The Community Coffee program with CoopeTarrazu has made a real impact on the communities that deliver cherry to this mill. This program has allowed us to separate out lots from specific communities that score over 86 points and pay a quality premium, which the individual communities receive and decide as a group how the money will be used to improve their coffee production and livelihood. We have seen the premiums used to build roads, build large water tanks to store fresh water for the community, build roofs for the children’s schools, and many other projects which have had a direct impact on these communities. This program has motivated these producers to keep upping their quality, and we are very excited to see that this year’s harvest has been very impressive.
Some of the best individual producers in Costa Rica used to deliver their cherry to cooperatives, and, in an effort to segregate their own production and quality, opened their own operation. But there are still many producers of that caliber who still deliver cherry to cooperatives. This is where CoopeTarrazu comes in.
Microlots in cooperatives can be controversial, but CoopeTarrazu has made a commitment to improve the lives of its members and offer them the opportunity of gaining higher quality premiums for their best coffees. This is why CoopeTarrazu developed the Community Coffees project, in which cherry is collected from high-altitude communities at the peak of the harvest, and has traceability to the community or microregion, as opposed to a generic SHB Tarrazu.
The results of this program have been phenomenal. We are very proud to partner with CoopeTarrazu on this project and support these hardworking producers.
For more photos from Costa Rica, click here.
