The Village
$23.00
plum, nutmeg, candy apple
When it comes to producing exceptional coffee, it truly takes a village. Women are a tremendously influential part of the global coffee community, making up 70% of the labor in field work and harvesting—detail-oriented roles which ultimately translate to excellence in the cup. However, women face steep challenges when it comes to equitable access to career growth, land, education, and credit, representing just 20-30% of farm ownership.
The Village is a celebration of women in coffee, composed of seasonally-rotating selections from valued relationships with female producers and cooperatives, aimed at highlighting and addressing this gender gap. According to strong research, investing in women increases the sustainability of coffee everywhere—women are more likely to reinvest their income back into their families, their coffee businesses, and their communities. And when access to decision-making and the
Currently, The Village comes from the Rubí sisters’ farm Finca Ruland 2, perched between the Sierra La Esperanza and Santa Bárbara mountains in Las Vegas, Honduras. Andrea and her sisters’ skill and diligence shines through this washed lot of Parainema. Expect a complex balance of layered acidity and structured sweetness. Beginning with notes of deep citrus and stone fruit, flavors arc towards ripe cherry as the coffee cools, leaving us with a final, soft note of spice and caramel.
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Type
Single Origin -
Origin
Las Vegas, Santa Bárbara, Honduras -
Producer
Andrea, Angie, and Brenda Rubí -
Variety
Parainema -
Elevation
1300-1700 MASL -
Process
Washed
Meet the Producers
After nearly two decades of conventional coffee farming at Fincas Ruland 1 in Las Vegas, parents Alfredo Rubí and Suyapa Landaverde decided to purchase a new plot of land in 2015, with dreams of cultivating specialty coffee varieties. With these new varieties, they hoped to enter a specialty market that would better appreciate their family’s story and reciprocate their values, with fairer prices and the opportunity to amplify their personal history directly to consumers. Putting those intentions into action, Finca Ruland 2 launched the family into a new era of strategy and focus for the business.
Lifting Up a Community
Andrea sees opportunities to use the family business to help provide sustainable, year-round work for people in and around Las Vegas. In addition to harnessing a tourism economy that sometimes emerges around specialty coffee farms, she wants to educate those in her community about the benefits of cultivating higher quality coffees and selling them through shorter, more direct supply chains to values-oriented companies. She also dreams of building an importing/exporting business to help those in Honduras who are forced to sell their coffees at prices below the already devastating C-market price, effectively working themselves deeper and deeper into debt and poverty. After speaking with her, and learning more about the sisters’ never-ending pursuit of sustainable growth, we are always left smiling—as a young entrepreneur, she is forward-thinking and fearless.
Pictured below: Andrea, Angie, Supaya, and Brenda
Meet the Artist Behind The Village
As a product that features seasonally rotating coffees from valued relationships with female producers, we hoped to reflect the diversity of stories and perspectives as well as origins in the label artwork. To do so, we had the privilege of working with the incredible Costa Rica-based illustrator, Erica Zeledón Salazar to bring the concept to life. We were drawn to her use of vibrant colors and texture, as well as how she uses symbolic elements to connect her ideas to the natural world.
We had a chance to speak to Erica about what inspires her work, and specifically the design for The Village.
