From Mr. Lemnios’ picture of him spooning some coffee on the advert for this event, I thought he’d be speaking about how to approach tasting coffee. The talk turned out to be about his coffee company and how it operates with good intentions. His presentation was pleasant and I think he did a great job of conveying his experience as an entrepreneur.
Mr. Lemnios had a presentation of pictures for us of one of the South American coffee plantations that Sun Coffee Roasters sources from. It was nice to see that all the workers seemed happy; he really emphasized how much his company takes this into account when sourcing coffee beans.
Although we were mostly given the bright side of the story, the talk made me realize how bad some of these plantations could be, in terms of the worker’s well-being. I may take this into consideration the next time I buy some beans.
It is really interesting to think about how although the workers at the plantations that Lemnios buys from are well payed, their working situation would be completely illegal if in the US. Children here are required to attend school until the age of 16, and are provided school until the age of 18 (although the quality of education differs from district to district). There, education of their youth is completely lacking, and this initiative only helps few, not the country as a whole. In addition, the pay that the workers get, although good for the area, is still very minimal. This is true even when accounting for the cost of living in the area.
Don’t get me wrong, I think that Sun Coffee Roasters is a great company and that they are doing amazing things for the people they employ and buy from. However, I think that wide scale change is needed in these countries to really make a large difference. Who knows, maybe one of the children that Sun Coffee is helping to educate will go on to be a politician and help change working conditions and education nation-wide.