Behind the Sticker: Who Grew My Coffee? RSS

Can you introduce yourself? My name is Tarmani. I'm not even 50 yet.  What is coffee to you? For household needs. For us to eat. Sometimes there are events, like parties. We take turns to buy what is needed like five kilos of sugar for regular social gatherings. Just daily necessities. Why did you become a coffee farmer? If I didn't become a farmer, what would I be? I can't work in an office. I only graduated elementary school. I can't possibly be an employee. We just live on, and most importantly hopefully we don't experience problems when farming. The only problem is that the plantation is small. One hectare at the most. Not to mention that a little area...

  I met Brianne Hall on a busy Saturday morning at Onda Origins’ café & roastery in Hillman City. She was sipping on a steaming chai tea latte and texting volunteers who were bringing their foster dogs to meet Onda customers for an adoption event. Brianne works with Dog Gone Seattle, a dog rescue organization that relies on a network of over 300 volunteers to give dogs a safe landing spot while they find their forever homes. Brianne was part of the founding team of Dog Gone Seattle (DGS) five years ago, and has fostered over 33 dogs since then. She started fostering after her own dog passed from cancer, but it didn’t take long for her to fall in...

Michael Wood works with Jhai Cooperative of coffee farmers in Laos, which includes the Setapoung families. We jumped on a call with him to hear more about the history of this coffee community and how they’re improving farmer earnings through radical transparency and more sustainable farm practices.

Like many other Costa Rican coffee farms, Enrique’s farm relies on seasonal migrant workers from Panama—often the indigenous Ngäbe-Buglé people who make a demanding journey that leaves the population in a state of mixed documentation, limited resources, and host to human rights abuses. Migrant farm workers can stay in warehouse-type buildings—40-60 people to each structure—with usually no sanitation, plumbing, mattresses, or privacy.

Francisco "Kiko" Ribeiro is a former futebol talent turned passionate coffee farmer in Brazil. He set out with his collective to not just grow good coffee, but some of the best coffee in the world. Here are three reasons why he might have done it.