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What's it like to oversee a busy coffee company's lifeblood—the roasting of the actual beans? Amaris Gutierrez-Ray is Joe Coffee's Roasting Operations Manager, a job that calls upon everything from paperwork to palate to, of course, heavy lifting. Here's what a typical roasting day looks like for Amaris. 8:00am I start roasting coffee Mondays and Wednesdays beginning at 6:00am, but my Thursday shift is a small luxury in my week: it starts at 11am, so I can get in both a little extra sleep and also a morning yoga class before heading to our roasting space at the Pulley Collective in Red Hook. I have a beautifully easy downhill bike ride from where I live in Sunset Park to the yoga studio in South Slope, and after class I can coast down another hill straight to the Liberty Warehouse pier on the water in the sunshine. As I ride I think about the comment my yoga teacher made on how yoga, as a metaphor for life, involves directly engaging with facing or feeling discomfort, and that rings very true today as I take off my helmet and walk into the waterfront warehouse where we roast. On hot days, we maximize cooling by keeping our front doors and back bay open, and employ a strategic frenzy of fans to bring in breezes off the water. But that’s all we have in terms of climate control so summertime is one giant opportunity to learn from ourselves and engage with discomfort. 11:00am On a normal Thursday I jump straight into setting up our production cupping, but today is Production Roaster Roberta Duarte’s birthday so I sneakily sidle up to Jake Kirkpatrick, Production Operations Manager, to confirm he’s ordered birthday pizza, which we present to her with a not-very-stable candle. We work in a somewhat isolated part of Brooklyn, with the nearest lunch option being the Fairway across the mini-peninsula, so the whole team is pumped to have pizza today. Mid-day here is the beginning of our Thursday symphony: many moving parts weaving in and out, with Jake and Lee Harrison, our Director of Roasting, at hand in case tempo dies down and they can help step it up. The production closers haven’t started yet, but most of the team is here already and is packing retail on the two weigh-and-fill machines, and just getting started filling up 5lb bags with a massive automated bulk bagging machine. Greg, our Shipping and Receiving Lead, is knee-deep in packing the mail orders, and Roberta and Liam Berkowitz, our other production roaster, overlap for an hour during shift change on the Loring and start to fill 25lb bins of our Waverly espresso for stores and line them up so they’re ready to pack into vans later for tomorrow’s deliveries. After pizza shenanigans, I check in with the roasters because the logistics company we use didn’t bring our full delivery of green coffee yesterday from Continental Terminals, a special climate-controlled coffee warehouse in NJ. We have a light day today, not quite 3,000lbs ordered, so after checking our inventory and comparing with what we need, I let Ed Kaufmann, our Director of Sourcing, know we have enough Nicaragua Placeres to fulfill today’s orders for The Daily house blend, but we’ll need that other pallet and a half tomorrow so we can get through Monday.  12:00pm Production cupping is next, and with 23 samples on the table we have a lot to taste. We’re searching for ways to tweak the Daily's components to get more sweetness in the cup, so we have four samples each of experimental batches of the Guatemala El Morito and the Nicaragua Placeres. After lining up the table cheese-board style (least to most acidic), I weigh out 12.5 grams of each and set them aside, set two kettles to boil, and while the water starts to heat up I catch up with Lee to make sure we haven’t overlooked any daily to-do items. This past week we sampled a new coffee for cold brew kegs and bottles and we also need to make sure we all know the timeline of roasting and shipping samples to this year’s Good Food Awards.  When Andrew Oberholzer, our Head Roaster, has finished his opening shift roasting on the Probat, he helps me grind individual samples and hit them with boiling water. After doing a couple passes to taste, Liam takes a quick break from roasting to join us, and we analyze our roast data to find out where we attained the targets we were hoping for and identify where we can improve. We update a couple profiles after discussing the cup qualities in the Daily samples, I clear the table, and then the roasting half of my day begins. 2:00pm Each roaster has a “home” machine, and mine is Pulley's vintage German Probat, although I can also operate the modern, energy-efficient Loring. I weigh out 40 green pounds of each coffee, pour into the well that vacuums the coffee up into the hopper above the roasting chamber, and then when the machine is at the right charging temperature, I pull the hatch and the coffee is released into the drum. This little ritual gets repeated many times over a few hours, and then finally once orders are fulfilled with some elbow room, I set the Probat to cool down. 6:00pm While it’s cooling, I clear the chaff, sweep the area, scoot the last coffee bins down to the production area so the closing PAs can weigh the surplus, and then do a full count of every last bag of green we have (including empties) so I can send our order for next week’s green coffee delivery to Ed. If I have any time left over before the machine finishes cooling down -- and I nearly always do in summertime because of the heat -- I can look ahead to next week and catch up with email. I make sure the samples we need for our QC session at HQ next Tuesday have made their way to Chelsea, I start reviewing and organizing the data from our tasting sessions so I can write this week’s QC report, I chip away at reading some coffee-related articles, I plan out some topics to discuss for our Roaster Staff meeting in a week and a half, and make sure the dishwasher is started so the cupping bowls will be clean for whoever roasts at Pulley tomorrow. Meanwhile, production assistants are playing some wind-down music, loading the vans strategically based on tomorrow's projected delivery route, and sweeping up the production floor. 7:00pm Before I know it the Probat is beeping at me to say it’s finally cooled down. Liam is wrapping up, too, we have a little end-of-day catch up, and then I spend a minute outside putting my helmet and biking gloves on, sharing a sunset moment with Lady Liberty out there in the fading light.

Over the past year, the world has started waking up to the fact that our societies are defined by their inequalities. For the first time in a long time, that fact united many of us across geography, class, and race. Here in the US we’re still working to carry forward the energy of racial justice activism that swept the nation in 2020, with the hope to create systems and encourage elected officials to work against inequality. The pandemic has widened and made more clear our view of inequity and this has informed a newly realized solidarity: our intentions and our lives have meaning, and we are tethered to each other through our humanity. Solidarity has become a theme and an ethical responsibility. Waves of activism have roiled communities across the globe as people have taken to the streets in protest of state violence, discrimination, economic inequity, political corruption, and much more. Protests were already occurring in Colombia but as they have resurged in the pandemic’s socio-political environment, it has been with a new, collective tenacity and as this ripples through global supply streams, we are taking the opportunity to examine our role and lend support. Colombian coffee is on our single origin menu year-round (La Familia Guarnizo), and it’s also in The Daily for a majority of each year. Our business depends on those coffees, which are made possible by many smallholder farmer families in Colombia—we are inextricably connected with the people of Colombia through our business. Some of our most important lessons on the true meaning of “partnership” have been with the Guarnizo family in Huila, Colombia. [caption id="attachment_44819" align="aligncenter" width="1280"] Wilmar Guarnizo's farm, Huila, Colombia[/caption]At Joe, we have come to appreciate the value of working with trusted suppliers for sourcing green coffee. We rely on the trust those partners have built with producers through long term relationships and we use those relationships to educate ourselves and our staff, and to gain more context for the challenges facing producers in a given area. When it comes to understanding this situation in Colombia, as well as seeing how and where we can contribute to positive change, we found ourselves in conversation with our supply partner there, Caravela, and the close partners they facilitate our work with, the Guarnizo Family, to learn about what prompted these protests and what they expect to happen. Wilmar Guarnizo explained that where his farm is located, along with his siblings’ farms, the food and gas supply has been disrupted. Thankfully, many of the staple foods are grown locally in their community. Wilmar describes a general feeling of disenfranchisement, explaining that they feel disconnected from both the protest movement and the government, neither of which have historically served them well. Marisabel Vasquez, Marketing Manager for Caravela, notes that the situation looks different across the country. In the city where she’s from, Barranquilla, protests have been predominantly peaceful. In other parts of the country, such as in Cali, Bogota, Huila, and Bucaramanga, the protests have intensified, and have been rippling out to affect each city’s infrastructure. In Bogota, where Caravela’s main offices and in-country QC lab are located, staff coming in to work have to pay close attention to the planned protests because public transportation shuts down during those times because buses get damaged during them. And of course, the main impact is the effect on their coffee business, which has been quite extreme. Coffees are being brought down from the growing regions to local purchasing stations, but because of roadblocks, they can’t move the coffee out of the individual localities. Marisabel shares:  “We continue with our warehouses open, but as we're not able to move the coffee to the dry mill, there will be a moment when we run out of space (this happened back in 2016 when there was a truck strike) but we are trying to avoid this from happening. Additionally, we have not been able to move coffee to port, as you mentioned, the Buenaventura port is closed. Last week we tried moving coffee to Cartagena and Santa Marta ports in the Northern Coast (where as I mentioned things are much calmer up here) but containers are dammed and being held up and nothing has shipped. Our team in Colombia continues to work despite the challenges, but we really hope that we all come to a peaceful agreement, and that we can come out of this to a much better Colombia.” We also checked in with one of our baristas, Oscar Gomez, who was in Colombia visiting his family and a business he recently started with his brother on a family coffee farm. He experienced protests and blockades while traveling across the city of Medellín, and was in the country for 6 weeks while the situation intensified. He shared with us that the government was limiting internet access in some places which was affecting people's ability to communicate with each other, and also that it was an intense atmosphere. He was thankful to be with family, and told us, "it’s a shame how people fight for power and put so many innocent lives at risk for their own pleasure."  We supplemented that perspective with our own research to see where major news outlets stand, knowing that international reporting can often come with political biases or contradictory, misrepresentative facts. That’s precisely why we feel the work of Human Rights Watch is so important; their nonpartisan work puts people first. Human Rights Watch is transparent about their research and methods, and they don’t take money from governments. Doing that means they have a wide, global scope and reach -- they are more likely to positively influence the change that is needed to stop human rights abuses wherever they work. Starting June 16, we will donate $1 per sale of a retail bag of La Familia Guarnizo to Human Rights Watch in order to support the rights, respect, and humane treatment of protesters in Colombia, and to contribute to the visibility of their message.  Overview & Historical Context Latin America is one of the most unequal regions in the world. The people of Latin America have a long history of political protest in response to inequality and the behaviors of their governing powers. Even so, there were more civil rights protests in 2019 across Central and South America than in any year in recent history. In Colombia in particular, there were protests toward the end of 2019 through early 2020 in response to high unemployment rates, high rates of poverty with a low minimum wage, little perceived upward mobility for young people (including a lack of state-funding for higher education), and police brutality. President Iván Duque stands for a new conservative, right-wing party (it was only established in 2014) that has come under harsh criticism since he was elected in 2018. These protests by the people began peacefully, but over time turned more violent: aggressive police intervention led to over a dozen citizen deaths and more than 500 injuries.  The rise of the pandemic and subsequent lockdowns paused the protests, but they started up again in late April 2021 in response to a law passed by the government to increase taxes (including a tax on consumable goods that had never been taxed before) to generate revenue for pandemic-related budget gaps. Throughout the pandemic, unemployment and poverty rates grew manifold and the government’s solution to improving social security only involved new and increased taxation. In a state of diminished resources, this didn’t land too well. Among fears of a worsening financial crisis that would spiral out of control, and from the poverty of economic desperation, the people of Colombia took to the streets to protest. After 4 days of peaceful protests, the president redacted the proposed tax bill, but by then, popular sentiment had shifted and all other inequalities and injustices came back into focus, especially with the perceived traction of having directly influenced the president’s economic policy.  Now, the protests became an issue of being heard: the social issues, income inequality, poverty, and corruption they’d protested years before intensified because of the pandemic, and the government hadn’t made any changes. The people’s request to have citizen representatives present in negotiations with the president was not accepted, so the public felt they had no other option but to continue to take to the streets in order to be acknowledged. This led to greater societal unrest: local groups funneled their frustration into blockades in their streets, towns, and regions in order to get their government’s attention. They wanted to prove that they were needed for a national economy to function properly, so that their worth could be felt by everyone, including at the international level. The government’s response has been severe, and police presence everywhere was expanded. At present, there have been over 40 deaths (mostly citizens) and over 800 injuries. There have been allegations of censorship, allegations of disinformation, and harsh critical reactions by many international governments. Though facts may differ depending on who is reporting, the common thread is the ongoing presence of injustice. Coffee and other exports continue to be affected by significant delays due to roadblocks and port closures but the people of Colombia are asking to be heard, and they are doing whatever they can to amplify their message. We stand in solidarity with the people of Colombia and empathize with their cry to be seen, to be heard, to be respected by those in power. Resources Current Situation Most concise overview with context: An Update on Colombia’s Ongoing Crisis (Caravela) Protests In Colombia Have Halted Coffee Exports (Sprudge) SOS Colombia: How Coffee Lovers Can Support The Colombian Crisis (Sprudge) Colombia’s president withdraws tax reform after protests (Reuters) Colombians march in eighth day of protests, police deploy tear gas (Reuters) Colombia: Amnesty International denounces militarized response and police repression of demonstrations (Amnesty International) Why Colombia's protests are unlikely to fizzle out (BBC) Colombia protesters: We're not scared anymore (BBC) Amid Protests And Police Violence, Colombia’s President Condemns Blockades That Have Stopped Delivery Of Food And Medicine (Forbes) 2021 Colombian protests (Wikipedia) Bleak futures fuel widespread protests by young Colombians (AP) Protestas - Colombia, “From cacerolazos to a neighborhood assembly” (Protestas Webseries) Historical Context Death of Colombian Teenager Drives Protesters Back to Streets (NYT) The riots in Colombia hint at deep problems (The Economist) Colombia’s Crisis Is an Urban Youth Crisis. Old Solutions Won’t Work (Americas Quarterly) Colombia protests: Death of man tasered by police sparks deadly clashes (BBC) Colombia protests: Bogotá placed under curfew amid fresh protests (BBC) Protests across Latin America reflect a toxic cocktail of pandemic and recession (CNN) 2019: Protests and disruptive changes in Latin America (Open Democracy) Latin America, It’s Time to End Police Abuse (Human Rights Watch) Latin America’s Wave of Protests Was Historic—Then the Pandemic Arrived (Foreign Policy) The Rebellion Against the Elites in Latin America (NYT) U.N.D.P. says Latin America is wealthier but unequal (AP) 2019–2020 Colombian protests (Wikipedia) Inequality and social unrest in Latin America: The Tocqueville Paradox revisited (World Bank) The Normalization of Protest in Latin America (Vanderbilt University) Latin America’s True Disaster May Be 2021 (Americas Quarterly)