Cafe Campesino

"We were in Guatemala in 1997 with Habitat for Humanity's Global Village program. Someone on our team dumped a load of dirt on a farmer's coffee bush, the farmer got mad and made us quit working on the house. We'd flown from the U.S. to Guatemala to carry out this assignment of building a house, so what were we to do? “We were in Guatemala in 1997 with Habitat for Humanity's Global Village program. Someone on our team dumped a load of dirt on a farmer's coffee bush, the farmer got mad and made us quit working on the house. We'd flown from the U.S. to Guatemala to carry out this assignment of building a house, so what were we to do? While the farmer and local Habitat coordinator discussed the fate of the coffee plant, the team sat in the shade and talked about coffee, of course. How much coffee is produced from that little tree? How much does he get paid for it? How many other families in this region depend on coffee as their main source of income? After an hour and a half of discussion between the farmer and Habitat coordinator, a truce was struck, and the farmer let the team return to building with the assurance that no more dirt would be dumped on his plants." So explains Bill Harris, co-founder of Cafe Campesino. Though the house got built and the team came home, Bill couldn't let go of those coffee questions and jumped on the internet to find some answers.