Anyone who wants to roast the best coffee needs to know the origin of their raw material. We are therefore more interested in how and where our coffee is grown than in the bean itself. The coffee from the COAGRISCAL cooperative is not only Fairtrade certified but also organically grown.
For our Cliff Dive blend, we use Arabica beans from the Cooperativa Agrícola Cafetalera San Antonio (COAGRICSAL) in Honduras. The best Arabica beans at high altitude – the higher, the better. Around the small mountain village of San Antonio de la Cumbre, our Cliff Dive coffee thrives at an altitude of 1200 meters, with a view of Guatemala.
Long story
Founded in 1995 by 32 small-scale farmers, the cooperative aims to produce high-quality Fairtrade coffee and cocoa. Despite the high quality, coffee and cocoa production is a difficult business for many producers, as the world market price is often far too low. This makes it all the more important that cooperatives like COAGRICSAL join forces and, as a union, have a stronger market position.
Today, COAGRICSAL has over 1,100 members. Since receiving Fairtrade certification in 2005, they have benefited from independent market prices and the Fairtrade premium. Fairtrade also stands for direct trade routes without price-cutting middlemen who profit from the producers' lack of knowledge. This enabled the cooperative to purchase a modern machine for washing the coffee beans. Thanks to the union, the quality of the harvested coffee has improved through the training and further education of the farmers.
A Plannable Future: An example of how Fairtrade cooperatives improve the lives of individuals is the story of Anastasia Serrano, a member of COAGRICSAL. She never actually wanted to be a coffee farmer. For fifteen years, she cared for her children and helped her husband with the farm work while he moved from city to city looking for work as a farm laborer. "When my husband left me, I was left behind with three children and the coffee plants. At times, the market price for coffee was so low that without Fairtrade, the harvest wouldn't have been worthwhile," says Anastasia Serrano. Thanks to Fairtrade and a guaranteed minimum price, Anastasia can plan her future: Her daughter was able to attend school, and Anastasia was able to afford organic certification for her coffee.
Buying Fairtrade coffee directly supports people like Anastasia Serrano. That's why our Cliff Dive blend tastes twice as good.
http://www.coagricsal.hn/
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