Behind Every Bean
Every Great Cup Has a Story. This Is Ours.
I didn’t grow up dreaming of coffee.
I grew up swinging from coffee trees.
To my father’s horror, they were my playground. Every time he caught me hanging from a branch, I knew I was in trouble. To me, they were just trees. I couldn’t understand why he cared so much about them. Years later, as a teenager, my “promotion” was making the 10 o’clock tea and cooking lunch for the coffee pickers.
Honestly? I hated it.
While my friends were enjoying their holidays, I was serving endless cups of tea to workers I barely knew, wondering why anyone would willingly spend their days under the hot sun picking tiny red cherries. I had no idea that those cherries were quietly paying my school fees, and that every harvest helped keep food on our table.
And I had no idea that the real hero of our coffee story wasn’t even my father. It was my mother.
While my father loved the farm, my mother carried it. She knew every season, every challenge and every neighbor willing to work.
She hired the women from our village to prune the trees, spread manure, weed the fields and carefully hand-pick the ripe cherries. She negotiated wages, managed the harvest and made sure every sack reached the local cooperative.
Coffee wasn’t simply grown. It was earned. I watched her work long before sunrise and long after sunset. I watched her solve problems with very little. I watched her stretch every shilling to support both our family and the families who depended on seasonal work.
One memory has never left me. A young mother arrived for work carrying her baby, barely a month old. The little girl spent the day sleeping in a plastic basin lined with blankets under the shade while her mother picked coffee nearby.
Many employers would have turned her away. My mother didn’t. She simply made room.
That wasn’t charity. That was dignity. That was empowerment. That was community.
Looking back, I now realize that our farm was doing far more than producing coffee. It was creating livelihoods. It was helping mothers educate their children. It was putting food on tables. It was building hope — one harvest at a time.
Today, that childhood has become my purpose. Our coffee isn’t just about exceptional beans. It is about the people behind every bean. Especially the women.
Across coffee-producing countries, women make up nearly 70% of the field and harvesting workforce, yet only 10–15% participate in coffee trading and export, where much of the industry’s value is created.
The income gap between men and women in coffee-growing communities can be as high as 39%.
Yet women are the heartbeat of coffee.
Research consistently shows that when women have equal access to training, resources and opportunities, coffee quality improves.
Even more inspiring, studies show that women reinvest around 90% of their income into their families—supporting education, nutrition and healthcare—compared with approximately 40% of income earned by men.
Across coffee-producing countries, women make up nearly 70% of the field and harvesting workforce — yet women are the heartbeat of coffee.
Research consistently shows that when women have equal access to training, resources and opportunities, coffee quality improves.
When women thrive, entire communities thrive. Children stay in school. Families become healthier.
We don’t just grow coffee. We grow opportunities.