings come out of Huehuetenango, including chocolatey volume offerings and fruit-forward microlots. 

ABOUT THE FARM

ACODIHUE is a Fair Trade and Organic certified organization established in 1996. The cooperative is made up of top-level associations and community committees representing the individual producers. ACODIHUE promotes respect for their specific differences, such as rural life, diversity of cultures, gender and religious beliefs.

Specifically, ACODIHUE is focused on poverty reduction and food insecurity of it's members. It contributes to projects co-financed by international and national organizations in the areas of health, education, food security, gender equity, agricultural production, and restoration/conservation of the environment. 

ACODIHUE's coffee comes from 71% of indigenous women coffee producers in the mountainous territory of Cuchumatanes, Huehuetenango, with an average altitude of 1,500 meters (4,920 feet) above sea level. They utilize a traditional way of processing: natural fermentation, manual selection and drying in the sun.

ETHIOPIA

ABOUT THE REGION

Guji is a beautifully forested area in southern Ethiopia. Before the early 2000's, this region was considered part of Sidama, but has since become its own region. The people of Guji grow coffee gardens at very high altitudes in the rich red soil of the highlands, setting this coffee's profile apart from neighboring regions. These smallholders deliver their coffee to washing stations to be sorted and processed together, developing flavors of fruits, deep chocolate, and light florals.

ABOUT THE FARM

The Kayon Mountain Coffee Farm is 500 hectares with about 300 hectares planted in coffee and has been owned and operated by Ismael Hassen Aredo and his family since 2012. It is located in the Oromia region, in the Guji zone of the Shakiso district of Ethiopia.

Ismael oversees a staff of 25 permanent full-time and 300 seasonal employees, and the farm management offers free transportation services as well as financial support for building schools and administration buildings for the community. The farm competes with a nearby mining village for seasonal workers, so Ismael and his family tend to pay higher wages to their pickers in order to incentivize them returning year after year.

Kayon Mountain farm has a nursery on-site and utilizes shade (acacia and other indigenous trees) to protect the coffee as well as for creating compost to fertilize naturally.

COLOMBIA

ABOUT THE REGION

Nariño is Colombia's southernmost coffee-growing region, bordering Ecuador to the south and Cauca to its north. While each of Colombia's various coffee-growing regions has a distinct character in the cup, Nariño's unique climate conditions contribute to the special, sparkling quality of the coffees there. The dramatic slopes and valleys that comprise the landscape in this department have direct effect on the temperature modulation that creates these high-acidity, super sweet coffees.

ABOUT THE FARM   

Fundación Agraria y Ambiental Para el Desarrollo Sostentible (FUDAM) is a 300-member association of organic-certified (and Rainforest Alliance–certified) growers that was founded in the year 2000 by just seven producers who shared a vision of sustainable agriculture as well as environmental protection and development. This group of smallholders lives in and around the small municipality of La Unión in Nariño, where the terrain differs greatly from in other coffee-growing areas like Cauca: Instead of walking up from the town to the farms, as elsewhere, here the towns are at such high elevation that the farms are typically lower elevation, surrounded by high peaks and rough road.

FUDAM's membership believes firmly in the principles of sustainability that drove them to band together in the first place. When asked recently why the group continues to farm organically despite mounting pressure to rely on chemical inputs, the association’s leadership explained, “This is just how we live, these are our values and our way of life.”