A Highlight From Our Experiential Journey Itinerary: The De La Gente Coffee Tour
A RISE staffer explains her experience on the De La Gente Coffee Tour
I feel every inch of the drive to the farmer’s home, jostling back and forth as the van rolls through the cobblestone streets of Antigua. Looking through the car window, the bright hues of this storybook city and the volcanic mountains peeking through mist make every bump worth it. The translator opens the door to the van, and I step out, adjusting my cap to better shade my eyes from the sun. I am confused for a moment as I see no coffee. The translator knocks on the nearest door casually as if visiting an old friend. The farmer greets us, me and one other tourist. We are a small group today.
The farmer is wearing a hat, a blue collared shirt, light jeans, and a big grin. Through the translator and with some basic Spanish phrases, we explain where we are from, ask him how his day is going, and quickly say hello to his son, who is leaving for a bike ride. His wife then comes down the stairs to greet us. We are all smiles as we chat about this and that — his house, our houses back home, how hot the sun is today, how many brothers and sisters we have, how many sons and daughters he has. I almost forget that I am not just there to meet a sweet family and shoot the breeze. It’s time for the tour of the coffee fields. but the De La Gente experience has already begun.
Coffee is for so many a daily (sometimes twice or three times daily) ritual. It’s up there with brushing one’s teeth or checking the work email in terms of morning habits, and yet I for one rarely pour a cup and think about the person behind it. Much coffee we are drinking in wealthy nations comes from developing countries, creating inequities in the supply chain. In addition, small-scale coffee producers often bear the fluctuations of market costs and the difficulty of producing a crop on our warming planet. For this reason, some small-scale coffee producers in Guatemala formed collaboratives, organizing to avoid exploitation and, as De La Gente puts it, “to make cultivating coffee a sustainable livelihood.” The non-profit De La Gente is a partner in this mission, assisting the farmers in their efforts to prudence high-quality coffee and striving for fair compensation. They have also created an effective means of educating tourists like me through the development of community tourism programs — hence the coffee tour.
As we leave the house and begin our walk, we learn about the coffee fields and the farmer’s daily work. Today we are going to the field of another farmer. Our guide’s farm is further away. We speak about how often he walks back and forth, what a typical workday looks like, and how his work day changes during the harvest. As we continue our walk, we begin to see the rows of coffee fields. Once we are surrounded by coffee plants, we begin to examine the crop closely. The farmer tells us to reach out and grab the fruit from the leaves, pop it in our mouths for a taste, and to suck on the seeds, which are soon to be coffee “beans.”
Being able to see, touch, taste, and have the farmer answer questions is a 360-experience. Growing up in the city, I’ve never seen a coffee plant. I only see the end of the process once it’s packaged and sometimes even ground. As I hear this farmer explaining his tasks and painting a picture of the lifecycle of the plant, rain collection and shading methods, and the workers picking coffee cherries to be stripped of pulp, exposing just “beans.” I begin to get a glimpse of the craftsmanship behind my bag of coffee. And that’s not even the half of it, we ask the farmer about discoloration on some of the plants, and this leads to a discussion about climate change, and the difficulty in protecting plants from the harsh sun, adding to the challenge of producing and selling his product that he’s worked so hard to cultivate.
But the story of coffee is still incomplete. We must go back to the farmer’s home to see the rest of the process play out. On the way back, we joke that we could all really use some coffee.
Back at the farmer’s home, he explains how the beans are washed and processed. We walk up to the roof to see the beans lying out in the sun. What would be a time-consuming process is laid out in an afternoon for us. Ready-to-go beans are available for us to try our hand at roasting. The farmer’s wife lets us stir the beans, attempting to roast them evenly over the hot stove. When the beans are ready, we once again roll up our sleeves to attempt grinding the beans by hand. A task that I am a little ashamed to say, I could feel in my biceps the next day. We go back upstairs to boil the water and mix in all the sweet-smelling coffee grounds. Straining out the grounds, we have our first cup.
According to their website, De La Gente “works in partnership with five coffee growing communities, eight cooperatives total, representing over 150 small-scale coffee producers, and channels nearly $350,000 each year to farming communities in sales alone.” They also provide funding and professional growth to young coffee entrepreneurs. Their community tourism initiatives also allow the local community to be a part of tourism development, making the experience beneficial for both the tourist and the host community, bringing different cultures together in a more authentic and meaningful way. Because of these initiatives, as I take the cup of coffee in my hands, I now feel the weight of it and will not soon forget the artistry of the farmer across from me.
But the best part for me is the conversation. Coffee has a way of bringing people together, and here in Antigua, it has brought an American, a Canadian, and a Guatemalan coffee farmer to the table. We chat about how we each take our coffee and how many cups we have each day. We all agree that if it’s good coffee, sugar and cream really aren’t necessary. However, a latte or cappuccino every once and a while isn’t bad either.
Purchasing a few bags of coffee on our way out (one bag is free with the purchase of a tour, but that wasn’t quite enough for me), we thank the farmer for the education and for the journey that ends with my empty cup.
To learn more about De La Gente and their partner collaboratives click here. This tour is included as one of many adventures on the RISE Experiential Journey itinerary.
RISE Travel Institute is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization that inspires responsible, impactful, sustainable, and ethical travel through education. Programming includes The RISE Travel Institute Flagship Program, a ten-week course offered twice yearly that guides travelers and travel professionals using a systems approach and anti-oppression principles. Additional courses include Experiential Journeys, a K-12 Teacher Training program, thematic short courses, and destination courses. We envision a world where travel is a force for positive transformation for both travelers and travel destinations.
Kara King (she/her/hers) is a traveler and writer who strives to enhance the voices of others. She has developed travel content for Thrillist, Wanderful, and Unearth Women. She is a graduate of the University of California, Berkeley, and holds a degree in Comparative Literature.
