This month, the Bold Cold Brew profile is a dynamic blend of coffees from three different countries. The Guatemalan component comes from Verena de Rasch of Finca El Hato, a 150 hectare (370 acre) farm in Santa Rosa. The Peruvian coffee is a collection from 90 women-run farms in San Ignacio, Cajamarca, all members of a larger cooperative. The Kenyan coffee was produced by numerous smallholder farmers, all of whom are members of the Kagaari South Farmers Cooperative Society and delivered their coffee fruit to the Kangunu Coffee Factory managed by Charles Chege Muruga, pictured.

Verena de Rasch owns El Hato and has utilized her love of trees and exotic plants to surround the coffee trees with a native jungle of plants. El Hato’s high elevations allow for rich biodiversity, and a great variety of birds flutter through the many different trees. Though the farm was established 84 years ago, it experienced the recent devastation of Coffee Leaf Rust in 2018, when roughly 60% of the farm’s crop was lost to the disease. In order to combat the spreading Coffee Leaf Rust, the Rasch family began planting resistant varietals, and filled the fields with over 200,000 new trees.

Las Damas coffee was grown by 90 members of the COOPAFSI (Cooperative Agraria “Frontera San Ignacio”) cooperative. When it was officially established in June 1969, gender equality was an important factor since the land they purchased was divided among all members. Gender equality has continued to be a driving force, making this co-op extremely unique in how they empower and promote women farmers. Currently, 30% of the co-op’s 300 members are women.

First established in 1998, the Kangunu Factory and cooperative, named the Kangunu Farmers’ Cooperative Society, currently supports nearly 1,700 smallholder producers who bring their cherries to the factory. (A factory, or washing station, is where the coffee goes from being a fruit to the dried seed that we roast.) The soils within these areas are rich with volcanic material, as well as being red, due to the high mineral content. Soil health must be maintained to ensure future crops each year – this is why producers intercrop the coffee with banana, maize, and macadamia to shade the coffee and fix various nutrients in the soil.