As our journey unfolds, you’ll learn more about the Kalsada team, our roles, and what brought us to this shared table. For now, we can tell you this: it’s been a long road to this point.
Kalsada team members hail from Seattle, Manila, Paris, Miami, Vancouver (with as many circuitous routes). Our collaboration is made possible by Google hangouts, lubricated by several cups of coffee to soothe the time differences.
As passionate as the Kalsada team is about coffee and improving economic conditions in the Philippines, not all of us can claim the mantle of coffee connoisseur or die-hard activist credentials or even Philippine blood running through our veins.
But we are connected by a curiosity (shared with a growing number around the world) about where our food comes from, and a belief that the labor of providing that food should be fairly compensated. More than that, we’re bound by a belief that a seed-to-cup ethos is not just about where your coffee comes from, but also about the spaces in which it’s sipped.
The journey in the coming months will involve uncovering coffee’s past, present, and future in the Philippines. It will also mean being accountable for our team’s role in the machinery of the global and local Philippine coffee industries. We invite you to share your stories with us, too.