For our March featured guest roaster, we're thrilled to offer this coffee from Queer Wave roasted on Chochenyo Ohlone land (precolonial Oakland, CA).
Tasting Notes: Delightfully drinkable with a very pleasant graham cracker and red wine finish
- Origin: Honduras
- Region: Aguanqueterique, Santa Elena, La Paz
- Producer: Catracha Co-Op
- Grower: Ernesto Vasquez
- Harvest: January - March
- Soil: Clay minerals
- Altitude: 1700 MASL
- Varietals: Catuai - 5,000 plants - 8-12 years old
- Processing: Washed
About Queer Wave Coffee:
Queer Wave Coffee is a social mission that believes coffee should be equitable, attainable, and delicious. QWC trades United States colonial dollars for coffee grown and harvested by Catracha, a community-focused farmers' co-op by the Lenca people of Honduras. This coffee was roasted by queer folx who love coffee, and who actively dismantle the patriarchy and the constructs that uphold oppressive systems.
Queer Wave Coffee was founded by Cheyenne Xochitl-Love, a 25+ year veteran of the coffee industry and an indigenous, two-spirit, non binary trans girl. She has worked in all realms of the coffee industry from a barista to green coffee buying to director of coffee production. After experiencing the dark sides of the industry, she decided to make some changes not only to the systemic issues within the industry but to its encompassing capitalist structure as well. So she started Queer Wave Coffee as an answer to these problematic issues of capitalism, patriarchy and racism.
More about what makes this coffee special:
Queer Wave works with one farming collective, Catracha Coffee, to source their coffees. Catracha is a social enterprise dedicated to accessing the specialty coffee market for coffee farmers in Santa Elena, La Paz, Honduras. By partnering with this collective harvest after harvest, Queer Wave Coffee is able to build sustainable, long-term producer relationships and showcase the depth of quality of this particular coffee.
For more info on Queer Wave Coffee, check out our Instagram Live chat with Cheyenne, where we discuss her mission, her approach to coffee, and dismantling white capitalist systems in the coffee industry and beyond. We were deeply inspired by Cheyenne's intentionality and determination to dismantle patriarchal systems and white supremacy through her heart-felt and anti-oppressive approach to coffee -- we hope you'll give it a watch.
You can also hear more of her story in these podcast episodes:
