FJORD HOLIDAY COFFEE AND THE PARA ELA PROJECT
To celebrate the 2022 holiday season, the Fjord team has released a limited quantity of a special, cinnamon infused honey aerobic Red Bourbon varietal.
Grown and processed by the Oliveria family at Fazenda Gabriela in the Minas Gerais region of Brazil, this coffee was selected and picked as part of the special project named ‘Para Ela’, which seeks to financially empower women working in the local coffee industry.
THE ‘PARA ELA’ PROJECT
The vast majority of coffee grown in Brazil is mechanically harvested, meaning the coffee cherries are picked from the trees by machines. These harvesting methods allow producers to grow, pick and process a higher volume of coffee than all other producing countries, and greatly contribute to Brazil’s status as the largest producer of coffee beans in the world.
However, several areas of the Oliveria family's farms have shade-providing trees within the rows of coffee trees, which prevents machines from reaching the coffee trees. Instead of discarding these cherries or removing the shade-providing trees, the Oliverias employ a team of women to pick and sort the coffees from these trees. This employment and its subsequent pay form the basis of the Para Ela project.
The exclusive and limited reserve Para Ela micro-lots are 100% selected and picked by women, who receive a 50% higher wage than the region average and challenge the gender pay gap.
“These coffees are very near and dear to our hearts because they were carefully selected and sorted with love by the women of Our Coffees,” says the Our Coffees team.
“During the 4 month hand selection and sorting season, to financially empower the women of Campos Altos and shine a light on the financial disparity occurring in the country, we decided to take action and dedicate the entire hand selection and micro lot production to be harvested only by women.”
During the hand selection season, the women of the Para Ela project carefully select the ripest and most pristine cherries, before further hand selection and sorting. As a project to financially empower women, the women that pick, select and sort these coffees earn 35% higher wages than the regional average, and employee household incomes increased by 85% during the picking season as a direct result of the Para Ela production.
‘PARA ELA’ HOLIDAY COFFEE
For the holiday season, Fjord Coffee Roasters is excited to release a special Holiday Coffee, made entirely of Red Bourbon from Fazenda Gabriela and the Para Ela project.
This Holiday Coffee was created by the Fazenda Gabriela team with the coffees harvested through the Para Ela project, using a specialised infusion with cinnamon during fermentation of the coffee. As the coffee is transported to tanks, ground cinnamon is spread throughout the fermentation tanks. This is done several times until the tanks are full, then stirred and left overnight.
Afterwards, the coffee is thoroughly washed before drying, however the coffee beans maintain a slight cinnamon flavour. The result is a sweet and complex coffee with notes of red apple and plum, with a slight cinnamon finish that reminds us of a Christmas cake.
To complete this holiday release, we teamed up with designer Maryan Ivasyk and illustrator Tomasz Siniakiewicz to create a special holiday design for the packaging. Inspired by Nordic folklore, this design is available only for this limited release.
This special holiday coffee has been roasted as an omni-roast, meaning that it can either be used to prepare espresso or filter coffees. Less than 400 bags are available - to learn more, click this link.