In the discourse of coffee, there are often less-sexy details that don’t get the shine that fancy processing, exciting new varietals, or experimental farmers do. One of these is the difficulties of standardizing and protecting labor due to the nature of seasonal work surrounding harvesting.  Harvesting coffee is a laborious process; the diligent work of picking through thousands and thousands of cherries to pluck only the most ripe, from tree to tree until you’ve finished a long day of work. The timing of your hire is dependent on the readiness of a farmer to initiate harvest. The informality and instability of this work creates an environment in which formal hire and employment is a gargantuan task. Because of this, there is a cyclical element of disincentivizing reliable labor and professional expertise, and it only makes sense. This is why Manos al Grano have teamed up with Azahar to create the Pickers Project. This is a team of 35 pickers and 20 farms (so far) who have banded together to create a system that is mutually beneficial. This gives farmers access to dedicated and skilled workers who are working in a system of full-time employment with fair wages, benefits, and compliance with labor laws- something that was near-impossible with the transient and informal nature of unreliable day-labor..  We are incredibly happy to be able to share coffee with you from this project- something that as we all support benefits everyone along the chain and improves the industry we all care about. Tastes like Vanilla cream, Nectarine and lemon peel.