Gento Coffee Project Hosts Its First Escuela de Productores

From October 14 to 16, we welcomed our producing partners to our roastery and Coffee Lab in Guatemala City for the first official edition of Escuela de Productores, our School of Producers. For two and a half days, farmers from different regions came together around three goals: education in coffee quality, stronger business acumen, and knowledge sharing between farmers. It's a mission close to home, as our founder is a third-generation coffee farmer herself.

The idea behind it fits in one line: Crecer juntos, invertir en conocimiento y construir el futuro del café de especialidad. Grow together, invest in knowledge, and build the future of specialty coffee.

Why We Started a School for Producers

The Escuela de Productores is part of the Gento Coffee Project, and it's something we've wanted to do for many years.

"Many farmers sometimes don't know how to brew their own coffee, or they haven't cupped their own coffee," says Ashley Prentice, founder of Gento Coffee. "So it was very important for us, not only to invite our producing partners to learn and grow with us, but to learn more about quality and how to add value to their coffee."

This year was also different. In the past, we've gone to visit producers and held workshops in their regions. This time, we brought them to our offices. Because producers came from different regions, they learned from the workshops and presentations, but also from each other. This type of community building between us and our producers is incredibly important to our farm-to-cup business, and it supports coffee communities in our country of origin. It's about investing in the future coffee supply and future generations. 

Empowering the Next Generation

A big part of the Escuela de Productores is motivating and empowering the next generation of coffee producers. Alongside the farm and co-op leaders we work with, we invited their sons and daughters and the younger members of our partner cooperatives.

"Traditionally, we are seeing that young people don't want to be involved in coffee. They want to work in something else," Ashley says. "So we want to teach them different skills in coffee, show them how quality can motivate them to continue in coffee, and show them how innovation is happening around the coffee industry."

Besides transferring knowledge and skills, the goal is simple: help the next generation see a future for themselves in coffee.

Three Days of Quality, Knowledge and Business

Here's a taste of what the workshop looked like.

Day 1: Quality and the market

• Learning to cup and why quality control matters
• What drives the specialty coffee market: trends, pricing and business
• Identifying defects and roasting samples

Day 2: Post-harvest and brewing

• A morning with guest speaker Ing. Roberto Soto, a post-harvest expert from EcoCoffee, on best practices for producing quality coffee, plus new post-harvest techniques, technologies and innovations

A brewing methods workshop with the V60, Chemex, French press and AeroPress

Day 3: Roasting and graduation

• Production roasting in our roastery
• Diploma ceremony to close out the first edition

What Our Producers Told Us

At the end of the workshop, 13 participants filled out feedback forms. All 13 rated their experience as satisfied or very satisfied (11 very satisfied), and all 13 said the knowledge they gained will help them in their daily work. Roasting and brewing methods were the most-mentioned highlights.

A few of our favorite comments:

"It was a very fruitful and enriching workshop. Immersing myself in a world as big as coffee, hand in hand with Gento, was a beautiful experience."

"What I liked most was the roasting and the brewing methods, because it's the first time I've participated in a workshop like this, to learn more and gain more knowledge."

"A very efficient team that, despite all their work, gave us so much attention. That is what excellent people do."

"Everything was excellent and fun. Preparing a V60 was a new experience. The only thing missing was a little more Geisha, haha."

Producers also told us what they want to learn next: more roasting, brewing methods, markets and business, harvesting, and barista skills. One cooperative summed it up: "We hope there is space to hold these workshops every year." We hope so too.

Gento Means People

Since the beginning, Gento has come from the word gente, or people. "We want to have a positive impact with everybody that has contact with our brand," Ashley says. "That includes consumers, other brands and our employees, but also our producing partners, and especially them, where we can share knowledge and transfer these technologies."

Thank you to every producer who joined us and to Ing. Roberto Soto for sharing his expertise. This was our primera edición, and we're already looking forward to the next one.

Productores de hoy, la calidad del mañana. Today's producers, tomorrow's quality.

Want to taste what direct trade makes possible? Explore our coffees.