Female coffee ‘ambassadors’ gather in Portland
Photo / Renee Cordes
Hilina Mezgebu, CEO of Ethiopia's Qawwa Coffee, inside the Coffee By Design roastery in Portland.
Hilina Mezgebu is a flight-attendant-turned-coffee entrepreneur from Ethiopia who has high aspirations for Qawwa Coffee Exporter PLC, a company she founded with her sisters in 2021.
"I started my coffee journey less than a year ago," she told Mainebiz at Coffee By Design, which turned its Diamond Street roastery into an temporary tasting and expo venue Tuesday afternoon. There was no set program or speeches, just samples and multilingual coffee talk.
Mezgebu is one of 26 members of the International Women's Coffee Alliance, from 10 countries plus the United States, in Portland this week. The members were accompanied by Sirada Krishnan, the group's Denver-based executive director.
The nonprofit aims to empower women in an industry where women make up an estimated 70% of labor production but operate only 20% to 30% of farms, according to a 2018 report by the London-based International Coffee Organization.
Besides Ethiopia, the visitors hailed from countries including Guatemala, Rwanda, Burundi, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, the Philippines, Honduras and Colombia.
The women came to Maine after attending the Specialty Coffee Expo in Boston. They visited businesses including Coffee By Design, which used beans from the women’s farms to brew more than 25 types of coffee for tasting and testing at the company’s headquarters in Portland’s East Bayside neighborhood.
The top-rated coffees were then selected for the afternoon event, where many growers also sampled each other's brews. Many are not yet exporting to the United States but are scouting out opportunities.
"It's a humbling experience to be here," said Jeremy Rävar, director of operations at Coffee By Design, who led the cupping exercises. "We don't grow coffee and they don't roast it." He also noted that his certification from the Coffee Quality Institute entails giving useful feedback to growers.
"Learning is always good," he said, and the workshops "were a good reminder that a little bit of feedback goes a long way."
Tuesday's tasting was followed by a community dinner hosted by Coffee By Design and the International Women's Coffee Alliance.
Coffee By Design co-founder Mary Allen Lindemann is active in the alliance, judging coffees in India before the pandemic and touring parts of Africa on another trip, meeting with women who own and run farms.
Coffee By Design last hosted a group of IWCA members in 2019 after that year's Specialty Coffee Expo that was also held in Boston. On Tuesday, Coffee By Design co-founder Alan Spear noted that it was exciting to have visitors again this year after not being able to travel to coffee farms abroad during the pandemic.
"Right now we're looking for a new relationship in Colombia," he said.
Meanwhile at the Qawwa Coffee table, featuring hot coffee in a clear carafe and a miniature Ethiopian flag, Mezgebu said her Addis Ababa-based company aims to empower women in her country while focusing on sustainability and good product quality.
Of her own entrepreneurial path, she said, "I worked as a flight attendant for 15 years. Now I'm in my favorite place."
Most Recent
Most Recent
0 Comments