Our Three Pillars Blend incorporates coffees from three different Latin American countries. The first coffee component comes from La Labor in Ocotepeque, Honduras. Produced by AMPROCAL (Asociación de Mujeres Procesadoras de Café la Labor), this coffee comes from the women-run organization that assists women entrepreneurs working in coffee production in the region. The organization was established in 2007 to promote the sale of certified coffees from women producers, and provide micro-financing opportunities to its members. Initially the association was founded by eight women, but has now grown to a membership of about 175 individuals. In addition to financial and entrepreneurial support, AMPROCAL provides agronomic assistance to help improve coffee quality, productivity, and sustainability.
The second coffee, from Antigua, Guatemala, was processed at the historic Pastores mill, which was built in the late 1800s. Although originally built to process wheat, Pastores has gone through several ownership changes over the last century and is now a major coffee processing mill. Pastores receives between 8,000 to 10,000 bags of coffee from farmers each year. Farmers contribute only their highest quality coffee, which is all hand-picked and brought to the mill to be depulped, fermented, washed, and sun-dried. After processing, the coffee is brought to an onsite laboratory where it is cupped for quality control before being prepared for shipment.
The third coffee comes from various small producers in the Nariño region of Colombia. The coffee from each small producer is collected and processed by the Cafe Occidente Cooperative located in the Yacuanquer municipality of Nariño. This component is a blended lot made up of Castillo and Caturra varieties, grown between 1900-2200 MASL. Once the perfectly ripe cherries are picked for processing, they are washed, fermented for 14-16 hours, washed once more and then dried on patios for 13-28 days.
Each of the three coffee components in this blend represent the hard work and dedication of numerous small coffee producers in Latin America. We are proud to showcase their work in our Three Pillars Blend, which stands to uphold three essential pillars of sustainability: social, economic, and environmental.
