Women farmers in Guatemala
Hi coffee fans. Since the idea of creating a coffee company first rattled around in our brains, one of the main things we wanted to do was buy a product that was sourced from small farmers that cared about what they grew. And one subset of those coffee farmers are women. Through our wholesale connection, Genuine Origin, we were able to buy great coffee produced by women farmers.
Coffee is bought in lots and further subdivided into micro lots. These lots are grown by specific farmers that have specialized in growing coffee that highlight the individual tastes and characteristics which coffee nuts such as ourselves crave. Smokin Gun is reserving some of these micro lot bags now from coffee grown by women farmers in Guatemala. These coffees are known as La Morena. The name ‘La Morena’ refers to azucar morena — meaning brown sugar in Spanish, the predominate flavor in the coffee.
In Guatemala, coffee has long been a male dominated industry and gender equality remains a challenge. It’s very difficult for women in Guatemala to compete and thrive in the coffee world. La Morena was created to showcase the work of women farmers across Guatemala.
These coffees are grown in the region of Huehuetenango which enjoys ideal growing conditions. Huehuetenango is also Guatemala’s highest and driest non-volcanic regions, making it ideal for growing coffee.
With the help of Volcafe Way, Genuine Origins in country partner, the La Morena farmers learned best practices in farming, how to become profitable and produce high quality coffees. The women who have participated in the La Morena project have increased the quality of their coffee, increased their yields, and, as a consequence started earning more.
Smokin Gun will take delivery of some La Morena in late April/May time frame when it lands in the U. S. and will have some ready for your coffee pot soon after. We use lots of Guatemalan and Honduran coffee in our Smokin Good, Black Powder and Stand To lines of coffee because if it’s reliable flavors season after season.
If you’d like to reserve some La Morena, drop us a line at coffeetime@mailcan.com and we will set some aside for you.
Thanks for reading.