Just Coffee

If you are in Madison for the next few days, please come by one of the events we are holding for the visit of Rigoberto Contreras Diaz from the MICHIZA Cooperative in Oaxaca, MX.

We will have some fun...

1) Saturday and Sunday at our table at the WFTDA Eastern Regional roller derby tourney

2) Sunday 4:30 at Willy St. Co-op Community Room for a talk on co-ops and fair trade.

3) Monday all day for a farm tour with FFD visiting farmers all around southern WI.

4) Tuesday 10am at UW (stay tuned cause we don't know which room or building yet)

Check out this great article by Susan Kepecs on La FEM's Jitzy Ruiz in this week's "Isthmus"-- Madison's weekly arts and news mag.

"Organic feminist coffee? Check."

Pretty cool, eh?

Below is a journal of La FEM's Jitzy Centeno Ruiz's time in Wisconsin with JC.

Please continue to check back to follow her adventures...

The Jitzy/Just Coffee Journals

Friday, May 2

Jitzy Centeno, a 22-year-old female coffee farmer for Jocote, Nicaragua, takes her first ride on a airplane to land in the cold, windy city of Minneapolis. Nora Bacher, daughter of Just Coffee's Susan Moon Bacher, greets Jitzy at the airport and accompanies her on her first train ride into the city for the SCAA Annual Convention.

Saturday, May 3

Check out this story by Nathan Greenhalgh in the Reedsburg Times Press on the farm tour that we helped organize with the visiting coffee farmers and Family Farm Defenders.

The farmers and farms activists met with dairy farmers, toured the Cedar Grove cheese factory, and spent time on an Amish farm as well. By al accounts it was a powerful experience for everyone involved.

Look for more on the tour from Colleen Coy in the near future. And know that it is not to late to sign up for one of our delegations heading to coffee country this summer. Please see the story above for more information.

The photo is also by Nathan Greenhalgh

We've had some good parties before. And yeah, we've thrown some clunkers. However, the festivities last night were an all time best for the Just Coffee Co-op crew.

Jitzy Centeno Ruiz, Policarpio Cruz, Elmer Pena, Carlos Reynosa, and Jose Vazquez-- growers from 5 different grower co-ops in Latin America-- graced us with their presence for the evening. Food was lovingly prepared by Underground Catering and other people from our excellent community. We had beer from Furthermore Brewery, salad from Gotham Bagels, iced coffee from Escape Java Joint, and sweets from Indigo Coffee and Tea and Java Cat.

The night was punctuated by stimulating conversation, incredible music by Madison's Son Mudanza! , and a very long and engaging talk from and with each of the growers present.

I want to express how incredibly lucky I feel to be in a community where people support us and the growers that we partner with. I have been to events to meet growers that are a little awkward and segregated, but this event was full of people getting over their shyness and openly engaging people that they do not normally hang out with.

Thanks 1000 times to Lori, Greg, Sarah, Lucas, Susan, and Jeff for putting so much time into setting up and making JC look less like a coffee roastery and more like a purty party palace.

Thank you Madison and Dane County (and our peeps from Milwaukee, Chicago, and elsewhere) for loving the JC and what we do. We owe you our existence and we would not be doing this-- or want to be doing this-- if it were not for y'all.

SALUD!!!

Click on the photo to see the whole album