Gaia Blend: Women Producers
In honor of Women's History Month, we have created a special blend of coffee honoring all women, past and present. Our Gaia Blend is comprised of three different women producing farms.
The beautiful label art was created for us by Jeanne Fry, a local Appalachian artist that celebrates the beauty and power of the feminine.
Tasting Notes: This blend brings about light peach & lemongrass undertones alongside an herby & cocoa/caramel lushness.
Each farm has it's own beautiful story.
SUMATRA: GARMINDO
GARMINDO cooperative's full name is the Gayo Arabica Mahkota Indonesia Cooperative, and it is an association started in 2019 with 625 smallholder farmer members, each of whom owns less than 1.5 hectares of farmland, on average. This coffee comes from the women coffee producers subgroup. A price premium is paid directly to the women above and beyond the quality premium. The women members typically bring their coffee in cherry form to a collection point where it is depulped, fermented underwater for 12 hours, and given a pre-dry before undergoing the Wet-Hulling process. The coffee is dried on patios and typically takes 2–3 days under sunny conditions. It can take up to 7 days when the weather is rainy and humid.
GUATEMALA: ASPROCDEGUA
Asociación de Productores de Café Diferenciados y Especiales de Guatemala (ASPROCDEGUA) is a producing organization with 664 contributing members, the women of whom have separated out some of their coffee to make this Women Coffee Producers offering. The producing members own small farms, an average of 2 hectares each, on which they plant coffee as well as other crops for diversification, including bananas, citrus fruit like oranges and lemons, avocado, guava, and cassava. The organization offers its members access to technical assistance and routinely provides services such as soil analysis, test farms, and social projects based on food security, education, and nutrition.
NICARAGUA: FTO
Fair Trade– and organic-certified coffees from Nicaragua are fairly common, as many smallholder, women producers have organized themselves into democratically run cooperatives due to the small average farm size (1–10 hectares) and long history with cooperatives: The first cooperative of coffee growers was established here in the 1920s.