The Mujeres Roast: Honoring Women Within the Coffee Industry (2023)

Why a Women's Roast?

In a literal sense, “Mujeres” translates to “Women” in Spanish, and that’s exactly what this Medium Roast with notes of raspberry crème, pastries, and lemon iced cookie is crafted to bring special attention to.

Women make up a huge proportion of the modern coffee industry: A 2018 study from the International Coffee Organization (ICO) found that, spread across all aspects of the coffee farming industry, “between 20-30% of coffee farms are female operated […] and up to 70% of the labor in coffee production is directly provided by women” (p. 3). 

This large percentage of female labor should come as a shock to anyone reading this from within the United States, as even our own work force (which is majority women by a small percent, 51.6% as of 2020) has remained practically 50/50 between men and women since the mid-1980s (U.S. Department of Labor).

In theory, a labor force that is overwhelmingly female should mean that these women have more access to economic or social resources that improve their lives, right?

Within the coffee industry specifically, the aforementioned ICO study found that women working at at the farm and agricultural level have systematically lower access to resources that would grant them upward mobility when compared to men (particularly land, decision-making power, or access to educational resources) (ICO, p. 16).

On top of the many problems already looming for the future of the coffee industry covered in previous blogs—from climate change, farm abandonment, lower yearly crop yield, and supply chain inflation—the prospect of equal opportunity for all genders across the entire industry is often brushed aside, and it shouldn’t.

Closing the existing gender gap at the agricultural level of the coffee supply chain could “boost global agricultural output [of coffee] by 2.5-4% [annually],” and there are a few ways that Alma Coffee is working towards this within our own supply chain right now (ICO, p. 26).

But first, before we dive further into how we are working to remedy the coffee gender gap, let’s take a moment to highlight the female leadership that has broken gender biases in our own farm-to-cup supply chain!

The Women of Alma Coffee (2023)

We are extremely proud to be women-owned here at Alma. What you might not know is that most management positions in our farm-to-cup supply chain are also headed by extremely talented women! Here’s a few that help make your favorite coffee extraordinary:

How Alma Coffee is building a more equitable future today.

Like we mentioned at the beginning of the blog, this year’s Mujeres roast is intended to not only highlight the many amazing women leaders that make your coffee possible, it is also crafted to raise awareness of the coffee gender gap and what Alma Coffee is doing to build a more equitable future. 

Purchasing direct trade coffee from Alma improves the lives of women who need it most at the farm level, providing all men & women with fair wages and better access to traditional forms of upward mobility such as education and leadership oppurtunity (ICO, p. 27).

Additionally, Alma’s family farm(s) in Honduras, Finca Terrerito, have made the commitment to provide free tuition, transportation, and access to high quality education opportunities to the children of their team members in Honduras.

This means future generations of women living on our family farms will have access to resources such as financial literacy and ESL classes that grant them unprecedented agency to improve their future, whether that be in the coffee industry or beyond. 

We have already decided to cover this commitment in more detail in a future blog post, so stay tuned!

Celebrate women and raise awareness of the coffee gender gap with Alma Coffee!

And so, although there is still progress to be made in closing the coffee gender gap, Our Mujeres roast gives us this special once-a-year platform to draw attention to the steps that have been taken towards an equitable future for Central American coffee farming. 

While it's available from March 8th to March 31st, each cup of Mujeres brewed is honoring the leaders, investments, and continued work needed to improve the lives of women within the coffee industry and carve a more sustainable future for all.

While you're at it, be sure to subscribe to our email newsletter to stay up-to-date on the latest blog posts from Alma Coffee as well as updates on the investments Finca Terrerito is making that we've mentioned in this blog. 

Your support, both in reading this and purchasing our coffee, makes the future of coffee something we can all look forward to!