We’ve had the wonderful opportunity to work with Cooperative Coffees members Kickapoo, Larry’s, Bongo Java, and Amavida. Each time, we brag about the great work Cooperative Coffees is doing to ensure farmers they work with are paid a fair wage while setting the standards for transparency.

Cafe Campesino is one of the founders of Cooperative Coffees and was instrumental in gathering this like-minded group of fair trade roasters together back in 1999.   They have been roasting their own amazing coffee under the Cafe Campesino brand since 2002. Perhaps the best person to explain where the idea came from is Bill Harris, co-founder:

We were in Guatemala in 1997 with Habitat for Humanity’s Global Village program. Someone on our team dumped a load of dirt on a farmer’s coffee bush, the farmer got mad and made us quit working on the house. We’d flown from the U.S. to Guatemala to carry out this assignment of building a house, so what were we to do?

While the farmer and local Habitat coordinator discussed the fate of the coffee plant, the team sat in the shade and talked about coffee, of course. How much coffee is produced from that little tree? How much does he get paid for it? How many other families in this region depend on coffee as their main source of income? After an hour and a half of discussion between the farmer and Habitat coordinator, a truce was struck, and the farmer let the team return to building with the assurance that no more dirt would be dumped on his plants.

Once they decided to get into roasting, Bill called up his brother Lee Harris – who studied at the New England Culinary School – to be the master roaster, and we can attest that this was a great idea. The samples we received from Cafe Campesino were amazing and we can’t wait to share their delicious coffee with our subscribers!

Just like all our other featured roasters from Cooperative Coffees, anyone can head to their website and get the map below to track down their coffee contracts. Maybe you can use this map to guess where your coffee will come from this month!