Wonderful Wild Women - Guatemala

The Wonderful Wild Women community started as the brainchild of the Lake District's very own Sarah Gerrish with the aim of inspiring women to get outdoors and active no matter their age or experience. Since its inception in 2015, the Wonderful Wild Women community has grown to be in the tens of thousands and profiles inspirational Wonderful Wild Women across the globe.

We've teamed up with Wonderful Wild Women to offer you coffees driven by some inspirational women working in the world of coffee.

Our first ever offering comes from Guatemala's Huehuetenango region. It is grown by Rosa Linda, Ana Marcos Morales and Miguela Morales, and is part of our favourite Guatemalan importer, Primavera's Female Coffee Growers project. In the cup it is sweet with good body and notes of brown sugar, peach and liquorice.

Primavera was set up by Nadine Rasch, who grew up in Guatemala, and whose family have had a coffee farm there for four generations. After studying finance in London, Nadine ended up working for a commodities fund where she saw the price for commodity coffee drop sharply. She came to realise that the only way to maintain stable prices for coffee was through quality (that facilitates access to the speciality coffee market and better prices), and she eventually returned to Guatemala with the aim of improving the plight of her country's producers.

Our relationship with Primavera goes from strength to strength to strength, in large part courtesy of their very own Wonderful Wild Woman, Hanna Huhtonen who represents Primavera in Europe. Aside from intrepidly sourcing wonderful coffee during harvest season in Guatemala, and travelling the globe to showcase it to us roasters, Hanna spends her time surfing and teaching yoga in Portugal. I first met Hanna during an intense and highly caffeinated London coffee festival. Amidst the melee, she must have seen my simmering distress and duly offered me a seat and a glass of water at the oasis that was the Primavera stand. She has had my utmost regard and trust ever since!

The poor economic and security situation in Guatemala has seen an increase in the rate of migration to the US in recent years. Most of these migrants are men, leaving their wives and daughters behind to take matters into their own hands. San Marcos Huista, a very rural and isolated community where people mostly speak the native Popti dialect, has seen about 50% of the male population leave to seek their fortune elsewhere. Because of its remote location, many obstacles remain for the women who are left in charge of the coffee farms to sell their coffee at the best prices. Many of them sell to the local "coyote" who typically drives by with a pick-up truck buying all coffee at a very low price regardless of quality.

Primavera's Female Coffee Growers project supports female growers by paying them better prices, and by giving them micro-loans and technical assistance in order to help them continuously improve the quality of the coffee they produce. We're proud to support this project by bringing you this wonderful coffee grown by Rosa Linda, Ana Marcos Morales and Miguela Morales.