Counter Culture’s Annual Winter Blend Helps Farmers Combat Climate Change
For more than a decade, Counter Culture Coffee has released a limited-edition winter blend dedicated to celebration and good cheer. This year’s winter blend, Iridescent, is now available. Counter Culture is donating USD $1 from every pound of Iridescent sold to fund climate change adaptation workshops with its producer-partners.
It is estimated that by 2050, there will be a 50% decrease in land that is suitable for growing coffee because of climate change. Durham, North Carolina-based Counter Culture works closely with the Duke Nicholas School of the Environment and Twin Trading to create and implement these workshops with the goal of helping coffee farmers identify their climate risks and put appropriate risk management strategies into place.
The first workshop took place in July when Counter Culture’s sustainability manager, Meredith
Taylor, visited the La Prosperidad coffee cooperative in Peru. The two-day event helped farmers at the coop identify issues they’re facing because of climate change, brainstorm solutions to those issues, and explore the feasibility of the solutions. In the end, the farmers decided that increasing organic fertilizer production was their most impactful adaptation strategy to deal with climate change.
“We can’t do anything about the climate in the short term, but we can offer a tool that empowers people to make decisions about how best to adapt based on the expertise they already have,” says Meredith Taylor, who recently travelled to Guatemala for Counter Culture’s second climate adaptation workshop.
Iridescent is Counter Culture’s effort to complete the cycle of good work, good cheer, and great coffee. The winter blend offers an approachable flavour profile that is complex with sweet notes of dark chocolate and berry. The coffee will be available for purchase in stores and online through January 2018. Iridescent has a MSRP of USD $18.25 per 12-oz box.
Learn more about Counter Culture’s climate adaptation workshops or to purchase its winter blend, Iridescent, at counterculturecoffee.com.
