Women’s Rights Coffee.

The flavour is soft and full. Roasted nuts, cane sugar and milk chocolate build a sweet, round base, while lime and red berries bring freshness and life. A very easy-drinking coffee, but with enough complexity to stay interesting cup after cup.

The coffee comes from Huehuetenango in north-western Guatemala, where it is grown at 1,400–1,600 metres. Strong sun during the day meets cold, humid nights, letting the coffee cherries ripen slowly. That gives dense beans, clearer flavours and the fine balance between sweetness and acidity we like so much in this coffee. The name Huehuetenango comes from the Nahuatl language and means place of the ancestors.

Coffee facts

Producer: Female smallholder coffee farmers through La Morena
Origin: Huehuetenango, Guatemala
Altitude: 1,400–1,600 m above sea level
Roast: Medium roast
Process: Washed
Drying: Sun-dried
Flavours: Roasted nuts, cane sugar, milk chocolate, lime and red berries

LA MORENA

La Morena was created to highlight the women behind Guatemala's coffee production. The country's coffee industry has long been strongly male-dominated, even though women play a major role in the work on many of the farms. Through La Morena, coffee produced exclusively by female smallholder farmers is brought together and given a clearer path to the international market.

Behind the project is Volcafe, which through its Volcafe Way programme works directly with coffee farmers to develop quality, productivity and long-term profitability. For the women of La Morena, this includes training in cultivation, harvesting, quality work, finance and entrepreneurship.

An important part of the work is the so-called model farms. There, farmers who have successfully implemented better methods become knowledge-bearers in their local communities and help more producers develop their farms. The idea is simple: knowledge should not stay with one person, but be passed on.

Once the coffee cherries have been harvested and reached the station, they are carefully sorted before the coffee goes through a washed process. The fruit is removed, the coffee is fermented and washed, and the beans are dried in the sun. It is a method that gives a clean, clear cup where the coffee's natural sweetness, acidity and origin can shine.

La Morena also works with Wakami, an organisation active in eight regions that works with women in rural Guatemala. Through training in areas such as finance, bookkeeping and access to markets, women get better opportunities to build their own long-term incomes. For every pound of La Morena coffee, Volcafe also contributes 15 cents to Wakami.

Coffee is always the result of the people behind it. With La Morena we get both a really good coffee and the chance to highlight growers who have historically not been given the same space in the coffee industry. For us, that is exactly the kind of coffee we want to offer.