Recap: Womxn-POWERed Coffee Summit 2022
We here at Bean Voyage hosted the very first Womxn-Powered Coffee Summit (WPCS) from August 11 to August 12, 2022, at Doka Estate in Alajuela, Costa Rica. The event boasted participation from 130+ women coffee producers, traders, roasters, and baristas primarily from Costa Rica, as well as some participants from the United States, Germany, El Salvador, and more.
Geared towards creating a space where women coffee producers could connect with each other and women working in other parts of the coffee supply chain, WPCS was a refreshing take on an event that has historically excluded coffee producers.
The first day of WPCS kicked off on August 11 with a welcoming ceremony that featured remarks from a variety of WPCS sponsors and Bean Voyage affiliates.
After the welcoming ceremony, we jumped into the heart of the summit. The first day, characterized by lecture-style presentations, opened up with a Care Talk, a Ted-X style presentation, on coffee pricing and supply chain dynamics from Xinia Chaves, the director of the Coffee Institute of Costa Rica (ICAFE).
Following the presentation, participants tuned into a conversation with women employed in various parts of the coffee supply chain. The panel, called Supply Chain from the Perspective of Smallholder Women to Women Coffee Roasters, featured Delfina Porras Solís, who shared her experiences co-founding and running Vamay Coffee in Santa María de Dota, Lauren Ríos Abarca, a Costa-Rica-based exporter, Cattica, as well as Sarah Girdzius, a green coffee buyer and roaster at James Coffee Co. in San Diego, California. The conversation was moderated by Paula Siles, working with the Costa Rica, and US-based importer, The Coffee Source bringing her experiences as an importer.
The second half of day one focused on the importance of storytelling. Amaris Gutiérrez-Ray, the founder of the Women in Coffee Project, discussed the power of creating platforms that can facilitate knowledge and experience sharing between producers and consumers of coffee in an industry that often benefits from information asymmetry.
After a brief coffee break, the first day wrapped up with the premier of Más que un café (Stronger than Coffee), a short participatory documentary following the stories of five women coffee producers affiliated with Bean Voyage. Equipped with knowledge about storytelling and filming, Ericka Mora (Cafe EyF), María Jiménez, Arleen Jiménez (Microbeneficio La Angostura), Tatiana Vargas (Legados Cafe) and Margoth Rivera (ASIPROFE), the producers featured in the documentary, opened the room up for an audience Q & A session after the screening, detailing their experiences of telling their stories in their own voices. The conversation was moderated by Fernanda Carrillo, Costa Rica-based program officer at Bean Voyage.
The second day of the summit featured more Care Talks and panels, as well as interactive sessions.
Jen Apodaca, the founder of Mother Tongue Coffee and the 2019 US Cup Tasting Champion, began the day with a Care Talk detailing the importance of making cuppings inclusive and shared their insights on the importance of standardizing cupping sessions by walking participants through a brief tasting session.
Following Jen’s Care Talk, participants heard from a panel featuring two young women coffee producers, Daniela Gutierrez-Valverde from Cafe Don Lucas and Joselyn Fallas from La Chelita Coffee, who conversed on the burdensome nature of the industry but left off with messages about the importance of becoming more knowledgeable and recognizing the beauty inherent to coffee production. The conversation was moderated by climate expert and consultant at IADB, Valentina Saavedra.
Following the panel, Giselle Barrera, the former regional manager of Grounds for Empowerment in Central America, and the founder of Latinas in Coffee, provided insight on the importance of price transparency and delved into the impact of finance training hosted by Grounds for Empowerment.
Loretta Maps-Bolt, an animist, plant researcher, and the founder of Biotunes, kicked off the second half of day two by sharing how she creates music with coffee plants. Although there was no logistical way to do so live, at the end of her Care Talk, Loretta played a recording of music she made with coffee plants, allowing participants to immerse themselves in an auditory experience uniquely based in coffee.
Following this Care Talk, Fabiola Rojas, the head barista at Hacienda Altagracia in Pérez Zeledon, Costa Rica, led a presentation detailing tasting profiles and notes unique to coffee grown in each of Costa Rica’s coffee-growing regions. Fabiola then led a tasting session featuring coffees from Bean Voyage producers including, Jaquelin Garbazo and Flor Bonilla from Bustamante, Mayra Solís from Santa Maria de Dota, and Rita Herrera from Los Robles, Naranjo of Costa Rica.
The events of Summit rounded out with the Roasting Roundtable, featuring Trish Rothgeb, the co-founder of Wrecking Ball Coffee Roasters in San Francisco, California, María Elena Rivera, a competitive barista and the head barista at Franco Restaurant in San José and the founder of The Coffee Service, as well as Marcela Porras, the founder of the Costa Rica-based roastery, Roblesabana. The conversation was facilitated by Fabiola Solano, founder of Soy Barista, a blog that promotes coffee education in Spanish-speaking communities.
Although the summit officially kicked off on August 11 and ended on August 12, some WPCS participants and speakers visiting Costa Rica had the opportunity to participate in farm visits in Tarrazú, a coffee-producing region southwest of San Jose, on August 10 and August 13.
On both days, participants took a walking tour of the coffee processing mills at Franciny Vargas and her family’s farm, Café Doga, in San Marcos de Tarrazú. Later, participants traveled to Santa María de Dota to visit Mayra Solis and her family’s Vamay Coffee to learn more about coffee production and farming landscapes.
Keeping in mind our goal to establish a space for the oft-overlooked woman coffee producer, it was the participants who defined the empowering nature of the event.
Many producers resonated with feelings of hope; Daniela Gutiérrez stated, “participar en la cumbre de mujeres fue motivador, enriquecedor y emotivo. Conocer a tantas mujeres e identificarse con sus historias. Fue genial. Salí esperanzada, con nuevas y [ideas] y muchos proyectos para trabajar en la industria que tanto me apasiona”
(translation: Participating in the [Womxn-Powered Coffee Summit] was motivating, enriching and emotional. Meeting so many women and identifying with their stories. It was great. I left hopeful, with new ideas and projects to develop in an industry that I am so passionate about.)
Others felt they developed a stronger community as well.
Tatiana Vargas shared, “además de llenarnos de conocimientos técnicos de gran importancia, Bean Voyage ha logrado motivarnos e inspirarnos. Somos una gran familia que ahora puede ver la caficultura como un campo de oportunidades, en el cual nosotras tenemos mucho que aportar.”
(translation: In addition to providing us with important technical knowledge, Bean Voyage has managed to motivate and inspire us. We are a large family that can now see coffee cultivation as a field of opportunities, in which we have much to contribute.)
The impact of WPCS is difficult to quantify, and Leticia Castro summed up her view on how its impact stretches beyond any one metric, who wrote:
“la cumbre nos permitió conectarnos personalmente y mediante la tecnología en el amplio y hermoso mundo del café conectándonos a la vez con nuestras raíces, nuestros antecesores y proyectarnos en el hoy y el mañana de un mundo más armonioso y sostenible.”
(translation: The summit allowed us to connect with each other and to the wide and beautiful world of coffee through technology. At the same time, we connected with our roots, our ancestors and projected ourselves in the today and tomorrow of a more harmonious and sustainable world.”)
Bean Voyage plans to continue collaborating with smallholder women coffee producers and various other actors in the coffee industry to build an equitable and sustainable coffee value chain.
Currently, we intend to host another Womxn-POWERed Coffee Summit (WPCS) in November 2023. If you are interested in partnering with us for the next Summit, reach out to hello@beanvoyage.org.
Written by Sunaina Sunda
Photos taken by Felipe Araya
